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题型:阅读理解-阅读单选 难度:0.65 引用次数:94 题号:12483214

WHEN JANE AUSTEN’S first novel Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811, the title page simply read. ‘A Novel. In Three Volumes. By a Lady’. What could be greater justice than the fact that on her 200th death anniversary, that same anonymous lady gets her very own bank note? Austen is only the third writer to grace an English note (following William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens) and the first woman writer to do so. And really, no one can be unhappy with the honour.

When Austen died at 41, on June 18th, 1817, her profession as a writer did not make it to her epitaph. Her brother Henry chose instead to focus on her ‘charity, devotion, faith and purity’. While she never got to embrace the title of an author when she was alive, death has ensured her legacy. Her books have been translated into 40 languages and Pride and Prejudice itself has sold over 20 million copies. If her epitaph were to be written today, we could, perhaps, borrow from Virginia Woolf who wrote in The TLS of 1913, “More than any other novelist she fills every inch of her canvas with observation, fills every sentence with meaning, stuffs up every chink of the fabric until each novel is a little living world, from which you cannot break off a scene or even a sentence without bleeding it of some of its life. Her characters are so lively and vivid that they have the power to move out of the scenes in which she placed them into other moods and circumstances.”

The greatness of Austen is not only that she created the standard example of the modern novel, but that she continues to be relevant. Her novels have been endlessly adapted and modified because they still make sense today, because they can explain current sensibilities. Her characters can easily move out of London or Pemberley or Mansfield Park and be placed in Delhi or Shanghai or Beijing. Indianise the names, and we can all create our own comedy of manners. Mrs Bennet, the mimsy busybody, could easily be Mrs Batra, your Punjabi neighbour with an axe to grind and daughters to wed. Emma Woodhouse, the self-absorbed, privileged young lady could be Aisha of south Bombay, whose artifice overwhelms her potential. Mr Darcy could be your Mr Dasgupta, the dignified Bengali bachelor whose silence will be misunderstood as snobbery.

A fascinating study of Austen’s novels in facts, figures and charts published in The Guardian brings to light the world she knew and the only world she wrote about. All her characters(in her six novels) are independently wealthy who have no professions. Balls and picnics feature in all of her books. Evenings and afternoons are spent playing cards. And if romance is the base of her novels, then elopement is also a must. The servants speak no lines. The only historic event of the time that gets a mention is the Napoleonic War(1803-1815). The Industrial Revolution and French Revolution are not mentioned at all. The lovers will marry by the end.

Even if the plots of her six novels are simple enough, the success of Austen is her singular wit. It is a cleverness born from immediate observation but one which is universal in nature. She says it well in Northanger Abbey. ‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be extremely stupid.’

Two hundred years after her death, you have to be a fool to not enjoy her novels.

1. What can we learn from the fact that Jane Austen’s photo on the English bank note?
A.To honor her publishing the first novel Sense and Sensibility.
B.To honor the most well-known writer in English literature.
C.To honor her outstanding contributions to English literature.
D.To show no one can envy her for her success.
2. The author quotes Virginia Woolf’s comment mainly to show that ________.
A.Jane Austen was also fond of painting on the canvas.
B.Jane Austen lived in her own little world.
C.Jane Austen’s works possess superb writing techniques.
D.Jane Austen’s characters can move out of scenes magically.
3. Which of the following statements about Austen’s works is NOT true?
A.Her major characters have no professions, so life is hard for them.
B.Jane Austen’s works are mainly based on her own living experiences.
C.Life is casual and colorful for characters in her works.
D.Few historic events are mentioned in her works.
4. What is mainly conveyed in the passage?
A.To laugh at those who don’t enjoy Jane Austin’s works.
B.To introduce Jane Austin’s main works.
C.To analyse Jane Austin’s writing technique.
D.To honor Jane Austin as an evergreen storyteller.

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【推荐1】Arthur Miller(1915--2005)is universally recognized as one of the greatest dramatists (剧作家) of the 20th century. Miller’s father had moved to the USA from Austria-Hungary, drawn like so many others by the “Great American Dream”. However, in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 the family lost everything. As a teenager, Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family. At college he worked several jobs to pay for his tuition (学费).

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When it was staged in 1949, the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards.

Miller died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on the evening of February 10, 2005, the 56th anniversary of the first performance of Death of a Salesman on Broadway.

1. Why did Arthur Miller’s father move to the USA?
A.He failed to manage his family business.
B.He hoped his son would be well educated.
C.He experienced severe financial difficulty.
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D.explains the reasons for the death of American salesman
3. The passage is mainly about Arthur Miller’s ________.
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【推荐3】We Chinese are not big huggers. A handshake or a pat on the shoulder is enough to convey our friendship or affection to one another. So when our newly-acquainted Western friends reach out in preparation for a hug, some of us feel awkward.

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It’s even more difficult with friends from some European countries. Should I kiss them on the cheek while hugging? Which side? Or is it both cheeks? Which side should I start on?

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In a recent article for The Wall Street Journal, US psychologist Peggy Drexler said that although the US remains a “medium touch” culture — “more physically demonstrative(公开表露感情的) than Japan, where a bow is the all-purpose hello and goodbye, but less demonstrative than Latin or Eastern European cultures, where hugs are strong and can include a kiss on both cheeks”, Americans do seem to be hugging more.

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A.we Chinese people don’t know how to hug
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