4 . Hugely ambitious in scope, The Lord of the Rings occupies an uncomfortable position in 20th century literature. This book of J.R.R.Tolkien’s poses a challenge to modern literature and its defenders. (Tolkien on his _______: “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, ridiculous, or annoying; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently _________.”) Yet The Lord of the Rings has enjoyed massive and enduring popularity. It would seem that Tolkien’s work supplied something that was _________ among the formal innovations of 20th century fiction, something for which readers were hungry. But what was it, and why was it important?

It seems that the key point lies in Tolkien’s wholehearted rejection of modernity and modernism. This is what so powerfully _________ some readers, and just as powerfully drives away others. In his book J.R.R.Tolkien: Author of the Century, T.A. Shippey expands on this idea by arguing that Tolkien saw his story of Middle-earth not as fiction or invention, but as the _________ of something genuine that had become buried beneath the fairy tale and nursery rhythm.

“However fanciful Tolkien’s creation of Middle earth was,” Shippey writes, “he did not think that he was entirely _________. He was ‘reconstructing’, he was harmonizing conflicts in his source-texts, sometimes he was supplying entirely new concepts, but he was also reaching back to an imaginative world which he believed had once really _________, at least in a collective imagination.”

The book is also deeply grounded in Tolkien’s linguistic expertise （语言专长） —he _________ whole languages for his characters. Sometimes he became so absorbed in the creation of languages, in fact, that he _________ the story itself for months or years at a time, believing he could not continue until some inconsistency（不一致）in his invented world had been resolved. But Tolkien’s great intellect and knowledge is not the source of his ____________; without his storytelling gift, The Lord of the Rings would be little more than a curiosity. And this gift seems to originate straight from his ____________ to break from classical and traditional forms.

Tolkien himself often spoke of his work as something ‘found’ or ‘discovered’, something whose existence was ____________ of him. It’s wise to be careful with this sort of interpretation, but it seems ____________ that he believed his work to be something given, something revealed, which contained a kind of truth beyond measure. ____________, his details have the weight of reality, and because of this his great sweep of story feels real as well; you might say that his ____________ castles are built with a certain amount of genuine stone.

5 . Did Tea and Beer Bring About Industrialization?

Professor Macfarlane has spent decades trying to understand the mystery of the Industrial Revolution. Why did it happen in Britain at the end of the 18th century?

Macfarlane compares the question as a puzzle. He ________ that there were about 20 different factors and all of them needed to be present before the revolution could happen. The chief ________ can be found in history textbooks. For industry to ________, there needed to be the technology and power to drive factories, large urban populations to provide cheap labor, a ________ economy, and a political system that allowed this to happen. All these factors must have been necessary but not sufficient to cause the revolution. Most historians, however, are ________ that one or two missing factors are needed to solve the puzzle. The missing factors, Macfarlane supposes, are tea and beer.

Historians had noticed one interesting factor around the mid-18th century that required the ________. Between 1650 and 1740, the population in Britain didn’t increase, but then it grew rapidly. The population burst seemed to happen at the right time to provide labor for the Industrial Revolution. But why? When it started, it was ________ efficient to have people living close together. People got diseases, particularly from human waste. Some historical records ________ that there was a change in the incidence (发病率）of waterborne disease at that time. Macfarlane thought whatever the British were drinking must have been important in ________ disease. The English drank beer for a long time, and they were protected by the strong antibacterial agent in hops (啤酒花), which were added to make beer. But in the late 17th century a tax was ________ on malt, a basic ingredient of beer. The poor turned to water and gin, and in the 1720s the death rate began to rise again. Then it suddenly dropped. What caused this?

Macfarlane looked to Japan, which was also developing large cities at the same time. Waterborne diseases were far fewer in Japan than in Britain. Could it be the ________ of tea in their culture? Macfarlane then noticed the history of tea in Britain provided an extraordinary ________ of dates. Tea was relatively expensive until Britain started direct trade with China in the early 18th century. By the 1740s, about the time the infant death rate was falling, and the drink was common. Macfarlane ________ the fact that water had to be boiled, together with the stomach-purifying properties of tea so clearly ________ in books, meant the breast milk provided by mothers was healthier than it had ever been. No other European nation drank tea so often as the British, which, by Macfarlane’s ________, pushed other nations out of the race for the Industrial Revolution.