问题详情

Practice 6  Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it presents the familiar in a new form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is look at familiar conditions from a perspective that makes these conditions seem foolish, harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are false.  Don Quixote makes chivalry seem absurd; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science; A Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of these ideas is original. Chivalry was suspected before Cervantes,2 humanists objected to the claims of pure science before Aldous Huxley,  and people were aware of famine before Swift.  It was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of expression, the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally wholesome or ethically instructive.


时间:2022-01-15 13:32 关键词: 上海外语口译证书考试 英语中级口译岗位资格证书考试

答案解析

【参考译文】<br> 或许讽刺文学最突出的特点是它的清新和视角独创。讽刺文学很少给人以原创的思想,但是它却将人们熟悉的事情以全新的形式展现出来。讽刺作家并不给人以新的哲学理念。他们所做的只是从某一视角来看待一些为人熟知的事情,在这一视角下,这些事情显得愚蠢不堪、充满危害而又矫揉造作。讽刺作品将我们从自鸣得意中震醒,让我们既愉快又惊诧地看到,我们从未质疑、全盘接受的价值观中,有很多都是错误的。《唐吉诃德》使得骑士精神显得荒谬可笑;《美丽新世界》嘲笑了科学的自诩;《一个小小的建议》则建议食用人肉,使饥饿问题戏剧化。这些思想中没有一条是原创的:在塞万提斯之前就有人怀疑骑士精神;在赫胥黎之前人文主义者就反对宣称纯科学的至高无上;在斯威夫特之前人们就已经意识到饥荒问题。并不是思想的独创而使得讽刺文学受人欢迎,而是它的表述方式、嘲讽方法使得它趣味横生、有娱乐性。人们阅读讽刺文学只是因为在美学上它是让人心满意足的艺术品. 而不是因为它在道德上有益或伦理上的教益。