passage4

注解：標題為紅色，翻譯為藍色，分析為綠色。

????????Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.

????????This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony(非正式)虛偽的 or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil.

【

1.phony(非正式)虛偽的=hypocrisy.n.

】

????????You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen so much misery. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual長期的 war, disaster and the massacre屠殺，殘殺 of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.

【

1.massacre屠殺，殘殺=mass大量+acre英畝=為了大量英畝的土地而屠殺=為了殖民地而屠殺

2.too much damn太多該死的

】

????????After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.

????????People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer<非正式>討厭的事 too.

????????Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda—to lure us to open our wallets—they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. “Celebrate!” commanded the ads for the arthritis關節(jié)炎 drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.

????????But what we forget—what our economy depends on us forgetting—is that happiness is more than(is more than這里的is more than是表示"不僅僅"的意思。)?pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove[植][中醫(yī)]丁香 cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.

一、文章結構分析

本文是一篇關于藝術作用的文章。

前三段回顧了藝術在每個階段上承擔的作用并分析了原因。

第四、五、六段集中探討早期快樂和現(xiàn)代快樂的不同的藝術表現(xiàn)形式以及早期藝術家更多地關注快樂和現(xiàn)代藝術家更多地關注悲哀的原因；

最后一段作者給出了自己對現(xiàn)代藝術的觀點，他認為現(xiàn)代人被過多表現(xiàn)快樂的藝術所包圍，需要被痛苦和悲哀加以警戒。

36. By citing the examples of poets Wordsworth and Baudelaire, the author intends to show that ________.

[A] poetry is not as expressive of joy as painting or music

[B] art grows out of both positive and negative feelings

[C] poets today are less skeptical of happiness

[D] artists have changed their focus of interest

36．作者引用詩人華茲華斯和波德萊爾的例子是想說明 。

[A] 詩歌不像繪畫和音樂一樣表達歡樂

[B] 藝術既產(chǎn)生于正面情感也產(chǎn)生于負面情感中

[C] 如今的詩人對歡樂很少產(chǎn)生懷疑

[D] 藝術家們已經(jīng)改變了他們的興趣焦點

37. The word “bummer” (Line 5, paragraph 5) most probably means something ________.

[A] religious

[B] unpleasant

[C] entertaining

[D] commercial

37．第五段第五行的單詞“bummer”最可能的含義是指 事物。

[A] 宗教的

[B] 不愉快的

[C] 娛樂的

[D] 商業(yè)的

38. In the author’s opinion, advertising ________.

[A] emerges in the wake of the anti-happy art

[B] is a cause of disappointment for the general public

[C] replace the church as a major source of information

[D] creates an illusion of happiness rather than happiness itself

38．按照作者的觀點，廣告 。

[A] 隨著反快樂藝術而出現(xiàn)

[B] 是引起公眾失望的原因

[C] 代替教堂成為主要的信息來源

[D] 創(chuàng)造快樂的假象而不是快樂本身

39. We can learn from the last paragraph that the author believes ________.

[A] happiness more often than not ends in sadness

[B] the anti-happy art is distasteful but refreshing

[C] misery should be enjoyed rather than denied

[D] the anti-happy art flourishes when economy booms

39．從最后一段中我們可以得知作者認為 。

[A] 快樂多數(shù)情況下以悲傷告終

[B] 反快樂藝術令人不悅但卻使人頭腦清醒

[C] 應該以苦難為樂，而不是否定它30

[D] 經(jīng)濟繁榮時反快樂藝術也盛行

40. Which of the following is true of the text?

[A] Religion once functioned as a reminder of misery.

[B] Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.

[C] People feel disappointed at the realities of modern society.

[D] Mass media are inclined to cover disasters and deaths.

40．根據(jù)文章內(nèi)容，下面哪一個正確？

[A] 宗教過去的功能是提醒痛苦的存在。

[B] 藝術提供了期望與現(xiàn)實間的平衡。

[C] 人們對現(xiàn)代社會的現(xiàn)實感到失望。

[D] 大眾傳媒傾向于報道災難和死亡。

二、核心詞匯與超綱詞匯

1. weird a. 不自然的，怪異的

2. phony a. 假裝的，偽造的 n. 冒充者，贗品

3. skeptical adj. 懷疑性的，好懷疑的

4. misery n. 痛苦，悲慘，窮困

5. perpetual adj. 永久的，不斷的；一再重復的

6. massacre n./ v. 大屠殺，殘殺

7. innocent adj. 清白的，天真的，無知的

8. depict vt. 描繪，描寫

9. reminder n. 引起回憶的事物，提醒人的事物

10. literacy n. 有文化，有教養(yǎng)，有讀寫能力

11. bummer n. 令人失望或不愉快的局面

12. feature v. 以……為特色，是……的特征

13. beam n. 光線，橫梁 v. 笑容滿面

14. agenda n. 議程

15. lure vt. 誘惑；引誘 n. 誘惑力；誘惑物

三、閱讀答案：D B D B A

四、全文翻譯：?

????????許多事情使人們認為藝術家是怪人。而最怪異的可能是：藝術家唯一的工作就是探索情感，但他們卻將焦點投向負面的情感。

????????情況并不總是如此。最早的藝術形式，如繪畫和音樂，是最適合表達歡樂的。但是從 19 世紀的某個時候開始，當我們從華茲華斯的《水仙花》轉向波德萊爾的《惡之花》時，越來越多的藝術家開始把快樂看作是毫無意義的、虛偽的甚至是令人厭倦的東西。

????????你可能認為藝術對快樂產(chǎn)生越來越多的懷疑是因為現(xiàn)代社會經(jīng)歷了太多的痛苦。但是這并不是說以前的時代就沒有經(jīng)歷過連年的戰(zhàn)爭、災難和濫殺無辜。事實上，原因可能正好相反：如今的世界上有太多的快樂了。

????????歸根結底，幾乎完全致力于描繪快樂的那種現(xiàn)代表達方式究竟是什么？廣告。反快樂藝術的興起，幾乎與大眾傳媒同時出現(xiàn)，并且，隨著它的出現(xiàn)產(chǎn)生了一種商業(yè)文化，在這種文化氛圍中，快樂不僅是一種理想，而且成為一種意識形態(tài)。

????????早些時代的人們處于令人處處想到悲苦的境地。他們工作到筋疲力盡，生活幾乎沒有保障，最后英年早逝。在西方，在大眾傳播和教育普及之前，最強大的大眾傳媒是教堂，教堂提醒信徒，他們的靈魂處于危險之中，他們有一天會成為蛆蟲的食物。有了這一切，他們無需藝術再來表現(xiàn)這種失落感。

????????如今一個普通西方人面對的信息轟炸不是宗教的，而是商業(yè)的，而且是永遠快樂的?？觳褪晨?、新聞主播、收發(fā)短信者，都在微笑、微笑、微笑。我們的雜志刊登滿面春風的名人和美滿幸福的家庭。由于這樣的信息都有一項任務——誘使我們打開錢包——從而使“快樂”的概念本身顯得虛假?！皻g慶吧！”宣傳關節(jié)炎良藥西樂葆的廣告這樣鼓動道，隨后我們卻發(fā)現(xiàn)它能增加心臟病的發(fā)病率。

????????但是我們所忘記的——我們的經(jīng)濟依賴我們忘卻的——是：快樂絕不僅僅是沒有痛苦的快樂。帶來最大快樂的東西也最有可能帶有損失和失望。如今，我們的周圍充斥著唾手可得的幸福的承諾，我們需要藝術來告訴我們，正如宗教曾經(jīng)告訴過我們的：記得你終將死亡，一切都會結束，幸福的到來不是因為否認這一點，而是對其加以忍受。這一啟示甚至比葉子煙還要苦，但卻不知何故帶來了一縷清新的空氣。