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关于英语经典美文诵读

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  在大学英语教学中,英语阅读理解是教学的重要活动,是大学生学习英语的手段和目的。下面是学习啦小编带来的关于英语经典美文诵读,欢迎阅读!

  关于英语经典美文诵读篇一

  A Tale of Two Smut Merchants

  两个淫秽照片商的故事

  Mike Royko

  迈克·罗伊科

  In simpler times, there lived a self-employed photographer in Chicago who worked weddings,anniversaries, graduations and other family events. He also padded his income with goods hedidn’t advertise in the neighborhood paper. He sold nude photos—the kind we used to calldirty pictures.

  那年头比较纯朴,芝加哥有一名个体照相师,专营结婚照、周年纪念照、毕业照和其他家庭大事照。有的货色他并没在当地报纸上做广告,他也拿来凑数,添点收入。他出售裸体照——就是我们过去常说的下流照片。

  His model was usually his wife, an empty-faced woman who tended their second-floor flat andtwo small kids and did what her husband told her to do. Other than having a big chest, therewasn’t much to recommend her as a model, except that she was willing to pose inembarrassingly revealing positions.

  他的模特儿通常是他的妻子——一个面孔毫无表情的妇女。她照管着他们在二楼的那套房间和两个小孩,凡事都听她丈夫的。她当模特儿,无非是有一个高高挺起的胸脯,旁的没什么好说的,不过她很乐意摆出各种露得叫人看不下去的姿势就是了。

  The photographer would sell stacks of the wallet-size photos to guys he knew in factoriesand taverns, and they would sell them to guys they knew. That’s the way such things circulatedin the days before porn stores and national smut magazines.

  照相师把皮夹子大小的照片成批卖给他在工厂和酒馆里的熟人,这些人再卖给他们的熟人。那年头还没有卖淫秽东西的商店和全国性的黄色杂志,这类东西就是这么流传的。

  The photographer’s neighbors didn’t know about his dirty-picture business because he soldthem outside the neighborhood. But then he made the mistake of asking a teenage girl fromthe next block if she would be interested in making some money as a model.

  照相师的街坊们对他卖下流画的勾当一无所知,因为他是在别的街区干的。但是后来出了纰漏:他竟问隔壁街区的一个十几岁的小女孩想不想当模特儿挣钱。

  When he told her exactly what he had in mind, she told her mother. The mother told the father,who owned a corner tavern. And the father and his large son, carrying baseball bats, went tothe photog’s home and banged on the door. Not being a dummy, he wouldn’t open the door.So the father yelled that if he ever came near the girl again, they’d kill him.

  他把想法向小女孩原原本本说了,上女孩告诉了她的母亲。她母亲又告诉了她父亲,他在街角上开有一小酒馆。于是他父亲带上大个头儿子,提着棒球棍,跑到照相师家,把房门敲得砰砰响。照相师又不傻,哪能开门。做父亲的于是大喊大叫,说他要是再接近他的女儿,他们就宰了他。

  A few weeks later the tavern keeper was at the local grammar school, attending the graduationof one of his other children. During the ceremony, he glanced around and saw thephotographer with a camera in his hand. “What’s that creep doing here?” he shouted.

  几个星期过后,酒馆老板到当地的初级中学,参加他另外一个孩子的毕业典礼。典礼正在进行,他四下瞅瞅,一眼看到那个照相师,手拿一架照相机。他喊到:“那混蛋来这儿干吗?”

  It turned out that the creep was the official photographer of the graduation. “He ain’t takingmy kid’s picture,” said the tavern keeper. He got up and bashed the creep in the jaw, and thephotographer fled.

  那混蛋原来是来拍毕业典礼的正式摄影师。“不许他给我的孩子照相。”酒馆老板说。他站起身来,朝那混蛋下巴上猛揍一拳,照相师一溜了事。

  The tavern keeper then explained to parents and teachers that he had driven a degeneratefrom their midst, so someone else was called to take the class picture. Within two days, thephotog had moved from the neighborhood and was never again seen.

  接着,酒馆老板向家长和老师们说明,他是替大伙赶走了一个坏分子,于是另请了一个人给全班照相留念。不到两天,那个照相师就从这条街搬走了,再也没露面。

  I thought of that incident while watching Bob Guccione, owner of Penthouse magazine, beinginterviewed some time ago on a network news show, and it occurred to me what remarkablechanges have occurred in only a few decades.

  不久前一家新闻电视网播放了采访《藏春阁》杂志的老板鲍勃·古西翁的实况,我看后不禁想起这件往事。我在想,时隔不过几十年,竟是世事沧桑啊。

  The neighborhood pornographer was punched around and had to move away in disgrace.Guccione, a multimillionaire, wears gold chains, travels the world in jets and is invited to thebest parties in New York City.

  那个街道上的黄色贩子挨了揍,不得不夹起尾巴走人。古西翁却是腰缠万贯,穿金戴银,坐着喷气式飞机周游世界,应邀莅临纽约市首屈一指的集会。

  If the photog tried to explain why he did what he did, nobody would have cared. They wouldhave just punched him some more. But Guccione speaks with great seriousness about thejournalistic necessity of publishing nude photos of a well-known woman. And there are peoplewho take him seriously.

  那个照相师要是想解释一下他的所作所为,没人会听他的。人们只会对他揍得更狠。古西翁却是在一本正经地谈论报章杂志有必要刊登什么名媛的裸照。而且还有一个一本正经地听信他。

  Actually, there’s little difference between that neighborhood pornographer and Guccione, themagazine publisher, other than financial success. The only significant one is that the photogwas born before his time.

  其实,那位街道上的黄色贩子与杂志出版商古西翁之间并没有什么两样,他俩无非财运不同罢了。唯一值得注意的不同倒是那位照相师生不逢辰。

  Maybe, I prefer to think that it was the tavern keeper, unfortunately, who was born before histime.

  也许是吧。可我倒以为正是那位酒馆老板——说来可叹——他才生不逢辰呢。

  关于英语经典美文诵读篇二

  A Visit with the Folks

  探访故亲

  periodically i go back to a churchyard cemetery on the side of an Appalachian hill in northernVirginia to call on family elders. it slows the juices down something marvelous.

  弗吉尼亚北部阿巴拉契亚山脉的一个小山坡上, 有一处教堂墓地。每隔一段日子,我都要回到那里探望先辈们。这种 探访有一种奇妙的力量,能让人的心境归于平静。

  they are all situated right behind an imposing brick church with a tall square brick bell-towerbest described as honest but not flossy. some of the family elders did construction repair workon that church and some of them, the real old timer, may even have helped build it ,but icounldn't swear to that because it's been there a long, long time.

  先辈们的墓地全都在一座庄严醒目的砖石教堂后面。高高耸立的方形钟楼也是砖石结构的,说它“朴实而不粗糙”在再合适不过了。家族先辈中有些参与过教堂的修缮工作,另一些人,那些真正的老祖宗们,或许还为教堂的建造出过力,但对此我可没有绝对把握,因为教堂建在那里毕竟已经很久很久了。

  The view, especially in early summer, is so pleasing that it’s a pity they can’t enjoy it. Wildroses blooming on fieldstone fences, fields white with daisies, that soft languorous air turningthe mountains pastel blue out toward the West.

  那儿的景色非常怡人,尤其是在初夏时节。石栅篱上的野蔷薇竞相开放,田野被雏菊染成一片白色,微醺的和风给群山抹上淡淡的蓝色,一直向西边延伸而去。先辈们无法欣赏这些美景,真是一桩憾事。

  The tombstones are not much to look at. Tombstones never are in my book, but they do helpin keeping track of the family and, unlike a family, they have the virtue of never chafing at you.

  那些墓碑倒是没什么看的。在我看来,墓碑从来就没有什么好看的。但它们确实有助于寻根问祖,而绝不会像现在的家人,总跟你唠叨个没完。

  This is not to say they don’t talk after a fashion. Every time I pass Uncle Lewis’s I can hear itsay, “Come around to the barber shop, boy, and I’ll cut that hair.” Uncle Lewis was a barber. Heleft up here for a while and went to the city. Baltimore. But he came back after the end. Almostall of them came back finally, those that left, but most stayed right here all along.

  但这儿并不是说他们总是“一声不吭”。每次走过刘易斯大叔的墓前,我都能听见这样的话:“回头到理发店来,孩子,我给你剪剪头。”刘易斯大叔是个理发的,有一段时间他曾离开家乡,到大都市巴尔的摩谋生,但最后还是回来了。几乎所有的人,我是说那些离开过的人们,最终都回来了,但大多数人——一辈子都呆在这里。

  Well, not right here in the churchyard, but out there over the fields, two, three, four milesaway. Grandmother was born just over that rolling field out there near the woods the year theCivil War ended, lived most of her life about three miles out the other way there near themountain, and has been right here near this old shade tree for the past 50 years.

  对了,“这里”当然不是指这片墓地,而是乡间那边,离墓地二三英里或三四英里的地方。内战结束那年,祖母就出生在树林子附近那片起伏不平的地头。她大半辈子都在离林子大约三英里的大山边生活,如今安躺在这棵绿荫如盖的老树下也有50年了。

  We weren’t people who went very far. Uncle Harry, her second child, is right beside her. Acarpenter. He lived 87 years in these parts without ever complaining about not seeing Paris. Toget Uncle Harry to say anything, you have to ask for directions.

  先辈们都不大出远门儿。就拿哈里大伯来说吧,他是祖母的二儿子,就葬在她的墓旁。他是个木匠,一辈子87年都在这一带度过,从未抱怨过自己没去过巴黎,见识见识外面的世界。要想让哈里大伯开口说点什么,你得向他问路才行。

  “Which way is the schoolhouse?” I ask, though not aloud of course.

  “去学堂走哪条路呀?”我问道,当然声音不大。

  “Up the road that way a right good piece,” he replies, still the master of indefinite navigationwhom I remember from my boyhood.

  “沿那条道一直走就行,还得走好一阵子呢。”他回答道。在我儿时的记忆中,他一直就是这个样子,总是那副好给别人之路却又指不清的含糊口气。

  It’s good to call on Uncle Lewis, grandmother and Uncle Harry like this. It improves yourperspective to commune with people who are not alarmed about the condition of NATO orwhining about the flabbiness of the dollar.

  像这样探访刘易斯大叔、祖母和哈里大伯,感觉真好。他们既不会因为北约现状而忧心忡忡,又不会因为美元疲软而牢骚满腹,同这样的人倾心交谈能使你更加明察事理。

  The elders take the long view. Of course, you don’t want to indulge too extensively in thatlong a view, but it’s useful to absorb it in short doses. It corrects the blood pressure and putsthings in a more sensible light.

  先辈们大都看得开,想得远。当然,你并不想沉迷于用太长远的目光去看问题,但偶尔合理地用上一次却大有裨益。这样可以使你心平气和,更加理智地看待各种事物。

  After a healthy dose of it, you realize that having your shins kicked in the subway is not thegravest insult to dignity ever suffered by common humanity.

  学会适当地把目光放开一点之后,你就会明白,在地铁里被人踹了一脚并不算是普通人所受的什么奇耻大辱。

  Somewhere in the vicinity is my great-grandfather who used to live back there against themountain and make guns, but I could never find him. He was born out that way in 1817—JamesMonroe was President then—and I’d like to find him to commune a bit with somebody of bloodkin who was around when Andrew Jackson was in his heyday.

  就在这附近哪个地方埋着我的一个曾祖父。生前他依山而居,还造过枪,但我一直没能找到他的墓。1817年他就出生在那里——当时的总统是詹姆斯·门罗——我极想找到他,好跟这位亲眼目睹了安德鲁·杰克逊鼎盛时期的亲人好好聊上几句。

  After Jackson and Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, he would probably not be very impressedabout much that goes on nowadays, and I would like to get a few resonances off histombstone, a cool frisson of contempt maybe for a great-grandchild who had missed all thereally perilous times.

  这位曾祖父生活在杰克逊、亚伯拉罕·林肯当政时期,又经历了内战,对时下发生的事儿可能不会有太大的感触。但我仍想从墓碑中听他讲上几句,哪怕他会对我这个没经历过真正危难时世的曾孙表示出冷漠和不屑,会令我不寒而栗。

  Unfortunately, I am never able to find him, but there is Uncle Irvey, grandmother’s oldest boy.An unabashed Hoover Republican. “Eat all those string beans, boy,” I hear as I nod at histombstone.

  遗憾的是,我始终没能找到他的墓,却碰到了祖母大儿子欧维大伯的墓。他是个铁杆胡佛派共和党人。“孩子,把那些菜豆全吃了。”我朝他的墓碑点头时,听见他这么说。

  And here is a surprise: Uncle Edgar. He has been here for years, but I have never bumped intohim before. I don’t dare disturb him, for he is an important man, the manager of the baseballteam, and his two pitchers, my Uncle Harold and my Cousin-in-law Howard, have both beenshelled on the mound and Uncle Edgar has to decide whether to ask the shortstop if he knowsanything about pitching.

  这可是个意外的发现:埃德加大叔的墓,他埋在这里已有好些年了。可今天还是我第一次看见他的墓。我没敢惊动他,因为他是个大人物,棒球队经纪人。记得有一次,他的两个投手——我的哈罗德大叔和霍华德表姐夫,在投球区被对方连连安打得分,他只得决定去找游击手,问他有没有信心上场充当投手去投球。

  My great-grandfather who made guns is again not to be found, but on the way out I pass thetombstone of another great-grandfather whose distinction was that he left an estate of.87. It is the first time I have passed this way since I learned of this, and I smile his way, butsomething says, “In the long run, boy, we all end up as rich as Rockefeller,” and I get into thecar and drive out onto the main road, gliding through fields white with daisies, past fencesperfumed with roses, and am rather more content with the world.

  造枪的曾祖父的墓还是没找到,但离开墓地的时候我却发现了另一个曾祖父的墓。他的与众不同之处就是只留下了3.87美元的遗产,这是我听说这桩事后第一次从这儿经过,我笑他的寒酸,却听见有个声音在说:“从长远看,孩子,到最后我们都会跟洛克菲勒一样有钱的。”于是我钻进汽车,穿过被雏菊染白的田野,经过蔷薇飘香的石栅篱,把车开到大路上。此刻,这对这个世界又多了几许满足。

  关于英语经典美文诵读篇三

  Canadian Eskimo Lithographs

  加拿大爱斯基摩人的石版画

  Hela Goetz

  海拉·戈也兹

  Since the Eskimos of Cape Dorset began making prints in 1959, their graphics have continuedto delight art lovers around the world. Interest has spread, not only in the south but to Arcticcommunities as well. Currently,four other Eskimo settlements are producing prints.

  自从1959年多塞特角的爱斯基摩人开始创作版画以来,他们的作品一直为全世界的艺术爱好者所喜闻乐见。这种创作的兴趣已经不限于“南部”,而是遍及北极各个村落。现在,其他四个居住地的爱斯基摩人也在制作版画了。

  Cape Dorset is probably the best known of the printmaking communities. For a dozen years,prints of consistently high quality have been produced; successful experiments with stencils,etchings and engravings have addedvariety and interest; individual artists are receivingrecognition and acclaim. As modern technology encroaches upon these formerly isolatedpeople, the prints have become a record of an earlier life style.

  多塞特角可能是最有名的版画创作之乡了。多年来,这地方不断出有高质量的版画;不论蜡刻、蚀刻、雕刻,都是成果累累,作品丰富多彩,趣味横生;各路艺人都备受重视,为人赞许。现代技术逐渐渗入这些昔日与世隔绝的人们中间,这些版画也就成了他们早期生括方式的写照。

  When one considers the limited means available to these artists, both in obtaining materialsand being exposed to print-making techniques, their success is indeed phenomenal. Graphicimages had been made by Eskimo artists prior to the advent of printmaking in the Arctic,usually in the form of incised figures and designs on ivory carvings, but the idea of reproducingan image many times on paper was totally new. James Houston, then Northern AffairsAdministrator at Cape Dorset, and himself an artist, guided the Eskimo artists in their firstexperiment, and gradually a cooperative print shop was established.

  想想这些艺术家工作受到多么大的限制——搞不到设备,不懂印刷技术,竟然能有如此成就,确实非同小可。爱斯基摩艺人在印刷术传到北极之前,就已有各种雕像之作,通常是把人物和图案雕刻在象牙上,但要在纸上多次复制同一图像,却是前所未闻。当时驻多塞特角的北部事务行政官詹姆斯·豪斯顿,本人就是一位艺术家,他指导爱斯基摩艺人初试其道,后来他们逐步建立起了一家合作性质的版画店。

  Carving of the image on to a flat stone block was a natural step for artists accustomed toproducing stone carvings; drawing the images to be repro-duced was more radical. Many ofthe women, who were far ouf flumbered as carvers by the men, took readily to the newmedium, and soon drawingsfor possible translation into prints became a major artistic activity.People began to take a great interest in recording everyday activities on paper, realisticallyreproducing the animals and birds which were the objects of the hunt and played such a centralrole in their existence, and drawing images of the spirits and strange creatures which peopledtheir mythology. Economic aspects played an important part, too, in the development of thisnew medium of artistic expression. For a people entering a new phase of civilization, it becamean absolute necessity to replace the older hunting economy with a new form of subsistence.The sale of carvings had, for thepast ten years, been an increasing source of income; thedevelopment of print-making techniques promised another means to survive economically.

  把图像刻在平石板上,是制作石雕的艺术家习以为常的一个步骤:把图像描画下来,再复制出来,就非同寻常了。拿雕刻师来说,男人的数量本来远远超过妇女,但这时许多妇女也欣然从事这种新的工艺,于是描图制版很快成为一种主要的艺术活动。大家都开始热衷于把日常的活动记录在纸上:他们逼真地再现了各种飞禽走兽,这些都是猎物,在他们的生活中起着简直是核心的作用;他们还画出了许多精灵鬼怪的形象,这些又都是栖息在他们神话里的生灵。在这种新的艺术表现手段的发展过程中,经济方面也起了重要的作用。一个民族在进入文明的一个新阶段时,势必要用一种新的生存方式来取代旧的狩猎经济。在过去的十年中,出售雕刻品一直是增加收入的一个财源;发展制版工艺,提供了又一种赖以生存的经济手段。

  The possibility of recording the old ways of life and the world of the spirits appealed especiallyto the older generation.

  老一代人特别感兴趣的是如今可以把古老的生活方式和鬼怪世界记录下来了。

  The recurring theme of monsters and spirits is not entirely the choice of theartiststhemselves. They have been encouraged to draw the old ways andto let their imagination runfree in conjuring up spirits, as these subjects areintensely interesting to southerners. Still, theidea of these fantastic crea-tures is a very real part of the Eskimo's spiritual heritage, andthey are asmuch a part of the old ways as was the nomadic existence in igloos andsHn tents.

  精灵鬼怪的主题反复出现,并非完全出自艺术家本人的选择。。南方人”对这类题材极有兴趣,艺术家因而也受到鼓舞,情愿画。古老的方式”,任凭自己的想像力呼风唤雨,自由驰骋。不过,构思出这批稀奇古怪的生灵,正是爱斯基摩人精神生活中的一个极为真实的传统,它们构成了“古老的方式”的一个部分,犹如圆顶茅屋和兽皮帐篷体现了游牧生活一样。

  Strange species of birds are another favourite subject of the Cape Dorsetartists.

  千奇百怪的飞禽是多塞特角的艺术家所钟爱的又一个题材。

  One of the marvellous things about carving and print maHng activities inthe Arctic is the numberof artists who take part-from young children tothe very old.

  在北极,从事雕刻和版画创作活动的艺术家,下自少年儿童,上至耄耋老人,其人数之众多,蔚为一大奇观。

  The old ways are all but gone, but the community spirit remains, support-ing new ideas andwelcoming new art forms without forgetting the heritageof the past.

  “古老的方式”已经消失殆尽,但他们那种群体精神今犹长存,它不断支持新的思想,迎来新的艺术形式,而又保住往昔的传统,并不忘本。

  
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