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  3. "I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most

"I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most

游客2023-12-12  75
问题     "I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense." Virginia Woolfs provocative statement about her intentions in writing Mrs. Dalloway has regularly been ignored by the critics, since it highlights an aspect of her literary interests very different from the traditional picture of the "poetic" novelist concerned with examining states of dream and vision and with following the intricate pathways of individual consciousness. But Virginia Woolf was a realistic as well as a poetic novelist, a satirist and social critic as well as a visionary: literary critics’ casual dismissal of Woolf s social vision will not withstand thorough examination.
    In her novels, Woolf is deeply engaged by the questions of how individuals are shaped (or deformed) by their social environments, how historical forces impinge on people’s lives, how class, wealth, and gender help to determine people’s fates. Most of her novels are rooted in a realistically represented social setting and in a precise historical time.
    Woolfs focus on society has not been generally recognized because of her intense antipathy to propaganda in art. The pictures of reformers in her novels are usually satiric or sharply critical. Even when Woolf is fundamentally sympathetic to their causes, she portrays people anxious to reform their society and possessed of a message or program as arrogant or dishonest, unaware of how their political ideas serve their own psychological needs. (Her Writer’s Diary notes: "the only honest people are the artists" whereas "these social reformers and philanthropists" harbor discreditable desires under the disguise of loving their kind...) Woolf had an abhorrence of what she called "preaching" in fiction, too, and criticized novelist D. H. Lawrence (among others) for working by this method.
    Woolfs own social criticism is expressed in the language of observation rather than in direct commentary, since for her, fiction is a contemplative, not an active art. She describes phenomena and provides materials for a judgment about society and social issues: it is the reader’s work to put the observations together and understand the coherent point of view behind them. As a moralist, Woolf, works by indirection, subtly undermining officially accepted mores, mocking, suggesting, calling into question, rather than asserting, advocating, bearing witness: hers is the satirist’s art.
    Woolf s literary models were acute social observers like Chekhov and Chaucer. As she put it in The Common Reader, "It is safe to say that not a single law has been framed or no stone set upon another because of anything Chaucer said or wrote; and yet, as we read him, we are absorbing morality at every pore." Like Chaucer, Woolf chose to understand as well as to judge, to know her society root and branch — a decision crucial in order to produce art rather than polemic. [br] Which is the best title for the passage?
选项 A、Poetry and Satire as Influences on the Novels of Virginia Woolf
B、Virginia Woolf: Critic and Commentator on the Twentieth-Century Novel
C、Trends in Contemporary Reform Movements as a key to Understanding Virginia Woolf s Novels
D、Virginia Woolf s Novels: Critical Reflections on the Individual and on Society
答案 D
解析 主旨题。原文第一段头两句指出：“我想批判当前的社会制度，并且表明它是怎样以其最强烈的方式运转的。”(“I want to criticize the social system，and to show it at work，at its most intense”.这是弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫在谈到她写作《达罗卫太太》的创作意图(her intentions)时发表的挑战性声明(provocative statement)。原文第二段头两句指出：伍尔夫在小说中深入考虑的问题是(is deeply engaged by the questions of)：个人是怎样由社会环境形成的或变形的(shaped or deformed)：历史的力量是怎样冲击(impinge on)人们的生活的；阶级、财富、性别是怎样决定人们的命运的。她的小说多数扎根(are rooted)于现实主义地表达的社会环境中(in a realistically rendered social setting)以及特定的(precise)历史时代中。由此可知，本文最恰当的标题(the most appropriate title)是： “弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的小说：对个人和社会的批判性的深思”(Virginia Woolfs Novels：Critical Reflections on the Individuals and on Society)。
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