2. 职称英语
  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  67
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] The passage supplies information for answering which of the following questions?
选项 A、Have literary critics ignored the social criticism inherent in the works of Chekhov and Chaucer?
B、Does the author beiieve that Woolf is solely an introspective and visionary novelist?
C、What are the social causes with which Woolf shows herself to be sympathetic in her writings?
D、Was D.H. Lawrence as concerned as Woolf was with creating realistic settings for his novels?
答案 B
解析 推断题。原文第一段指出这个挑战性声明[(it)the provocative statement]突出了(highlights)她那文学兴趣的一个方面，这跟把她描绘成关心考察人物的梦幻状态以及追随个体意识错综复杂流向的“诗人”小说家的传统形象大不相同(very different from the traditional picture of the“poetic”novelist concerned with examining states of reverie and vision and with following the intricate pathways of individual consciousness)。然而弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫不但是一个诗人小说家，而且也是一个现实主义作家；不但是一个幻想家，而且也是一个讽刺作家和社会批评家(a satirist and social critic as well as a visionary)。由此可知，文章提供的信息可以回答以下的问题：作者是否认为伍尔夫只是一位沉湎于内省、富于幻想的小说家?(Does the author believe that Woolf is solely an introspective and visionary novelist?)答案当然是否定的。因此B是正确答案。
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