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2023-12-14  23
问题     "I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense. " Virginia  Woolf’s 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.
    Woolf’s 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.
    Woolf’s 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 author implies that a major element of the satirist’s art is the satirist’s______.
选项 A、consistent adherence to a position of lofty disdain when viewing the weaknesses of humanity
B、insistence on the helplessness of individuals against the social forces that seek to determine an individual’s fate
C、cynical disbelief that visionaries can either enlighten or improve their societies
D、refusal to indulge in debates when presenting social ethics to readers for their examination
答案 D
解析 含蓄题。原文第4段最后一句指出：作为一个道德家，伍尔夫用旁敲侧击的方式来进行工作(worked by  indirection)，巧妙地摧毁官方接受的习俗(subtly undermining officially accepted mores)，对此进行讥讽、暗示、置 疑而不是断言、主张、作证。(mocking, suggesting, calling into question, rather than asserting, advocating bearing witness)。她的作品是讽刺家的艺术(the satirist’s art)。原文第5段最后一句指出：伍尔夫像乔叟那样采取既评论又 理解的态度来认识社会的根和枝(Like Chaucer，Woolf chose to understand as well as to judge，to know her society root and branch)。这种抉择是产生艺术而不是产生论战文章的关键(a decision crucial in order to produce art rather than polemic)。由此可知，作者暗示：讽刺家艺术的主要因素在于讽刺家在向读者提出社会道德问题让读者仔细思 考的同时，拒绝沉湎于对道德问题的论战。(refusal to indulge in debates when presenting social ethics to readers for their examination)。因此D是正确答案。
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