首页
登录
职称英语
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of N
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of N
游客
2023-12-15
51
管理
问题
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
When Dr Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to "other quality newspapers" too.) As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did send too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr Nieholls.
There remains the dinner-party game of who’s in, who’s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons)notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy (he had tried to escape by ship to America).
It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments: "Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility." Then there had to be more women, too (12 per cent, against the original DBN’s 3), such as Roy Strong’s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks: "Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory." Doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J.W.Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, "except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J.W. Clerke" [br] Throughout the passage, the writer’s tone towards the DNB was ______.
选项
A、complimentary
B、supportive
C、sarcastic
D、bitter
答案
C
解析
综合推论题。文章中“dinner-party game”,“reputed”等用词,大量的设问句和语录等方法的运用,体现了作者的语气上是讽刺的。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3276081.html
相关试题推荐
TheU.S.Constitutionrequiresthatthepresidentshouldbea______-year-old
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Theconditionsofartshouldbesimple.Agreatdealmoredependsuponthehe
Theconditionsofartshouldbesimple.Agreatdealmoredependsuponthehe
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
随机试题
TheFrenchcriminallookedlikeanEnglishman,buthisforeignaccentgavehimA、
ThehealthcaredebatewillmovetotheSenate[originaltext]Healthcareref
著作权中的财产权不包括( )。A.署名权 B.改编权 C.发行权 D.汇
阅读以下说明,回答问题1至问题4。【说明】某宾馆需要建立一个住房管理系统,部分的
颈椎张口位摄影,中心线经A.下颌磨牙咬合面中点 B.上颌磨牙咬合面中点 C.
统计法和其他部门法的根本区别在于()A.调整方法 B.立法目的 C.法律责任
在使用最低组合方法计算环程/来回程运价时各区间使用()。A.OW运价 B.1/
在儿童大脑机能发展过程中,α波和β波之间对抗最激烈的年龄一般是A.2-3岁
为达到德育目的采用的教育者和受教育者相互作用的活动方式的总称是()。 A.德
根据法律和相关司法解释的规定,以下哪些说法是正确的? A.当事人双方约定合同纠
最新回复
(
0
)