新视野第二版第四册17单元原文和翻译排文档格式.docx

1、Book 4 Unit 1Unit 1 Section AThe Tail of FameAn artist who seeks fame is like a dog chasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it. The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destructi

2、on.Dont quit your day job! is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed. The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt. Still, impure motives such as the desi

3、re for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on. The lure of drowning in fames imperial glory is not easily resisted.Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result of exploiting their talent for singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc. They develop a style that agents ma

4、rket aggressively to hasten popularity, and their ride on the express elevator to the top is a blur. Most would be hard-pressed to tell you how they even got there. Artists cannot remain idle, though. When the performer, painter or writer becomes bored, their work begins to show a lack of continuity

5、 in its appeal and it becomes difficult to sustain the attention of the public. After their enthusiasm has dissolved, the public simply moves on to the next flavor of the month. Artists who do attempt to remain current by making even minute changes to their style of writing, dancing or singing, run

6、a significant risk of losing the audiences favor. The public simply discounts styles other than those for which the artist has become famous.Famous authors styles a Tennessee Williams play or a plot by Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot are easily recognizable. The same is true

7、 of painters like Monet, Renoir, or Dali and moviemakers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg, Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou. Their distinct styles marked a significant change in form from others and gained them fame and fortune. However, they paid for it by giving up the freedom to express themselves wit

8、h other styles or forms.Fames spotlight can be hotter than a tropical junglea fraud is quickly exposed, and the pressure of so much attention is too much for most to endure.It takes you out of yourself: You must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be. The performer, l

9、ike the politician, must often please his or her audiences by saying things he or she does not mean or fully believe.One drop of fame will likely contaminate the entire well of a mans soul, and so an artist who remains true to himself or herself is particularly amazing. You would be hard-pressed to

10、underline many names of those who have not compromised and still succeeded in the fame game. An example, the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, known for his uncompromising behavior, both social and sexual, to which the public objected, paid heavily for remaining true to himself. The mother of a young

11、 man Oscar was intimate with accused him at a banquet in front of his friends and fans of sexually influencing her son. Extremely angered by her remarks, he sued the young mans mother, asserting that she had damaged his good name. He should have hired a better attorney, though. The judge did not sec

12、ond Wildes call to have the woman pay for damaging his name, and instead fined Wilde. He ended up in jail after refusing to pay, and even worse, was permanently expelled from the wider circle of public favor. When things were at their worst, he found that no one was willing to risk his or her name i

13、n his defense. His price for remaining true to himself was to be left alone when he needed his fans the most.Curiously enough, it is those who fail that reap the greatest reward: freedom! They enjoy the freedom to express themselves in unique and original ways without fear of losing the support of f

14、ans. Failed artists may find comfort in knowing that many great artists never found fame until well after they had passed away or in knowing that they did not sell out. They may justify their failure by convincing themselves their genius is too sophisticated for contemporary audiences.Single-minded

15、artists who continue their quest for fame even after failure might also like to know that failure has motivated some famous people to work even harder to succeed. Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times before it was finally published. Beethove

16、n overcame his father, who did not believe that he had any potential as a musician, to become the greatest musician the world. And Pestalozzi, the famous Swiss educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea of teaching children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of education. Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in the fourth grade, because he s