(全英文)勃朗特姐妹生平轶事及作品背景解析.doc

1、探访英国文学之勃朗特姐妹：Reading sisters imagination “The Young Mens Magazine” MCT品读勃朗特姐妹的想象世界。词数 499 建议阅读时间 8分钟 Imagine four little children: three sisters and a brother. They are alone in a large old house, miles from anywhere. The weather outside is stormy, or “wuthering” (呼啸的) as local people call it. There

2、s no one home but a servant in the kitchen below. Their mother is dead and their father, a priest (牧师), is out seeing the people who go to his church. But even when he is at home, he is distant and serious. They play, like all children play, but with a passion (热情) and imagination that is rare and r

3、emarkable.The childrens names were Charlotte, Emily and Anne; their brother was called Branwell. They lived 200 years ago in a little place called Haworth in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Three of them became famous as adults, and even more after their (sadly early) deaths. The Bronte sist

4、ers, as they are known, made a mark on the literature of their country. Their two most famous novels, Charlottes Jane Eyre and Emilys Wuthering Heights, have been copied by a thousand other writers and read by millions in almost every language that people speak. April 21 marked the 200th anniversary

5、 of Charlottes birth.In 2011, an amazing discovery was made that takes us back to the large creaky (破旧的) house that stood 200 years ago. It is a very small notebook called “The Young Mens Magazine”. The auctioneer (拍卖商) who sold it said that it was half the size of a credit card (信用卡). On its 19 pag

6、es there are thousands of words 4,000 of them to be exact. The “magazine” has made-up advertisements (广告), news items, poems and stories in it. It shows the imagination of those children who, cut off from the world, were forced to invent their own.When they get together, all young children play at i

7、nventing their own worlds. For most, these worlds are rather normal: doctors and nurses, soldiers and the like. This 200-year-old document (文件) shows that this was not the case with the Brontes. The imaginations of the Brontes were far larger than those of the average child. “The Young Mens Magazine

8、”, as the notebook is called, has stories, news and poems, even made-up advertisements, which show the great creativity the sisters had as adults.If we think about how Emily, Charlotte and Ann lived, we can imagine the forces that pushed them to be creative. They lived away from others in a lonely p

9、art of Yorkshire in the north of England. With no mother and a father who wasnt with them, who could they turn to but each other? What else did they have other than their imaginations? The childhood they spent learning and playing together led to their famous novels and poems. That is where The Tena

10、nt of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were born.Questions to reflect on: How did the Brontes sisters and brother spend their children? In what why did the young ages relate to the works of the sisters?_What can we find from the so-called “The Young Mens Magazine”?_Novel shows passion呼

11、啸山庄：情感浓烈的杰作。词数 406 建议阅读时间 6分钟 Heathcliff and Catherines love is passionate but doomed.The one and only novel by Emily Bronte is one of the strangest and most disturbing in the history of English literature. Indeed, Wuthering Heights (1847) was too much for the books first readers. One reviewer didnt

12、 hold back on his feelings: “We know nothing in our fictitious literature which presents such shocking pictures of the worst forms of humanity (人性).”Today we may not agree with these thoughts on the novel, but reading it we can see how some readers in the 19th century might have reacted. There is vi

13、olence, drunkenness (酒醉), kidnapping (诱拐) and much, much more. But there is also passion, whether it is the passion of hate or of love.Speaking of love, Wuthering Heights is famously the love story of Catherine and Heathcliff. Catherine is one of Mr. Earnshaws two children. They live in Wuthering He

14、ights high in the Yorkshire countryside, a place that is similar to where Emily lived. Heathcliff is an orphan(孤儿) boy who comes into the house as a worker.He and Catherine are always together as children. They spend a lot of time getting into trouble on the moors together. Their relationship is so

15、strong that they say more than once that they are each other. Although old Mr. Earnshaw loves Heathcliff, Catherines brother Hindley hates him.Still, it is not Hindley so much as social structure (结构) that ruins Heathcliff and Catherines love. The other “great house” of the novel is Thrushcross Grange. It is home to the well-to-do Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella.Catherine falls in love with Edgar, or rather falls in love with an idea of him. Edga