Pub Talk and King&39;s English(3)

7. Saxon churls: a farm laborer or peasant in early England; a term used pejoratively by the Norman conquerors to mean an ill-bred, ignorant English peasant

8. Norman conquerors: the Normans, under William I, Duke of Normandy (former territory of N. France) conquered England after defeating Harold, the English king, at the Battle of Hastings (1066).

9. lapin: French word for "rabbit"

10.Hereward the Wake: Anglo-Saxon patriot and rebel leader. He rose up against the Norman conquerors but was defeated and slain (1071).

11.Nash: Thomas Nash (1567--1601), English satirist. Very little is known of his life .Although his first publications appeared in 1589,it was not until Pierce Penniless His Supplication to the

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Devil (1592),a bitter satire on contemporary society ,that his natural and vigorous style was fully developed .His other publications include: Summer' s Last Will and Testament; The Unfortunate Traveler; and The Isle of Dogs.

12.Dekker: Thomas Dekker (1572.'? --16327), English dramatist and pamphleteer. Little is known of his life except that he frequently suffered from poverty and served several prison terms for debt. Publications: The Shoe- maker' s Holiday ; The Seven Deadly Sins of London ; The Gull' s Hand- book; etc.

13...here will be an old abusing: "old" here means "great, plentiful"; from Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor", Act 1, Scene 4, lines5--6

14.Angevins and Plantagenets: names of ruling Norman dynasties in England (1154--1399), sprung from Geoffrey, Count of Anjou (former province of W. France)

15.Elizabethans: people, especially writers, of the time of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533--1603)

16.(dandelion) clock: the downy fruiting head of the common dandelion

17.Auden: W.H. Auden (1907--73), British-born poet, educated at Oxford. During the Depression of the 1930' s he was deeply affected by Marxism. His works of that period include Poems

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(1930) and The Orators (1932), prose and poetry, bitter and witty, on the impending collapse of British middle-class ways and a coming revolution. Auden went to the U.S. in 1939 and became an American citizen in 1946. In the 1940's he moved away from Marxism and adopted a Christian existential view.

18. Forster: Edward Morgan Forster (1879--1970), English author, one of the most important British novelists of the 20th century. Forster's fiction, conservative in form, is in the English tradition of the novel of manners. He explores the emotional and sensual deficiencies of the English middle class, developing his themes by means of irony, wit, and symbolism. Some of his well known novels are: Where Angels Fear to Tread ; The Longest Journey ; A Room with a View ; Howard' s End ; and A Passage to India.

19. Henault: Jean-Francois Henault (? --1770), president of the Paris Parlement, and lover of Mme Deffand

20. Paris Parlement: the "sovereign" or "superior" court of judicature under the ancien regime in France. It was later divided into several chambers.

21. Mme. Deffand: Deffand, Marie De Vichy-Chamrond, Marquisse Du (1679--1780), a leading figure in French society, famous for her letters to the Duchesse de Choiseul, to Voltaire

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and to Horace Walpole. She was married at 21 to her kinsman, Jean Baptiste de la lande, Marquis du Deffand, from whom she separated in 1722. She later became the mistress of the regent, Philippe, duc d' Orleans. She also lived on intimate terms with Jean- Francois Henault, president of the Parlement of Paris till his death in 1770.

第三课酒肆闲聊与标准英语

亨利 费尔利

人类的一切活动中，只有闲谈最宜于增进友谊，而且是人类特有的一种活动。动物之间的信息交流，不论其方式何等复杂，也是称不上交谈的。

闲谈的引人人胜之处就在于它没有一个事先定好的话题。它时而迂回流淌，时而奔腾起伏，时而火花四射，时而热情洋溢，话题最终会扯到什么地方去谁也拿不准。要是有人觉得“有些话要说”，那定会大煞风景，使闲聊无趣。闲聊不是为了进行争论。闲聊中常常会有争论，不过其目的并不是为了说服对方。闲聊之中是不存在什么输赢胜负的。事实上，真正善于闲聊的人往往是随时准备让步的。也许他们偶然间会觉得该把自己最得意的奇闻轶事选出一件插进来讲一讲，但一转眼大家已谈到别处去了，插话的机会随之而失，他们也就听之任之。

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或许是由于我从小混迹于英国小酒馆的缘故吧，我觉得酒瞎里的闲聊别有韵味。酒馆里的朋友对别人的生活毫无了解，他们只是临时凑到一起来的，彼此并无深交。他们之中也许有人面临婚因破裂，或恋爱失败，或碰到别的什么不顺心的事儿，但别人根本不管这些。他们就像大仲马笔下的三个火枪手一样，虽然日夕相处，却从不过问彼此的私事，也不去揣摸别人内心的秘密。

有一天晚上的情形正是这样。人们正漫无边际地东扯西拉，从最普通的凡人俗事谈到有关木星的科学趣闻。谈了半天也没有一个中心话题，事实上也不需要有一个中心话题。可突然间大伙儿的话题都集中到了一处，中心话题奇迹般地出现了。我记不起她那句话是在什么情况下说出来的——她显然不是预先想好把那句话带到酒馆里来说的，那也不是什么非说不可的要紧话——我只知道她那句话是随着大伙儿的话题十分自然地脱口而出的。

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