liter_country_learning_lang

Anyways, I made you a vair offer. Coom back as governess – you shall have it all your own way." She held out one hand. She cried fit to break her heart; her ringlets fell over her face, and over the marble mantelpiece where she laid it.

"So the rascal ran off, eh?" Sir Pitt said, with a hideous attempt at consolation. "Never mind, Becky, 'take care of 'ee."

"Oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back to Queen's Crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly, when you said you were pleased with the services of your little Rebecca. When I think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude – indeed it does. I can't be your wife, sir; let me – let me be your daughter!"

Saying which Rebecca went down on her knees in a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny, black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when – when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed in.

(W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1950, vol. I, pp. 182–185)

QUESTIONS AND TASKS

1.What features of the bourgeois marriage relations are satirized in the present extract?

2.How does Sir Pitt take the news of Rebecca's being already married? Note, the idiomatic expressions used to render his attitude. Discuss his speech characterization.

3.Point out the instances of irony and comment upon their significance.

4.Make a list of all the words and phrases in the author's speech that describe the emotions of the personages as the scene progresses. Discuss their importance for the situation.

5.Study and classify examples of different syntactical means of conveying emotion.

6.Explain the meaning of idiomatic expressions and sayings in Sir Pitt's

speech.

7.Pick out words in Rebecca's speech that without being lofty in themselves receive an elevated meaning from the context.

8.Comment upon the words pathos and confidence as revealing Rebecca's scheming disposition.

9.Analyse the choice of words in the lines referring to Miss Crawley.

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Variant 6

1.T. Hardy and his "novels of character and environment" ("Tess of the D'Urbervilles" – the main achievement of Hardy's realism).

2.Analyze the following extract.

TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES

(1891)

The novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles belongs to the most important group of his novels that the writer himself called "Novels of Character and Environment". They are also known as "Wessex Novels", for the scene is invariably laid in what Hardy calls "Wessex", using that ancient name for Dorsetshire, Wiltshire and some other peculiarly English southwestern counties. It was in that part of the country that Hardy himself mostly lived; there in a thatch-roofed cottage on the edge of the moors he was born and grew up, and for this place he always had a warm affection.

The novel depicts farmlife, such as it was in Dorsetshire in the early Victorian days, and tells the sad story of a pure and noble-minded country girl, Tess Durbeyfield (of the D'Urbervilles). The tragedy of her life has in fact a social motivation, but in trying to account for it Hardy sets down her ruin to the forces of fate. Thus, a critical attitude to bourgeois society grows in Hardy's art into a philosophy of deeply pessimistic fatalism.

Phase the Second. Maiden No More

XIV

''It was a hazy sunrise in August. The denser nocturnal vapours, attacked by the warm beams, were dividing and shrinking into isolated fleeces4 within hollows and coverts5, where they waited till they should be dried away to nothing.

The sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, personal look, demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene, explained the old-time heliolatries6 in a moment. One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky. The luminary7 was a golden-haired, beaming,

4Fleece – a sheep's coat of wool, here used to describe a white patch of mist

5Covert – a covered place

6Heliolatry – sun-worship

7Luminary – a source of of light, here: the sun

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mild-eyed, Godlike creature, gazing down in the vigour and intent-ness of youth upon an earth that was brimming with interest for him.

His light, a little later, broke through chinks of cottage shutters, throwing stripes like red-hot pokers upon cupboards, chests of drawers, and other furniture within; and awakening harvesters who were not already astir.

But of all ruddy things that morning the brightest were two broad arms of painted wood, which rose from the margin of a yellow cornfield hard by Marlott village. They, with two others below, formed the revolving Maltese cross8 of the reaping-machine, which had been brought to the field on the previous evening to be ready for operations this day. The paint with which they were smeared, intensified in hue by the sunlight, imparted to them a look of having been dipped in liqurd fire.

The field had already been "opened"; that is to say, a lane a few feet wide had been hand-cut through the wheat along the whole circumference of the field, for the first passage of the horses and machine.

Two groups, one of men and lads, the other of women, had come down the lane just at the hour when the shadows of the eastern hedge-top struck the west hedge, midway, so that the heads of the groups were enjoying sunrise while their feet were still in the dawn. They disappeared from the lane between the two stone posts which flanked the nearest field-gate.

Presently there arose from within a ticking like the love-making of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation of three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible over the gate, a driver sitting upon one of the hauling horses, and an attendant on the seat of the implement. Along ons side of the field the whole wain9 went, the arms of the mechanical reaper revolving slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same equable pace; the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore horse first catching the eye as it rose into view over the stubble, then the bright arms, and then the whole machine.

The narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with each circuit, and the standing corn was reduced to smaller area as the morning wore on. Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness10, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more

8Maltese cross the badge of the Knights of Malta, a cross with two-pointed expanding broad limbs

9wain – a team and implements used in cultivation of land, a wagon for hay or other agricultural produce

10fastness – fortress

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horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters.

The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands – mainly women, but some of them men, in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back.

But those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield; a fieldwoman is a portion of the field; she has somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it.

The women – or rather girls, for they were mostly young – wore drawn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a cream-coloured tight-sleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the reaping-machine; and others, older, in the brown-rough "wropper" or over-all – the old-established and most appropriate dress of the field-woman, which the young ones were abandoning. This morning the eye, returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all. But her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from a stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her bonnet. Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that she never courts it, though the other women often gaze around them.

Her binding proceeds with clock-like monotony. From the sheaf last finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her left palm to bring them even. Then stooping low she moves forward, gathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing her left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other side, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble, and bleeds.

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QUESTIONS AND TASKS

1.Make a plan of the extract.

2.Define the mood that pervades the chapter.

3.Discuss Hardy's reasons for thinking sun-worship the sanest religion.

4.Point out all the instances when sunlight or shadows are mentioned, discuss their effect.

5.Comment upon the meaning and effect of Romanic paraphrases in the description of the dawn.

6.Comment upon the brief pointed observation about a field-man and a field-woman. Do you agree with the writer? Give your reasons.

7.Point out Absolute Participle Constructions. Account for their abundance in the text.

8.Discuss Hardy's vocabulary. What lexical layers are present in.

3.Write the essay on the role of landscape in the novel ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles''. How do descriptions of place match the development of the story? Does the passing of the seasons play any symbolic role?

4.Read and analyze Sonnet 24 by Shakespeare:

Mine eye hath play'd the painter; and hath, stell'd

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein'tis held,

And perspective it is best painter’s art.

For through the painter must you see his skill

To find where your true image pictured lies,

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights'to peep, to gaze therein on thee:

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

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Variant 7

1. Read the following extract from O. Wilde comedy and analyze it:

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (1895)

Wilde's fame rests chiefly on his comedies of fashionable life: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), The Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of Being Earnest and a few others. The sparkling wit and vivacity, characteristic of these plays, helped them to keep the stage for more than half a century. In spite of their superficial drawing-room treatment of human problems they are still attractive to numerous theatre-goers because of their brilliancy of dialogue and entertaining plot.

The extract below is taken from the opening scene providing the general exposition.

ACT I

ALGERNON. I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. (Opens case and examines it.) However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn't yours after all.

JACK. Of course it's mine. (Moving to him.) You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

ALGERNON. Oh! It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

JACK. I am quite aware of the fact, and I don't propose to discuss modern culture. It isn't the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my cigarette case back.

ALGERNON. Yes; but this isn't your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a present from someone of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn't know anyone of that name.

JACK. Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt. ALGERNON. Your aunt!

JACK. Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy.

ALGERNON (retreating to back of sofa). But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? (Reading.) "From little Cecily with her fondest love." JACK (moving to sofa and kneel-

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ing upon it). My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case. (Follows ALGERNON round the room.)

ALGERNON. Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all; it is Ernest.

JACK. It isn't Ernest; it's Jack.

ALGERNON. You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest. It's on your cards. Here is one of them. (Taking it from case.) "Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany." I'll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if. ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to anyone else. (Puts the card in his pocket.)

JACK. Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country", and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.

ALGERNON. Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.

JACK. My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression.

ALGERNON. Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.

JACK. Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist? ALGERNON. I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable ex-

pression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country.

JACK. Well, produce my cigarette case first.

ALGERNON. Here it is. (Hands cigarette case). Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. (Sits on sofa).

JACK. My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all. In fact it's perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his granddaughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle

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from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism.

ALGERNON. Where is that place in the country, by the way?

JACK. That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited.... I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.

ALGERNON. I suspected that, my. dear fellow! I have Bun-buryed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?

JACK. My dear Algy, I don't know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It's one's duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one's health or one's happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a young brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

ALGERNON. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

JACK. That wouldn't be at all a bad thing.

ALGERNON. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.

JACK. What on earth do you mean?

ALGERNON. You have invented a very useful youngerbrother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

JACK. I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night. ALGERNON. I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invi-

tations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.

JACK. You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta. ALGERNON. I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the

kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite

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enough to dine with one's own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent... and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules.

JACK. I'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr. ... with your invalid friend who has the absurd name.

2. Questions and tasks for ''The Importance of Being Earnest''

1.Describe the portraits of the young men of fashion drawn by Wilde.

2.Comment upon the playwright's attitude to the world and the characters he depicts. Is it one of indignation?

3.Explain the meaning of the terms "Bunburyist" and "Bun-burying" created by Wilde.

4.Point out the paradoxes and ironical epigrams in the lines of the two young men. Comment upon the topics they deal with and the outlook they express.

5.Comment from the same standpoint upon the sentences: "It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case"; "It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist".

6.Discuss the instances of play upon words connected with the name Ernest and with the expression "to have the thing out at once".

7.Point out interjections and particles enforcing the expressiveness and liveliness of the dialogue.

8.Make a list of characteristic syntactical features of colloquial speech reflected in the dialogue.

9.Summarize your comments on the text.

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3. Read the extract from Shakespeare's comedy and analyze it.

MUCH ADQ ABOUT NOTHING

ACT II, SCENE I. A hall in Leonato's house. Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice, and others. Leonato: Was not Count John here at supper? Antonio: I saw him not.

Beatrice: How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. Hero: He is of a very melancholy disposition.

Beatrice: He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing; and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Leonato: Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,

Beatrice: With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a'could get her good-will.

Leonato: By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

Antonio: In faith, she's too curst.

Beatrice: Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that way; for it is said, «God sends a curst cow short horns»; but to a cow too curst he sends none.

L e o n a t o: So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. Beatrice: Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at

him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

Leonato: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

Beatrice: What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bearward, and lead his apes into hell.

Leonato: Well, then, go you into hell?

Beatrice: No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, ''Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids: so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long''.

Antonio [To Hero]: Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.

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