II. Résumé making (text compression).

Listen to the recorded text, make notes and write a résumé in Russian /Ukrainian /English.

(Reduce the text to the core, and then develop it back without consulting the text).

Translate into English using text compression (omit redundant words, convert nominative structure into verbal, use noun clusters etc.)

First, do it in writing; then orally, observe transformations in translation.

III. Text development.

Develop a text from the given core (first do it in one language in writing, then with interpretation –orally).

IV. Sight translation рractise.

Pay attention to precision information (proper names, geographical names, dates) and correct word order. Suggest background information required for a proper translation of the text.

V. Check yourself against the pattern translation version

(your translation).

VI. Listen to the recorded text and practice consecutive interpreting.

Albrecht Durer (1474–1528)

«The Apocalypse». A Series of Engravings (1498)

Black and white. Light and dark. Good and evil. There is a struggle for MAN in this tussle of creative mind and destructive horrors. And there is also a struggle for the destiny of HUMANKIND. These eternal symbols are out of time and space.

The end of the 15^th century. Europe is shaken with wars, rebellions, epidemic and despotism of the clergy steeped in vice. People live pending Doomsday and apocalypse. At this troubled time, a little-known German artist Durer creates 15 engravings, the illustrations of «The Revelation St. John», which completes the Holy Scriptures. «The Apocalypse» puts the artist among the great creators of the Renaissance era. Durer succeeded in accomplishing the impossible: his engravings produce a much stronger impression than the text of the Holy Scriptures.

The habit of working hard inherited by Durer from his father, a goldsmith, came in handy in his work on this series. The artist who was used to trying to find out the core of the matter never restricted himself to his craft. He was tireless in studying geometry, philosophy and history. Durer is creating «The Apocalypse» not only by studying thoroughly the text of «The Revelation» but also by talking to monks of St. Augustine order for hours. However, he could not resist the temptation of taking some liberties of the author. The first engraving is «The Torture of the Evangelist John». But one cannot find this in «The Revelation».

Durer had to think carefully of every detail, every image, every metaphor, learning step by step the complicated language of «The Apocalypse». Here is Christ: «I am the A and Z, the beginning and the end». Seven stars in his hands are the world creation itself, seven being the symbol of completeness.

And here is another symbol. A sealed scroll. And the Lamb – that is Christ – the only one who would open it. «To the one sitting on the throne, and the Lamb be the praise, and the honor, and the glory, and the strength forever and ever».

Symbols-warnings are also in the most famous engraving of the series «The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse»: Famine, War, Judgment and Death rush like a whirlwind over the Earth. All sinners are equal before retribution: a bishop, an urban woman, an emperor and a peasant… The impetuosity is the theme of «The Four Horsemen». The feeling of movement. A remarkable sculptural effect. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote: «… he depicts even the things that are impossible to be depicted – … the whole soul of man… you would offend the work if you would like to introduce colors in it…».

Durer conveys an incredible tension of passions by means of a laconic language of engraving. Here the world catastrophe is unfolding. «And the sky disappeared having rolled up like a scroll…». Is it possible to make such a metaphor visible? For Durer it is. A woman is bending with horror towards the ground – this is one of the most expressive images of despair in the world graphics.

And here is another picture: majestic angels are commending the righteous people saved from death. Light is triumphant.

But the voice of the trumpet presages new calamities. The star Wormwood is dashing from the sky. A fiery lava is hurtling down into the sea… Durer makes the evangelic image concrete depicting not only retribution but also the Lord’s hands which perform divine judgment.

The menacing angels-avengers plunge into the crowd of people. The punishing wrath looks simultaneously righteous, pitiless and blind in Durer’s engraving.

The author chose the genre of engraving to illustrate «The Book of Revelation» not by chance. Nothing can convey the fervor of fight between light and dark better than the contrast of black and white. Here the warriors of Archangel Michael fight the outcome of evil in the sky. But on the Earth it is a bright day. There is a hardly noticeable detail, a hospitably raised barrier. But how eloquently it speaks about the peace being found!

Another engraving lacks emotionality characteristic of the series. A voice from the sky orders John to conceal the book’s mystery from the uninitiated. «Take it and eat; it will be bitter in your maw but in your mouth it will be sweet like honey!» The artist prefers to illustrate this metaphor literally leaving the right of interpreting such allegories to theologians.

Durer embodied successfully the escaping meaning of biblical prophesies into the artistic images that are clear to his contemporaries. «The Apocalypse» became «The Bible for the poor», for those who did not know Latin and could not understand the sermons in church.

«The Apocalypse» brought Durer real fame. Rich merchants, powerful princes, the emperor himself vied one another for acquiring his works. The beginners learned to paint copying his engravings. The flattering invitations to work in Italy rained down. However, Durer rejected them: it seemed impossible for him to work where bishops used the poison and dagger of a mercenary: the artist took close to heart the prophesies he had worked on for many months.

The immortal engravings of Albrecht Durer are already more than five centuries old. Force is not only destructive but also purifying – this is how the artist saw the formidable prophesies of «The Revelation» ending with the triumph of a bright peace on the Earth. Today this masterpiece of graphic art is no less significant for us than it was for the contemporaries of the great master. This work possesses everything characteristic of the great creations of transitional epochs.