VOA慢速英语2013 艾丽丝·门罗摘得2013年诺贝尔文学奖

 

AS IT IS 2013-10-26 Alice Munro Wins 2013 Nobel Literature Prize 艾丽丝·门罗摘得2013年诺贝尔文学奖

Hello again, and welcome. This is As It Is, a daily magazine show from VOA Learning English. I’m June Simms.

In 2016, the world will celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. Today, Jim Tedder¹ tells us about one project that hopes to make Shakespeare’s poems more interesting for a 21st century audience.

But first, we hear about the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.

Alice Munro Wins 2013 Nobel Literature Prize

Canadian writer Alice Munro has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In announcing its decision, the Swedish Academy called the 82-year-old writer a "master of the contemporary short story."

Munro is the 13th woman to win the literature prize. She said she hoped the award "would make people see the short story as an important art; not just something you played around with until you get a novel written."

Alice Munro began writing in her youth. Her stories began appearing in magazines in the early 1950s. She published her first collections of short stories in 1968, called Dance of the Happy Shades and Other Stories. Many of her collections are about small town farming communities like her hometown of southwestern Ontario, Canada.

Her most recent collection, Dear Life, was published in 2012. It includes four short stories that Munro describes as “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely² so in fact.” In her words, “they are the closest things I have to say about my own life.” Earlier this year, the writer announced that she was “probably not going to write anymore.”

The Canadian writer will receive about $1.2 million for her Nobel Prize award. The award ceremony will be held in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10. The Swedish Academy says Alice Munro has declined³ an invitation to attend the award ceremony because of poor health. No word on who will represent her at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.

You are listening to As It Is from VOA Learning English. I’m June Simms in Washington.

Filming Shakespeare's Poems for 21st Century Audience

Nothing like the Nobel Prize Award existed during the time of William Shakespeare. The first Nobel Prizes were not awarded until 1901, nearly 300 years after the death of the so-called “Bard of Avon.”

Next year marks the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. His plays are still widely performed all over the world. But for many people, Shakespeare is something they study in school, not something they read or watch for pleasure.

One American theater company is trying to change that. Jim Tedder reports.

Ross Williams studied acting⁴ and directing in school. He launched a theater company called the New York Shakespeare Exchange. Ross Williams loves Shakespeare. But, he knows that many people might not share that love. He says 400-year-old English is tough to understand. And, he says, many people think of Shakespeare as dusty and dull.

“So I started thinking about how I could deliver Shakespeare to people in small chunks⁵, things that would be manageable and get people to experience Shakespeare in their day-to-day lives without having to make the commitment to go see a full show. And so we started with the sonnets⁷ because they’re contained.”

Sonnets are 14-line poems. Ross Williams and his partners launched the Sonnet⁶ Project as part of their theater company. The group hopes to film and release each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets before the great English writer’s birthday next April. Each piece is being filmed in a different location in New York City.

“Sound rolling … wide, take two … and action!”

On this day, a crew is shooting sonnet number three in a 150-year-old bar in Brooklyn. In this sonnet, an older man urges a good-looking young man to find someone to have his child.

The sonnet ends with the words “Die single, and thine image dies with thee.”

In the film, actor Ron Cohen plays a barman. He is trying to persuade a young customer to check out two girls at the end of the bar, lest he miss his chance to reproduce⁸.

“For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb disdains⁹ the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb of his self-love to stop posterity¹⁰.”

Cohen has acted in several Shakespeare plays. He likes the idea of presenting Shakespeare in short films.

“Fantastic! Great idea, especially the idea of doing it in different locales in New York, tying in the contemporary feeling of Shakespeare.”

To complete a project this big requires the talents of many artists. Ross Williams put out a call to filmmakers on the Sonnet Project’s website and by word of mouth. Twenty-five-year-old Noemi Charlotte Thieves was one of many who answered the call. He directed sonnet 71 a few months ago. Yet he admits he had very little knowledge of Shakespeare when he came to the Sonnet Project.

“I thought sonnets were like monologues¹¹ or soliloquies from his plays. I totally had no idea what they were, so I was completely na?ve and ignorant to the whole thing.”

What he remembered when he started studying the sonnet was how visual Shakespeare’s language is. Thieves compares the playwright¹² to a famous filmmaker today.

“When you’re talking about what makes his language so unique, he was in a lot of ways like [Quentin] Tarantino is today. I always say if Shakespeare was an artist living today, he wouldn’t be a playwright. He would be a screenwriter, he would be a filmmaker.”

Ross Williams agrees. He wants people to see Shakespeare as part of pop culture -- which, he says the playwright was back in his day.

“It is a little tricky¹³ sometimes but it’s still words, telling a story, and sharing emotion.”

He says that it is true even when the emotion is coming from a tiny screen on your phone, instead of from a stage.

"Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee, calls back the lovely April of her prime; so thou through windows of thine age shalt see, despite of wrinkles¹⁴ this thy golden time.”

I’m Jim Tedder.

 

1 tedder   

n.（干草）翻晒者，翻晒机

参考例句：

• Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆？特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
• Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆？泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网

2 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

3 declined   

v.辞谢，谢绝（邀请等）( decline的过去式和过去分词 )；（道路、物体等）下倾；（太阳）落下；（在品格、价值上）降低

参考例句：

• We asked her to come to our party, but she declined. 我们请她来参加我们的晚会，但是她谢绝了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He declined to charge his memory with so many details. 他不愿在脑中记这么多细枝末节。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

5 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？

6 sonnet   

n.十四行诗

参考例句：

• The composer set a sonnet to music.作曲家为一首十四行诗谱了曲。
• He wrote a sonnet to his beloved.他写了一首十四行诗，献给他心爱的人。

7 sonnets   

n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Keats' reputation as a great poet rests largely upon the odes and the later sonnets. 作为一个伟大的诗人，济慈的声誉大部分建立在他写的长诗和后期的十四行诗上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He referred to the manuscript circulation of the sonnets. 他谈到了十四行诗手稿的流行情况。 来自辞典例句

8 reproduce   

v.生育，繁殖，复制，重做

参考例句：

• The machine can reproduce a key in two minutes.这机器能在两分钟内复制一把钥匙。
• The picture will reproduce well.这照片会印得很清楚。

9 disdains   

鄙视，轻蔑( disdain的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He disdains going to the cinema/to sit with people like us. 他不屑于去看电影[与我们这等人同席而坐]。
• Ideology transcends limits, eschews restraints, and disdains tolerance or conciliation. 意识形态越出界限，避开遏制，蔑视宽容或和解。

10 posterity   

n.后裔，子孙，后代

参考例句：

• Few of his works will go down to posterity.他的作品没有几件会流传到后世。
• The names of those who died are recorded for posterity on a tablet at the back of the church.死者姓名都刻在教堂后面的一块石匾上以便后人铭记。

11 monologues   

n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏

参考例句：

• That film combines real testimonials with monologues read by actors. 电影中既有真人讲的真事，也有演员的独白。 来自互联网
• Her monologues may help her make sense of her day. 她的独白可以帮助她让她一天的感觉。 来自互联网

12 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

13 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

14 wrinkles   

n.（尤指皮肤上的）皱纹( wrinkle的名词复数 )；皱褶；有用的建议；妙计v.使起皱纹( wrinkle的第三人称单数 )；（尤指皮肤）起皱纹

参考例句：

• There were fine wrinkles around her eyes. 她眼角上出现了鱼尾纹。
• His face was lined with wrinkles. 他的脸上都是皱纹。 来自《简明英汉词典》