高中英语课本听力版本二 高二课文2s_Un04（在线收听）

Unit 4 A Garden of poems

SPEAKING

EXAMPLE:

A:I'm interested to read some Romantic poetry about love and friendship.

B:Why are you interested in that kind of poetry?

A:Because I think Romantic poetry is about real passion.

B:I see. What kind of poetry would you not like to read?

A:I don't want to read English poetry about death and World War I,because I think it is too sad.

READING

ENGLISH POETRY

Reading poetry brings people from different places and different times together. More than any other forn of literature, poetry plays wuth sounds,words and grammar. That makes poetry diffidult to write, but very interesting to read. Poetry also calls up all the colours, feelings, experiences and curious images of a dream world.

China has a long history during which many of the world's greatest poets were active. Poems by Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei among others stand out in the halls of glory. When you have read some Chinese poems, you will have seen and heard some of the features that all good poetry shares. The form is very important: the number of lines and the number of characters in each line. Poetry often follows special patterns of rhythm and rhyme.

Despite its short history, there is a lot of good English poetry around. The earliest English poetry was written in a kind of English that is a now difficult to understand. Modern English started around the time of william Shakespeare, towards the end of the sixteenth century. The seventeenth century was a great time for English poetry. Shakespeare is most famous for his plays. His sonnets, however, belong to the best English poetry. In the next generation of great Enhlish poets we meet John Donne. Chinese readers admire his works because of his use of surprising images that reminds them of the works of poets such as Su Dongpo. Before the end of the century, there was another famous writer, John Milton. Once published, his work became famous for the absence of rhyme at the end of each line. In the eighteenth century it was Alexander Pope who wrote the finest poetry in England.

The next period that produced a great number of fine poets was the nineteenth century. Greatly lived in China are the English Romantic poets. Although they were all born in the eighteenth century, they wrote their major works in the English Lake District, lived to the age of 80 and died in 1850. The nature poems by William Wordworth, George Gordon Byron's Isles of Greece and the sonnets and ling poens by John Keats have long been favourites. The style and atmosphere in their poems has ofen led to comparisons with poets such as Du Fu and Li Bai.

Finally modern poets have their special attraction because they stand clisest to us both in the language and images they use. Among them we find the American poet Robert Frost.

The intriduction of English poetry to China came late. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Chinese writes atarted reading more foreign poetry. The great moment for European literature to come to China is between 1910 and the late 1930s when famous writers such as Lu Xun and Guo Moruo translated both poetry and novels into Chinese.

More and more people are interested to read modern poetry in English. Thanslations can ba good, but being able to read in English gives you much more choice. Besedes, no matter how well a poem is translated, something of the spirit of the original work is lost. Reading poetry in English also opens the door to finging new ways of wxpressing yourself in Chinese. Finally, poems and literature can be bridges between the East and the West. They can help us to understand each other better, or as Mu Dan wrote:

Quietly, we embrace

In a world lit up by words.

INTEGRATING SKILLS

Reading, listening and writing

SONGS AND POEMS

Why read, and sometimes even write poetry? That question is not difficult to answer if we change the word poetry to songs.

I sing when I feel good. When I sing my favourite songs, I feel even better. Sometimes when I am listening to music and to the song words, I feel that is was written for me. A good song always makes me feel something. Ther are songs that I sing in my head between classes and songs that I want to sing when the school bell rings by the end of the day. They help me get through the day.

They are like bright and warm colours in the middle of greys and shades. I like songs about luve and friendship. The extraordinary thing is, my feelings are more special when I sing my favourite songs in English.

I also like reading. Iused to avoid poetry until an e-pal told me I shoule recite poems and not lood up the meaning of the words. Poetry uses many difficult words and idioms, but the best thing is to just forget about them. In the beginnong I felt quite strange. Now I always lock the door. Reading aloud the sounds of the words, it is really a special experience.

I started with small poems, but now I think I most like long poems. I have different feelongs with different poems. When I have had a bad day at school, I read Keats and forget everything. When I am sad I reak Wordsworth by the light of a candle. When the poem is finished, I close the book and my sadness is gone.

1 LIsren to the tape and read the following poems in class. Discuss with your classmates what they mean to you.

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow Has given my heart

Shook down on me A change of mood

The dust of snow And saved some part

From a hemlock tree Of a day I had rued.

RIGHT HERE WAITING

Oceans apart, day after day, How can I say forever?

And I slowly go insance. Wherever you go, whatever you do

I hear your voice on the line, I will be right here waiting for you.

But it doesn't stop the pain. Whatever it takes, or how my heart breaks

If I see you next to never, I will be right here waiting for you.

By Richard Marx