Чтение и письмо: эссе с отсылками (цитата и аллюзия)
Слова урока · 4
- layer /ˈleɪə/слой (смысла)
- commentary /ˈkɒməntri/комментарий (разбор)
- resonate /ˈrezəneɪt/отзываться, находить отклик
- load-bearing /ˌləʊd ˈbeərɪŋ/несущий (об отсылке)
Фразы урока · 2
- Each allusion adds a layer; strip them and the argument remains — a commentary explains what the essay assumes.Каждая аллюзия добавляет слой; уберите их — довод останется; комментарий объясняет то, что эссе предполагает известным.
- The phrase resonates because readers know its source; one allusion is load-bearing, the rest are decoration.Фраза находит отклик, потому что читатели знают её источник; одна аллюзия — несущая, остальные — украшение.
Текст: «Эссе: «The Emperor's New Bus»»
Every town has a story it tells about itself, and ours is that we are sensible. We are the town that did not build the leisure centre, did not host the festival, did not, in 1998, replace the bridge until it had fallen down. Prudence is our brand, and like all brands it is mostly marketing.
Consider the shuttle. For three years a bus that would cost less than the hanging baskets has been «under review», a phrase that in our council's dialect means the same as «in Room 101»: gone, but with paperwork. Eleven meetings have been held. Surveys have been commissioned, aged, and commissioned again. Quotes have been requested and then, by a small adjustment of the route, rendered obsolete — a process so elegant that I half suspect the committee of having read Kafka, or at least of having been read to.
And yet nobody says the obvious thing, which is that the emperor has no bus. The children in the story pointed at the procession; ours are in the retail park, because that is where the buses go. The villages, of course, have been consulted — by letter, in August, at addresses last accurate in 2015 — and their silence has been recorded as consent, which is the oldest trick in the book and, to be fair, several others.
I do not say the shuttle would work. I say we cannot know, and that the difference between a town that finds out and a town that holds an eleventh meeting is the difference between prudence and its costume. It was, a wiser writer said of another age, the best of times and the worst of times; ours is merely the same time, extended. Somewhere in the minutes there is a sentence beginning «It was resolved», and it is the only sentence in three years in which anything was.
Задание
Напишите комментарий к эссе (commentary, 300–340 слов) для читателя без английского культурного фона: перечислите отсылки и их источники (the title alludes to; a twist on; the original runs; Room 101 is Orwell; Kafka; the emperor's new clothes; Dickens), объясните, что в каждой изменено и зачем (substituted; truncated; the payoff is), определите мишень иронии и её сигналы (at the expense of; «of course»; the details after the dash; scare quotes), оцените уровень уверенности каждой отсылки (unmistakable / plausible / a stretch), дайте справку без стереотипов (for readers unfamiliar with; roughly the equivalent of) и, наконец, изложите довод эссе без отсылок — что остаётся, когда слои сняты (strip the allusions and the argument is …).
Образец ответа
Commentary on «The Emperor's New Bus»
The essay carries five allusions, one of which is load-bearing. The title is a twist on Andersen's tale «The Emperor's New Clothes», in which swindlers sell an emperor an invisible suit and everyone praises it until a child says he is naked; one word is substituted, and the payoff is the whole argument in four words: everyone pretends there is a plan. The reference is unmistakable, and the essay returns to it in the third paragraph («the emperor has no bus»; «the children in the story»), where the twist is extended — our children are in the retail park, so nobody is left to point.
«Room 101» is from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the room containing each prisoner's worst fear; in British usage it has become a joke meaning «get rid of it for good», and the writer glosses it himself: «gone, but with paperwork». For readers unfamiliar with the phrase, the nearest equivalent is «consigned to oblivion». Unmistakable, and the gloss makes it safe for the literal-minded.
The Kafka reference is not to a text but to an author: a process so absurdly procedural that it resembles his novels. This is plausible rather than precise — no particular work is meant — and the joke turns on the register shift from «elegant» to «having been read to», which mocks the committee as children.
The Dickens line is quoted with attribution («a wiser writer said of another age») and then truncated and twisted: «ours is merely the same time, extended». The original runs «It was the best of times, it was the worst of times», opening A Tale of Two Cities; the payoff is bathos — an epic opening applied to a bus. Unmistakable.
The irony is at the expense of the council throughout. Its signals are «of course» before «consulted», the details after the dash (August, wrong addresses), the scare-quoted «under review», and the mock-solemn «It was resolved». Nothing is at the villagers' expense; the essayist takes their side.
Strip the allusions and the argument is plain: the council has spent three years avoiding a cheap, reversible decision and calls the avoidance prudence; the writer does not claim the shuttle would work, only that the town could find out, and that a town which prefers an eleventh meeting to finding out is wearing prudence as a costume.
lightbulbКомментарий к эссе с отсылками: каждую — источник, что изменено, payoff, уровень уверенности (unmistakable / plausible / a stretch), справка в одну строку; ирония — на чей счёт и по каким сигналам; в конце — довод без отсылок (strip the allusions and the argument is …).
Закрепите урок: упражнения со словами, фразами и грамматикой с проверкой и повторением.