首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as
admin
2010-04-28
25
问题
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers, Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
When Dr Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to" other quality newspapers" too.)As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did send too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr Nieholls.
There remains the dinner-party game of who’ s in, who’ s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons)notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy ( he had tried to escape by ship to America).
It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments:" Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility." Then there had to be more women, too (12 per cent, against the original DBN’ s 3), such as Roy Strong’ s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks:" Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory." Doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote," except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke".
Throughout the passage, the writer’ s tone towards the DNB was ______.
选项
A、complimentary
B、supportive
C、sarcastic
D、bitter
答案
C
解析
综合推论题。文章中“dinner-party game”“reputed”等用词,大量的设问句和语录等方法的运用,体现了作者的语气上是讽刺的。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/bkqO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
ClimatechangethreatenssustainabledevelopmentandalleightMillenniumDevelopmentGoals.Theinternationalcommunityagreed
A、Artsandculture.B、Internationalnews.C、Crimeinvestigation.D、Humanintereststories.C
A、Youshouldwaittojointhosesportsclubs.B、Theheatwavewillprobablycontinue.C、Don’tworry.Itwillbecoolverysoon.
Manyfirmsfailbecausewhentheybeginexportingtheyhavenotresearchedthetargetmarketsordevelopedaninternationalmark
Manyfirmsfailbecausewhentheybeginexportingtheyhavenotresearchedthetargetmarketsordevelopedaninternationalmark
随机试题
导致知觉形成偏见的原因有()。
KD指标达到90以上卖出一定准确。()
1988年《巴塞尔报告》要求,自1992年年底起,所有签约国从事国际业务的银行,其资本充足率的最低标准应为()。
()是国外企业培训效果评估方法中发展最完善、运用最广泛的一种方法。
未来主义主将__________试图在静态中表现出真正的动感。他的许多尝试,如《空间之瓶》《空间中连续的形》,表现出运动的错综复杂的印象以及连带产生的跃动感。
大禹治水时,几千人都直接受他领导,因此他非常忙,常常废寝忘食,他的岳父建议他把十个人分为一组,十个组为一小队,十个小队为一个大队,只有大队长才直接被他领导,这样大禹既能工作好,又有休息时间。这主要应用了管理的:
阅读以下文字,完成下面问题科学家们预言,21世纪将是生物学世纪。生物学世纪将在三个领域中到来:医药、环境整治和农业。以清除污染为例,新的研究表明,在进化的过程中,自然界曾反复地从微生物中增加或减少基因簇,就像调试计算机时增加或减少程序一
过桥米线是_____地区的名小吃。
Thebabyelephant,Sheila,was【D1】________BelfastZoobecauseoffearsshemightbehitbybombersduringtheBelfastBlitzof1
承担
最新回复
(
0
)