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
Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. However, the weirdest ma
Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. However, the weirdest ma
admin
2013-01-15
89
问题
Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. However, the weirdest may be this: artists’ only jobs are to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel lousy. This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th(上标) century, more artists began seeing happiness as insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring. In the 20th(上标) century, classical music became more atonal, visual art more unsettling.
Sure, there have been exceptions, but it would not be a stretch to say that for the past century or so, serious art has been at war with happiness. In 1824, Beethoven completed his "Ode to Joy". In 1962, novelist Anthoy Burgess used it in A Clockwork Orange as the favorite music of his ultra-violent antihero.
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen such misery. But the reason may actually be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.
In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. Today the messages that the average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and relentlessly happy. Since these messages have an agenda—to pry our wallets from our pockets—they make the very idea of happiness seem bogus (假的). "Celebrate!" commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attack.
What we forget—what our economy depends on our forgetting—is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need someone to tell us that it is OK not to be happy, that sadness makes happiness deeper. As the wine-connoisseur movie Sideways tells us, it is the kiss of decay and mortality that makes grape juice into Pinot Norway need art to tell us, as religion once did, that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, is a breath of fresh air.
What does the author mean by "a stretch" (Line 1, Para. 2)?
选项
A、A terrible thing.
B、An exaggeration.
C、A continuous period of time.
D、An exception.
答案
B
解析
词汇题。这句话说:当然也有过例外,但在过去的一个多世纪里,说严肃艺术与快乐的感觉格格不入,这话并不是一种stretch。能令语句通顺的,而且符合语境的只有B。此外,原文说serious art has been at war with happiness,at war这个短语字面含义是“处于战争状态”,意思是“格格不人”或“过不去”,用得很夸张。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/cI2O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
"Dimpy,"asherfriendscallher,heardaboutthehazardsofsmokinginhealthclass."Theyshowedpicturesoflungsofpeoplew
StandardEnglishisthevarietyofEnglishwhichisusuallyusedinprintandwinchisnormallytaughtinschoolsandtonon-nat
Twosubstituteswereusedduringthebasketballgames.
Thinkaboutwhatwouldmakeyoureally,reallyhappy.Moremoney?Wrong.Smiling,well-adjustedkids?Wrongagain.Thefactisw
Predictionsoflargepopulationsofrobotsinindustryhaveyettocometrue.Foradecadeormore,manufacturersofbigrobots
Nosoonerhadthemandepartedthanthetreebegandroppingcoffeebeans
Achievingasustainablelifestyletodayisofparamountimportanceforthehealthoffuturegenerations.Thedevastationofour
Thegrowthofcell-phoneusersintheU.S.hastaperedofffromthebreakneckpaceof50%annuallyinthelate1990stowhatan
Inchargeofanarmyofseven-thousandmen,he______theorientalcityforninemonthsandfinallydefeatedit.
Mostpeoplecan’tget______thedaywithoutatleastonecupofteaorcoffee.
随机试题
_______是一个进程是否存在的标志。
与胃癌的发生无关的因素是
从作用力角度分析,下列几种渠道中能够产生均匀流的是()。
期货公司申请金融期货全面结算业务资格,应当具备申请日前3个会计年度中,至少2年,盈利且每季度末客户权益总额平均不低于人民币()元,控股股东期末净资本不低于人民币10亿元。
对于一个要求具有近期工作经验的职位来说,较好的招聘来源是()。
材料:生态文明建设呼吁富于时代精神的消费观念。近代以来,西方社会有人推崇消费主义,强调可推动经济增长,鼓励人们无节制消费,把消费和占有更多物质财富作为人生成功的标志。消费主义导致了资源的浪费和环境的恶化。中国传统社会崇尚勤俭节约,提倡节省实用,主张节制
看见小坦克,就要玩开坦克;听见蛙鸣,就要学青蛙跳;拿到雪花积木片,就会想到冬天的漫天风雪;如果没有玩具,幼儿可能呆呆地坐着。这反映了幼儿()。
地球上只有温带才有明显的四季变化,而寒带和热带则是长冬无夏和长夏无冬。其原因是:
Itiscommonknowledgethathealthyfoodssuchasfruitsandvegetablescontaincertainnutrientsthatpromotegoodhealth—namel
A、 B、 C、 C
最新回复
(
0
)