名篇赏析 5-8.doc

03 Equality and greatness 平等与伟大 Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. Instead of all the workers being leveled down to low wage standards and all the rich leveled up to fashionable income standards, everybody under a system of equal incomes would find her or his own natural level. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiot whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality. By George Bernard Shaw 注释 distinction[dis′ti?k??n]: the condition or fact of being dissimilar or distinct; difference 区别，差别 merit[′merit]: 功绩，荣誉，价值 eminence[′emin?ns]: a position of great distinction or superiority 卓越 作者简介 George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish-born playwright, pamphleteer and music and theater critic. Shaw was a ruthless social critic and irreverent toward institutions. By forging a drama that combined moral passion and intellectual conflict and experimenting with symbolic farce, Shaw helped to reshape the stage of his time and to mold the thought of his own and later generations. His play The Devil’s Disciple became a success in the United States, and Shaw’s next work, Man and Superman (1903) helped establish Shaw’s reputation in London. Among the plays that followed was Saint Joan (1923), for which Shaw received the 1925 Nobel Prize in literature. 萧伯纳，英国戏剧家，1856年7月26日生于爱尔兰都柏林。1885年萧伯纳开始戏剧创作。到1949年为止，共完成剧本51部。1925年获得诺贝尔文学奖。 5 American dream 美国梦 美国梦是一个被众多美国人普遍信仰的信念，即通过努力的工作，非凡的勇气与意志力，每个人都可以致富，实现自己的梦想。机会均等是美国梦的灵魂。聪明、勤奋与坚忍不拔是实现美国梦的必要条件。 To Americans, industrious