新视野大学英语读写教程第四册第二单元A篇原文和翻译.docVIP

unit2 Charlie Chaplin He was born in a poor area of south London. He wore his mother#39;s old red stockings cut down for ankle socks. His mother was temporarily declared mad. Dickens might have created Charlie Chaplin#39;s childhood. But only Charle Chaplin could have created the great comic character of quot; the Tramp quot;, the little man in rags who gave his creator permanent fame. Other countries ?a France, Italy, Spain, even Japan and Korea ?a have provided more applause (and profit) where Chaplin is concerned than the land of his birth. Chaplin quit Britain for good in 1913 when he journeyed to America with a group of performers to do his comedy act on the stage where talent scouts recruited him to work for Mack Sennett, the king of Hollywood comedy films. Sad to say, many English people in the 1920#39;s and 1930#39;s thought Chaplin#39;s Tramp a bit, well, quot; crude quot;. Certainly middle-class audiences did; the working-class audiences were more likely to clap for a character who revolted against authority, using his wicked little cane to trip it up, or aiming the heel of his boot for a well-placed kick at its broad rear. All the same, Chaplin#39;s comic beggar didn#39;t seem all that English or even working class. English tramps didn#39;t sport tiny moustaches, huge pants or tail coats: European leaders and Italian waiters wore things like that. Then again, the Tramp#39;s quick eye for a pretty girl had a coarse way about it that was considered, well, not quite nice by English audiences ?a that#39;s how foreigners behaved, wasn#39;t it? But for over half of his screen career, Chaplin had no screen voice to confirm his British nationality. Indeed, it was a headache for Chaplin when he could no longer resist the talking movies and had to find quot;the right voicequot; for his Tramp. He postponed that day as long as possible: in Modern Times in 1936, the first film in which he was heard as a singing waiter, he made up a nonsense language which sounded l