题目内容

DRAMA IN ANCIENT GREECE1 Long before the ancient Greeks could read and write, they learned of their history and culture through epic poetry chanted by bards or singers. The bards chanted stories in standard musical phrases that were accompanied by musical instruments such as the lyre, a general name for any of several stringed instruments favored by the bards. The greatest bard, Homer, was a poet, singer and master of the lyre. According to tradition, Homer was a wandering minstrel who traveled from place to place chanting stories of gods and heroes. Another famous poet, singer, and lyre player was Sappho, who started a school for girls, where she taught the arts of music, poetry, and dance.2 Greek civilization reached a golden age during the fifth century BC, when politics, philosophy, art, architecture, and theater thrived, as they never had before. As the Greeks took new pride in human achievements, they developed ideals of beauty, order, balance, and moderation throughout their culture, particularly in music and drama. Originating in the tradition of the bards, the earliest drama was associated with the worship of the god Dionysus and was an outgrowth of the choral songs and dances performed in the god"s honor. The famous outdoor Theater of Dionysus in Athens illustrated the importance of drama to the Greeks. It was situated on a hillside to take advantage of the natural slope and light, and it could accommodate an audience of 30,000 people. An image of Dionysus was carried in to watch every performance. A chorus of singers, dancers, and musicians, led by a singer who stood on steps above them, performed stories of mythic heroes that educated and entertained the audience while also honoring the god.3 The crucial innovation that turned choral performance into drama is attributed to Thespis, a poet who is said to have originated tragedy. As the chorus sang the story of a hero or god, Thespis would enter the theater as a masked actor. Between songs, he recited verses as a character in the story, and these spoken verses changed what had been a choral monologue into a dialogue between the actor and the chorus. The legacy of Thespis can be seen in the term "thespian," which now describes anything relating to drama.4 Actors of that time wore a large mask made of linen or cork, inside which was a device like a speaking trumpet to amplify the voice. When the actor recited, it was in an exalted monotone, often to the accompaniment of flutes. The chorus enhanced the tragedy with various dances and songs, generally accompanied by the lyre. The actor chanted the lines of the lead character, while the chorus sang the narrative passages. Still, despite the attention the actor received, the chorus and its music continued to dominate dramatic performances with the combined power of singing and dancing.5 Like Thespis, the playwright Aeschylus acted in his own plays, but he added a second masked actor. Now audience attention could be directed to the interplay between the two actors—action and reaction, question and answer, conflict or cooperation—rather than between the actor and chorus. A later playwright, Sophocles, added a third actor. This made possible not only three-way dramatic scenes but also plays with a large cast of characters, since the masks allowed an actor to play more than one part in different scenes. The addition of actors shifted the focus of drama away from the chorus toward the action and dialogue of the characters. The chorus provided narrative links and commentary.6 Playwrights continued to introduce innovations, but essentially they adhered to prescribed conventions. One of these conventions limited the number of scenes in a play to five. The drama always took place in one location and within a short span of time, sometimes a single day. Another convention reflected the society"s sense of balance and order: bloody deeds rarely took place in front of the audience. Therefore, murders, suicides, and other acts of violence occurred offstage. The Greek concept of moderation is reflected in still another convention, in which any character who acted in an excess of passion was usually punished in the story. According to the passage, what did Homer and Sappho have in common

A. Both started a school of the arts.
Both lived in the same century.
C. Both were skilled lyre players.
D. Both acted in plays that they wrote.

查看答案
更多问题

DRAMA IN ANCIENT GREECE1 Long before the ancient Greeks could read and write, they learned of their history and culture through epic poetry chanted by bards or singers. The bards chanted stories in standard musical phrases that were accompanied by musical instruments such as the lyre, a general name for any of several stringed instruments favored by the bards. The greatest bard, Homer, was a poet, singer and master of the lyre. According to tradition, Homer was a wandering minstrel who traveled from place to place chanting stories of gods and heroes. Another famous poet, singer, and lyre player was Sappho, who started a school for girls, where she taught the arts of music, poetry, and dance.2 Greek civilization reached a golden age during the fifth century BC, when politics, philosophy, art, architecture, and theater thrived, as they never had before. As the Greeks took new pride in human achievements, they developed ideals of beauty, order, balance, and moderation throughout their culture, particularly in music and drama. Originating in the tradition of the bards, the earliest drama was associated with the worship of the god Dionysus and was an outgrowth of the choral songs and dances performed in the god"s honor. The famous outdoor Theater of Dionysus in Athens illustrated the importance of drama to the Greeks. It was situated on a hillside to take advantage of the natural slope and light, and it could accommodate an audience of 30,000 people. An image of Dionysus was carried in to watch every performance. A chorus of singers, dancers, and musicians, led by a singer who stood on steps above them, performed stories of mythic heroes that educated and entertained the audience while also honoring the god.3 The crucial innovation that turned choral performance into drama is attributed to Thespis, a poet who is said to have originated tragedy. As the chorus sang the story of a hero or god, Thespis would enter the theater as a masked actor. Between songs, he recited verses as a character in the story, and these spoken verses changed what had been a choral monologue into a dialogue between the actor and the chorus. The legacy of Thespis can be seen in the term "thespian," which now describes anything relating to drama.4 Actors of that time wore a large mask made of linen or cork, inside which was a device like a speaking trumpet to amplify the voice. When the actor recited, it was in an exalted monotone, often to the accompaniment of flutes. The chorus enhanced the tragedy with various dances and songs, generally accompanied by the lyre. The actor chanted the lines of the lead character, while the chorus sang the narrative passages. Still, despite the attention the actor received, the chorus and its music continued to dominate dramatic performances with the combined power of singing and dancing.5 Like Thespis, the playwright Aeschylus acted in his own plays, but he added a second masked actor. Now audience attention could be directed to the interplay between the two actors—action and reaction, question and answer, conflict or cooperation—rather than between the actor and chorus. A later playwright, Sophocles, added a third actor. This made possible not only three-way dramatic scenes but also plays with a large cast of characters, since the masks allowed an actor to play more than one part in different scenes. The addition of actors shifted the focus of drama away from the chorus toward the action and dialogue of the characters. The chorus provided narrative links and commentary.6 Playwrights continued to introduce innovations, but essentially they adhered to prescribed conventions. One of these conventions limited the number of scenes in a play to five. The drama always took place in one location and within a short span of time, sometimes a single day. Another convention reflected the society"s sense of balance and order: bloody deeds rarely took place in front of the audience. Therefore, murders, suicides, and other acts of violence occurred offstage. The Greek concept of moderation is reflected in still another convention, in which any character who acted in an excess of passion was usually punished in the story. Which of the following statements can be inferred from paragraph 1

A. The bards of ancient Greece did not know how to read or write.
B. Music and poetry were part of Greek culture from very early times.
C. A bard had to be highly skilled in building musical instruments.
D. Homer was very influential in the development of Western music.

THE TRIANGLE FACTORY FIRE1 The fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City was one of the worst workplace disasters in the history of labor. The incident highlighted the inhumane working conditions faced by many industrial workers, including low wages, excessively long hours, and an unsanitary and dangerous work environment. The Triangle Waist Company, a shirt factory, was a typical sweatshop in the heart of New York"s garment district. Most of the workers were women, some as young as 15 years old, mostly recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States with their families to seek a better life. Already struggling with a new language and culture, these workers could not speak out about working conditions for fear of losing their desperately needed jobs, and this forced them to endure exploitation by the factory owners.2 On March 25, 1911, one of the five hundred employees of the Triangle Waist factory noticed that a rag bin near her eighth-floor workstation was on fire. She and her co-workers immediately tried to extinguish the flames, but their efforts proved futile, and piles of fabric ignited all over the eighth floor. The factory manager ordered his employees to unroll the fire extinguisher hose, but they found it rotted and useless. Panic erupted as the fire spread.3 The shirt factory occupied the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building. The seventy employees who worked on the tenth floor escaped the fire by way of the staircases or by climbing onto the roof, where students from New York University, located across the street, stretched ladders over to the Asch Building. The 260 workers on the ninth floor had the worst luck of all. Although the eighth-floor workers tried to warn them by telephone, the call did not reach them, and by the time the ninth-floor workers learned about the fire, their routes of escape were mostly blocked. When they found many of the exit doors locked, some managed to climb down the cables of the freight elevator. Others crammed into one narrow stairway. Still others climbed onto the single, inadequately constructed fire escape. However, the fire escape led nowhere, and it bent under the weight of hundreds of workers trying to escape. The spindly structure separated from the wall, falling to the ground and carrying many people with it.4 To combat the disaster, the New York Fire Department sent thirty-five pieces of equipment, including a hook and ladder. The young women trapped on the ninth floor waited on the window ledges to be rescued, only to discover that the ladder, fully raised, stopped far below them at the sixth floor. Water from the hoses could not reach the top floors, and many workers chose to jump to their deaths rather than to burn alive. Within minutes, the factory was consumed by flame, killing 146 workers, mostly immigrant women. City officials set up a temporary morgue in a building on 26th Street, and over the next few days streams of survivors filed through the building to identify the dead.5 The ten-story Asch Building was a firetrap typical of the working conditions of the period, and the Triangle fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and safety precautions were very inadequate. The victims of the fire were trapped by the lack of fire escapes and by management"s practice of locking the exit doors during work hours. The incident had a profound impact on women"s unionism and job safety, affecting local and national politics in the process. An era of progressive reform began to sweep the nation, as people decided that government had a responsibility to ensure that private industry protected the welfare of workers. There was a public outcry for laws to regulate workplace safety. The New York Factory Investigating Commission was formed to examine the conditions in factories throughout the state, and their report led to many new regulations in the years following the fire.6 The fire at the Triangle Waist Company highlighted the excesses of industrialism. The tragedy remains in the collective memory of the labor movement, and the victims of the tragedy are still honored as martyrs at the hands of industrial greed. Why does the author mention the fire extinguisher hose in paragraph 2

A. To emphasize the unsafe working conditions
B. To show the manager"s leadership skills
C. To illustrate the factory"s modern technology
D. To explain how the fire was eventually put out

THE TRIANGLE FACTORY FIRE1 The fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City was one of the worst workplace disasters in the history of labor. The incident highlighted the inhumane working conditions faced by many industrial workers, including low wages, excessively long hours, and an unsanitary and dangerous work environment. The Triangle Waist Company, a shirt factory, was a typical sweatshop in the heart of New York"s garment district. Most of the workers were women, some as young as 15 years old, mostly recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States with their families to seek a better life. Already struggling with a new language and culture, these workers could not speak out about working conditions for fear of losing their desperately needed jobs, and this forced them to endure exploitation by the factory owners.2 On March 25, 1911, one of the five hundred employees of the Triangle Waist factory noticed that a rag bin near her eighth-floor workstation was on fire. She and her co-workers immediately tried to extinguish the flames, but their efforts proved futile, and piles of fabric ignited all over the eighth floor. The factory manager ordered his employees to unroll the fire extinguisher hose, but they found it rotted and useless. Panic erupted as the fire spread.3 The shirt factory occupied the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building. The seventy employees who worked on the tenth floor escaped the fire by way of the staircases or by climbing onto the roof, where students from New York University, located across the street, stretched ladders over to the Asch Building. The 260 workers on the ninth floor had the worst luck of all. Although the eighth-floor workers tried to warn them by telephone, the call did not reach them, and by the time the ninth-floor workers learned about the fire, their routes of escape were mostly blocked. When they found many of the exit doors locked, some managed to climb down the cables of the freight elevator. Others crammed into one narrow stairway. Still others climbed onto the single, inadequately constructed fire escape. However, the fire escape led nowhere, and it bent under the weight of hundreds of workers trying to escape. The spindly structure separated from the wall, falling to the ground and carrying many people with it.4 To combat the disaster, the New York Fire Department sent thirty-five pieces of equipment, including a hook and ladder. The young women trapped on the ninth floor waited on the window ledges to be rescued, only to discover that the ladder, fully raised, stopped far below them at the sixth floor. Water from the hoses could not reach the top floors, and many workers chose to jump to their deaths rather than to burn alive. Within minutes, the factory was consumed by flame, killing 146 workers, mostly immigrant women. City officials set up a temporary morgue in a building on 26th Street, and over the next few days streams of survivors filed through the building to identify the dead.5 The ten-story Asch Building was a firetrap typical of the working conditions of the period, and the Triangle fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and safety precautions were very inadequate. The victims of the fire were trapped by the lack of fire escapes and by management"s practice of locking the exit doors during work hours. The incident had a profound impact on women"s unionism and job safety, affecting local and national politics in the process. An era of progressive reform began to sweep the nation, as people decided that government had a responsibility to ensure that private industry protected the welfare of workers. There was a public outcry for laws to regulate workplace safety. The New York Factory Investigating Commission was formed to examine the conditions in factories throughout the state, and their report led to many new regulations in the years following the fire.6 The fire at the Triangle Waist Company highlighted the excesses of industrialism. The tragedy remains in the collective memory of the labor movement, and the victims of the tragedy are still honored as martyrs at the hands of industrial greed. The author argues that the cause of the disaster was

A. a careless worker with a cigarette
B. the poor telephone system in the factory
C. the slow response by the fire department
D. the lack of fire safety measures

THE TRIANGLE FACTORY FIRE1 The fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City was one of the worst workplace disasters in the history of labor. The incident highlighted the inhumane working conditions faced by many industrial workers, including low wages, excessively long hours, and an unsanitary and dangerous work environment. The Triangle Waist Company, a shirt factory, was a typical sweatshop in the heart of New York"s garment district. Most of the workers were women, some as young as 15 years old, mostly recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States with their families to seek a better life. Already struggling with a new language and culture, these workers could not speak out about working conditions for fear of losing their desperately needed jobs, and this forced them to endure exploitation by the factory owners.2 On March 25, 1911, one of the five hundred employees of the Triangle Waist factory noticed that a rag bin near her eighth-floor workstation was on fire. She and her co-workers immediately tried to extinguish the flames, but their efforts proved futile, and piles of fabric ignited all over the eighth floor. The factory manager ordered his employees to unroll the fire extinguisher hose, but they found it rotted and useless. Panic erupted as the fire spread.3 The shirt factory occupied the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building. The seventy employees who worked on the tenth floor escaped the fire by way of the staircases or by climbing onto the roof, where students from New York University, located across the street, stretched ladders over to the Asch Building. The 260 workers on the ninth floor had the worst luck of all. Although the eighth-floor workers tried to warn them by telephone, the call did not reach them, and by the time the ninth-floor workers learned about the fire, their routes of escape were mostly blocked. When they found many of the exit doors locked, some managed to climb down the cables of the freight elevator. Others crammed into one narrow stairway. Still others climbed onto the single, inadequately constructed fire escape. However, the fire escape led nowhere, and it bent under the weight of hundreds of workers trying to escape. The spindly structure separated from the wall, falling to the ground and carrying many people with it.4 To combat the disaster, the New York Fire Department sent thirty-five pieces of equipment, including a hook and ladder. The young women trapped on the ninth floor waited on the window ledges to be rescued, only to discover that the ladder, fully raised, stopped far below them at the sixth floor. Water from the hoses could not reach the top floors, and many workers chose to jump to their deaths rather than to burn alive. Within minutes, the factory was consumed by flame, killing 146 workers, mostly immigrant women. City officials set up a temporary morgue in a building on 26th Street, and over the next few days streams of survivors filed through the building to identify the dead.5 The ten-story Asch Building was a firetrap typical of the working conditions of the period, and the Triangle fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and safety precautions were very inadequate. The victims of the fire were trapped by the lack of fire escapes and by management"s practice of locking the exit doors during work hours. The incident had a profound impact on women"s unionism and job safety, affecting local and national politics in the process. An era of progressive reform began to sweep the nation, as people decided that government had a responsibility to ensure that private industry protected the welfare of workers. There was a public outcry for laws to regulate workplace safety. The New York Factory Investigating Commission was formed to examine the conditions in factories throughout the state, and their report led to many new regulations in the years following the fire.6 The fire at the Triangle Waist Company highlighted the excesses of industrialism. The tragedy remains in the collective memory of the labor movement, and the victims of the tragedy are still honored as martyrs at the hands of industrial greed. According to the passage, how did many workers on the top floor manage to escape the fire

A. On the fire escape
B. On the elevator
C. On ladders
D. On ropes

答案查题题库