TEXT D Given Shakespeare’s popularity as an actor and a playwright and his conspicuous financial success, it was not surprising that jealous rivals began to snipe at his work. In later centuries, a common charge was that Shakespeare did not invent many of his plots but took his basic stories from well-known English history and old legends instead. It is quite true that these sources have been used by many English dramatists. But what Shakespeare did to the common facts is wholly remarkable: he invented new characters, transformed old ones, created a gallery of kings, maidens, courtiers, warriors and clowns of startling psychological depth. He rearranged familiar tales with an extraordinary gift for drama, comedy and fantasy. And over all this Work, so rich with soaring language and glistening poetry, he cast an unprecedented mood of grandeur and glory. Never had the theatre been showered with such lyricism and passion, such insight and profundity. But how could a man of so little education produce such masterful works Did Shakespeare, in fact, write the plays Through the centuries, some have suggested Francis Bacon was the "real" Shakespeare. But the mystery-author theorists conveniently ignore an indisputable fact: numerous contemporaries stated that William Shakespeare of Stratford and London was the author of all but a few plays in the present canon. Ben Jonson knew him well, as did theatre owners, and the actors who signed the validating foreword to the definitive First Folio (1623) edition of his work. That Shakespeare was not "educated" means only that he had not endured the dry curriculum of Oxford or Cambridge in those days. Shakespeare was, in fact, a wide reader with an inquisitive mind and a confidence in his own perceptions. John Deyden observed: "He was naturally learned" And Shakespeare certainly "read" tile nature of human behavionr-male and female, monarchs and jesters, peasants and buffoons. It was his imaginative range, his jewelled language, his skill as a storyteller-rather than his erudition-that made him the wonder of the world. In one revolutionary step, the dramatist from Avon broke away from the stereotyped morality plays that dominated the English stage. He preached no sermons; he offered no pious warnings; he treated good, evil, virtue and sin as would a psychologist, not a priest. His cool objectivity in rendering human passions has incurred the wrath of many a righteous soul, and even the great Samuel Johnson chastised Shakespeare for writing "without any moral purpose". It was precisely this aspect of Shakespeare, this relentless analytic stance, embroidered with poetry of luminous beauty , that ushered in what can, without exaggeration, be called the modern theatre. Shakespeare destroyed the reigning, stultifying over-simplifications of Elizabethan drama. He dared to show heroes with flaws and doubts and unheroic impulses; heroines whose chastity was at war with their carnality; petty and fearful kings; queens who were monsters, and princes who were charlatans; villains overwhelmed by guilt or even tempted by virtue-in short, a parade of characters caught, as men and women truly are, in the conflict of emotions and the paradoxes of human dilemmas. What distinguishes Shakespeare from the other English dramatists who also used well- known English history and old legends as sources
A. His recreation of familiar tales.
B. His competence in foreign languages.
C. His own experience as an actor.
D. His Roetic passion:
TEXT E The sense of honour appears to be dying. Who fights duels to defend his reputation anymore The idea merely strikes us as odd. How often does someone resign public office as a form of protest against his government’s policies about this or that Most of us submerge our consciences in the policies of our company or organisation (and in our own self-interest) and regard loyalty as more important than dishonour. We had an honour code when I went to college; that was in the late 1950s. During exams no one monitored you: instructors came in, handed out the blue books, handed out the exams, and left. During the four years I was there, I can recall only one case of cheating. Students simply did not break the code. In World War Il men died more or less willingly for the nation and the nation’s honour, and they were honoured for it in return. Now we have become cynical about such things; the nation lies, fights unjustifiable wars; the nation robs the poor to give to the rich. At my college the students used to agree to inform on their friends rather than suffer a breach in the honour code. A sense of honour is a sense that there are standards of behaviour one must live up to, even at the cost of one’s personal happiness, even at the cost of one’s life. Without such a sense one has to make up one’s rights and wrongs as one goes along--usually, as it happens, to one’s own advantage. Morality thereby becomes a matter of expedience: nothing seems worth dying for, and life loses its beauty and some of its value. Our recent history has deprived us of models. I cherish the story of John Stubbs, a Puritan divine of Queen Elizabeth’s time who strongly opposed her projected marriage to the Duke of Alencon. Stubbs knew the penalty for doing so, which was the loss of a hand; nevertheless, he published a pamphlet against, the marriage. He was accordingly tried, convicted, and led out for public execution of the sentence. Stubbs laid his right hand on the block, the ax fell, and he rose to his feet, lifted the bloody stump high in the air, and cried out to the crowd, "Long live the queen!" In spite of the blood and the horror, it is the beauty of such an act that stands out. A man lives up to his beliefs; he acts with courage and great style and literally gives himself in the service of something he feels is greater than himself. We cannot help but honour him, whether we agree with his beliefs or not, The main idea of the passage is that______.
A. more students cheat on exams now than in the past
B. each era has a different concept of honour
C. there are still many individuals today who have a sense of honour
D. our society no longer values a sense of honour