Women’s Positions in the 17th Century
Social circumstances in Early Modern England mostly served to repress women’s voices. Patriarchal culture and institutions constructed them as chaste, silent, obedient, and subordinate. At the beginning of the 17th century, the ideology of patriarchy, political absolutism, and gender hierarchy were reaffirmed powerfully by King James in The Trew Law of Free Monarchie and the Basilikon Doron; by that ideology the absolute power of God the supreme patriarch was seen to be imaged in the absolute monarch of the state and in the husband and father of a family. Accordingly, a woman’s subjection, first to her father and then to her husband, imaged the subjection of English people to their monarch, and of all Christians to God. Also, the period saw an outpouring of repressive or overtly misogynist sermons, tracts, and plays, detailing women’s physical and mental defects, spiritual evils, rebelliousness, shrewish ness, and natural inferiority to men.
Yet some social and cultural conditions served to empower women. During the Elizabethan era (1558—1603) the culture was dominated by a powerful Queen, who provided an impressive female example though she left scant cultural space for other women. Elizabethan women writers began to produce original texts but were occupied chiefly with translation. In the 17th century, however, various circumstances enabled women to write original texts in some numbers. For one thing, some counterweight to patriarchy was provided by female communities—mothers and daughters, extended kinship networks, close female friends, the separate court of Queen Anne (King James’ consort) and her often oppositional masques and political activities. For another, most of these women had a reasonably good education (modern languages, history, literature, religion, music, occasionally Latin) and some apparently found in romances and histories more expansive terms for imagining women’s lives. Also, representation of vigorous and rebellious female characters in literature and especially on the stage no doubt helped to undermine any monolithic social construct of women’s mature and role.
Most important, perhaps, was the radical potential inherent in the Protestant insistence on every Christian’s immediate relationship with God and primary responsibility to follow his or her individual conscience. There is plenty of support in St Paul’s epistles and elsewhere in the Bible for patriarchy and a wife’s subjection to her husband, but some texts (notably Galatians 3:28) inscribe a very different politics, promoting women’s spiritual equality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Jesus Christ.” Such texts encouraged some women to claim the support of God the supreme patriarch against the various earthly patriarchs who claimed to stand toward them in his stead.
There is also the gap or slippage between ideology and common experience. English women throughout the 17th century exercised a good deal of accrual power: as managers of estates in their husbands’ absences at court or on military and diplomatic missions; as members of guilds; as wives and mothers who apex during the English Civil War and Interregnum (1640-60) as the execution of the King and the attendant disruption of social hierarchies led many women to seize new roles—as preachers, as prophetesses, as deputies for exiled royalist husbands, as writers of religious and political tracts.
1. What is the best title for this passage?
[A]. Women’s Position in the 17th Century. [B]. Women’s Subjection to Patriarchy.
[C]. Social Circumstances in the 17th Century. [D]. Women’s objection in the 17th Century.
2. What did the Queen Elizabeth do for the women in culture?
[A]. She set an impressive female example to follow. [B]. She dominated the culture.
[C]. She did little. [D]. She allowed women to translate something.
3. Which of the following is Not mention as a reason to enable women to original texts?
[A].Female communities provided some counterweight to patriarchy. [B]. Queen Anne’s political activities.
[C]. Most women had a good education. [D]. Queen Elizabeth’s political activities.
4. What did the religion so for the women?
[A]. It did nothing. [B]. It too asked women to be obedient except some texts.
[C]. It supported women. [D]. It appealed to the God.
答案ACDB
37
The only way to travel is on foot
The past ages of man have all been carefully labeled by anthropologists. Descriptions like ‘ Palaeolithic Man’, ‘Neolithic Man’, etc., neatly sum up whole periods. When the time comes for anthropologists to turn their attention to the twentieth century, they will surely choose the label ‘Legless Man’. Histories of the time will go something like this: ‘in the twentieth century, people forgot how to use their legs. Men and women moved about in cars, buses and trains from a very early age. There were lifts and escalators in all large buildings to prevent people from walking. This situation was forced upon earth dwellers of that time because of miles each day. But the surprising thing is that they didn’t use their legs even when they went on holiday. They built cable railways, ski-lifts and roads to the top of every huge mountain. All the beauty spots on earth were marred by the presence of large car parks. ’
The future history books might also record that we were deprived of the use of our eyes. In our hurry to get from one place to another, we failed to see anything on the way. Air travel gives you a bird’s-eye view of the world – or even less if the wing of the aircraft happens to get in your way. When you travel by car or train a blurred image of the countryside constantly smears the windows. Car drivers, in particular, are forever obsessed with the urge to go on and on: they never want to stop. Is it the lure of the great motorways, or what? And as for sea travel, it hardly deserves mention. It is perfectly summed up in the words of the old song: ‘I joined the navy to see the world, and what did I see? I saw the sea.’ The typical twentieth-century traveler is the man who always says ‘I’ve been there. ’ You mention the remotest, most evocative place-names in the world like El Dorado, Kabul, Irkutsk and someone is bound to say ‘I’ve been there’ – meaning, ‘I drove through it at 100 miles an hour on the way to somewhere else. ’
When you travel at high speeds, the present means nothing: you live mainly in the future because you spend most of your time looking forward to arriving at some other place. But actual arrival, when it is achieved, is meaningless. You want to move on again. By traveling like this, you suspend all experience; the present ceases to be a reality: you might just as well be dead. The traveler on foot, on the other hand, lives constantly in the present. For him traveling and arriving are one and the same thing: he arrives somewhere with every step he makes. He experiences the present moment with his eyes, his ears and the whole of his body. At the end of his journey he feels a delicious physical weariness. He knows that sound. Satisfying sleep will be his: the just reward of all true travellers.
1、Anthorpologists label nowaday’s men ‘Legless’ because
A people forget how to use his legs. B people prefer cars, buses and trains.
C lifts and escalators prevent people from walking. D there are a lot of transportation devices.
2、Travelling at high speed means
A people’s focus on the future. B a pleasure. C satisfying drivers’ great thrill. D a necessity of life.
3、Why does the author say ‘we are deprived of the use of our eyes’ ?
A People won’t use their eyes. B In traveling at high speed, eyes become useless.
C People can’t see anything on his way of travel. D People want to sleep during travelling.
4、What is the purpose of the author in writing this passage?
A Legs become weaker. B Modern means of transportation make the world a small place.
C There is no need to use eyes. D The best way to travel is on foot.
5. What does ‘a bird’s-eye view’ mean?
A See view with bird’s eyes. B A bird looks at a beautiful view.
C It is a general view from a high position looking down. D A scenic place.
答案AACDC