外研版必修二册第四单元阅读讲解

Unit 4 Stage and screen

第38页阅读讲解

When HAMLET meets PEKING OPERA
当《哈姆雷特》遇上京剧

1 I thought I knew a lot about Hamlet. As a high school student with English literature as one of my main subjects, I have to! Shakespeare's Hamlet is probably the most important play by the most important writer in English. Almost everybody knows “To be, or not to be”, right? Having seen quite a few productions of Hamlet and read the play many times, I was full of confidence – until the Peking Opera came to town!
我本以为自己对《哈姆雷特》很了解。作为一名以英语文学为主课的高中生，《哈姆雷特》是我必学的内容！莎士比亚的《哈姆雷特》应该是最重要的英语作家创作的最重要的戏剧了。几乎所有人都知道“生存，还是毁灭”，对吧？我看过好几部《哈姆雷特》的影视作品，这部戏剧我也看了好几遍，因此我充满了信心——直到城里来了京剧表演！

2 Dating back to the 18th century, Peking Opera has over two hundred years of history. Does this mean it's easier than a Shakespeare play to understand? To find out the answer, I just had to go and see The Revenge of Prince Zidan – the Peking Opera version of Hamlet.
京剧的起源可以追溯到18世纪，距今已有两百多年历史。这是否意味着京剧比莎士比亚的戏剧更容易理解？为了找到答案，我必须去看看《王子复仇记》——京剧版的《哈姆雷特》。

3 Starting with an orchestra playing traditional Chinese instruments, the opera brought a completely new sound to my Western ears. At first, I thought what I heard was a violin, but later I learnt that it was an instrument with two strings called jinghu. Then, seeing the main characters come on stage, I was surprised! The costumes and masks were amazing. The performers of course sang in Chinese, but the music, exaggerated movements and mime helped get the meanings across to the audience. The voices themselves sounded really unique – some of the female voices were so high that I was sure they could break glass! And the stage was really simple: a decorated whip represented a horse, and a screen with Chinese characters, a study. Using such techniques, the opera had transformed a small stage into the whole universe.
戏一开场，是乐队弹奏中国传统乐器，我这个西方人的耳朵听到了一种全新的声音。起初，我以为我听到的是小提琴的声音，不过后来我才知道那是一种有两根弦的乐器，叫做京胡。然后，看到主角登场时，我感到十分惊讶！那些服装和脸谱都很棒。当然，演员们的唱词是中文的，但观众可以借助伴奏、夸张的动作和形体模仿来理解表演内容。那些唱腔听起来非常独特——有的女声声调如此之高，以至于我觉得可以震碎玻璃！舞台的布置非常简单：有装饰的马鞭就代表马，写有汉字的屏风就代表书房。通过这些方法，京剧把一个小小的舞台变成了浩瀚的宇宙。

4 Easily my favourite part of the show was how the characters moved on stage. I had never seen Prince Hamlet do a backflip before! That was simply incredible. It was so dazzling and energetic that I wasn't sure if the characters were performers or athletes! Everyone was clapping.
毫无疑问，演出中我最喜欢的部分是人物在舞台上的动作。我从没见过哈姆雷特王子表演后空翻！简直太不可思议了！那眼花缭乱的动作充满力量，我都不确定这些表演者到底是演员还是运动员！大家都使劲儿鼓掌。

5 Before experiencing The Revenge of Prince Zidan, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it. But, in fact, I was on the edge of my seat! Feeling the strong emotions of love, anger, fear and grief in the performance, I could easily recognise the theme of Hamlet. So, if you want to see a show that combines music, singing, drama, poetry and costume design with explosive effect, The Revenge of Prince Zidan ticks all the right boxes!
在亲身体验《王子复仇记》之前，我不知道自己是否会喜欢(京剧)。可事实上，我看得超级投入！通过从表演中感受到的爱、怒、惧、哀等强烈情感，我很容易就能看出《哈姆雷特》的主题。所以，如果你想看一场融合了音乐、演唱、戏剧、诗歌以及惊艳服饰的表演，那么《王子复仇记》再合适不过了！

第44页阅读讲解

Good Book, Bad Movie?
好书坏电影？

1 They say that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, but the briefest look at books and the movies based on them would have anyone questioning this common saying. All too often, great words end up being turned into cinematic “turkeys”.
人们常说“一图胜千词”，但是简单对照一下书籍和由之而改编的电影，就会让人们开始质疑这一说法。很多时候，优秀的文字作品最终却变成电影中的失败之作。

2 Good movies need good stories. If so, why has one of the earliest and greatest works in Western storytelling, Homer's The Odyssey, never had an equally great movie based on it? Movies need strong characters. So why have the movies based on The Great Gatsby never been praised as “great”? Movies of course need impressive images, so why has Alice in Wonderland only resulted in movies best described as “interesting”?
好的电影需要好的故事。若是如此，那为什么西方叙事文本中最早且最优秀的作品之一——荷马的《奥德赛》——从未产生过同样优秀的改编电影呢？电影中需要个性鲜明的人物。那为什么基于《了不起的盖茨比》改编的电影从未被称赞为“优秀”呢？电影当然需要令人印象深刻的画面，那为什么由《爱丽丝梦游仙境》改编的电影顶多被称为“有点意思”呢？

3 One of the key reasons behind this is that while a book usually takes a few days to read, a movie typically lasts under two hours. This means that great books can lose plot details and characters when they move to the big screen. This is something that even the highly successful Harry Potter movies can't escape from, with fans of the books disappointed not to see some of their favourite characters in the movie versions.
这背后的一个重要原因是，一本书通常需要花几天的时间来阅读，而一部电影通常不会超过两小时。这就意味着优秀的书籍被搬上大银幕之后，会删减一些情节和人物。这是连大获成功的“哈利·波特”系列电影也无法避免的事情，有些书迷因为在电影中没看到自己最喜欢的一些角色而感到失望。

4 Movies also disappoint us when things don't look the way we imagined them in the books. Take, for example, the epic movie Troy, which is in part based on Homer's The Iliad and was met with mixed reviews from the audience. The most questionable issue was the actress chosen to play the part of Helen. Many people thought she didn't live up to Helen's title of “the most beautiful woman in the world”, influencing opinions of the movie to some extent.
电影呈现出的事物与我们读书时的想象的有落差时，我们也会备感失望。以史诗电影《特洛伊》为例，该电影部分改编自荷马的《伊利亚特》，观众对它的评论褒贬不一。其中最有争议的问题在于扮演海伦的女演员。许多人认为她配不上海伦“世界上最美丽的女人”这一称号，这在一定程度上影响了人们对这部电影的看法。

5 There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes. Furthermore, books and movies are two different forms of media and therefore have different rules. With this in mind, perhaps we should judge a movie in its own right, and not against its original source. Interestingly, audiences have in recent years turned to television series such as Sherlock or Mad Men, which can have many characters and gradual plot development. Perhaps, one day, readers of F. Scott Fitzgerald's most admired work will find themselves glued to their screens by episodes of The Great Gatsby.
一千个读者就有一千个哈姆雷特。而且书籍和电影是两种不同的媒体形式，因此也遵循不同的原则。考虑到这一点，也许我们应该基于电影本身而不是将其与原始版本进行对比来评价电影。值得注意的是，观众已经逐渐将兴趣转向了《神探夏洛克》或《广告狂人》这样的电视连续剧，因为电视剧能展现更多人物，情节也得以逐步展开。也许有一天，F. 斯科特·菲茨杰拉德最杰出作品的读者们，会发现自己已被《了不起的盖茨比》的剧集深深吸引。