Part IV. Interpretation (20%)
Read the following selections and then answer the questions.
(1)
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought,With forest branches and the trodden weed;Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thoughtAs doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!When old age shall this generation waste,Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woeThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”— that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.
1. What is the title of this poem? Who is the author?
2. What contrast is shown in the poem?
(2)
She was expressing in her own native phrases — assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training — feelings which might almost have been called those of the age: the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition-a more accurate expression, by words in logy and ism, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries.
Still, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so young; more than strange; it was impressive, interesting, pathetic. Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration. Tess’s passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest.
Tess, on her part, could not understand why a man of clerical family and good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. For the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason. But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended to the Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of Uz — as she herself had felt two or three years ago — “My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway.”
It was true that he was at present out of his class. But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright’s yard, he was studying what he wanted to know. He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning how to be a rich and prosperous dairyman, landowner, agriculturist, and breeder of cattle.
3. Which novel is this passage taken from? Who’s the author?
4. What does it mean by Tess’s passing corporeal blight in the passage?
