文章背景介绍

1. Author

1) John Ciardi: American poet, editor, critic, author of books for children, nonfiction writer, and translator (of Dante’s The Divine Comedy: “The Inferno”, “The Purgatorio”, and “The Paradiso”).

2) Author’s quotes: “The day will happen whether or not you get up.”; “You do not have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.”; “A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.”

2. Aristotle, Chaucer, Bach

1) Aristotle

One of the greatest thinkers of all time, an ancient Greek philosopher. His work in the natural and social sciences greatly influenced virtually every area of modern thinking.

Aristotle threw himself wholeheartedly into Plato’s pursuit of truth and goodness. Plato was soon calling him the “mind of the school”. In later years he renounced some of Plato’s theories and went far beyond him in breadth of knowledge.

In the early Middle Ages the only works of his known in Western Europe were parts of his writings on logic. They became the basis of one of the three subjects of the medieval trivium (三学科)—logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Early in the 13th century other books reached the West. Some came from Constantinople; others were brought by the Arabs to Spain. Medieval scholars translated them into Latin.

The best known of Aristotle’s writings that have been preserved are Organon (工具论) (treatises on logic), Rhetoric, Poetics, History of Animals, Metaphysics (玄学), De Anima (on psychology), Nicomachean Ethics, Politics and Constitution of Athens.

2) Chaucer

The Father of the English Language as well as the Morning Star of Song, one of the three or four greatest English poets.

• Playfulness of mood and simplicity of expression.

• Most famous work was the Canterbury Tales.

3) Bach

Bach is considered by many to have been the greatest composer in the history of western music.

Bach's main achievement lies in his synthesis and advanced development of the primary contrapuntal idiom of the late Baroque, and in the basic tunefullness of his thematic material.

Bach is also known for the numerical symbolism and mathematical exactitude which many people have found in his music—for this, he is often regarded as one of the pinnacle geniuses of western civilization.

3. Dante, Homer, La Rochefoucauld

1) Dante

One of the greatest poets in the history of world literature, Italian writer Alighieri Dante composed poetry influenced by classical and Christian tradition.

Dante’s greatest work—epic poem: The Divine Comedy, 1802. It includes three sections:

• the “Inferno” (Hell), in which the great classical poet Virgil leads Dante on a trip through hell;

• the “Purgatorio” (Purgatory), in which Virgil leads Dante up the mountain of purification; and

• the “Paradiso” (Paradise), in which Dante travels through heaven.

2) Homer

Homer name traditionally assigned to the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the two major epics of Greek antiquity.

3) La Rochefoucauld

The literary reputation of La Rochefoucauld rests on one book: Maxims, published in 1665. These moral reflections and maxims are a collection of cynical epigrams, or short sayings, about human nature—a nature that the author felt is dominated by self-interest.

4. Virgil, Shakespeare

1) Virgil

The greatest of the ancient Roman poets. His works:

• “Eclogues” (牧歌)—pastoral poems

• the “Georgics” (田园诗)—a more serious work on the art of farming and the charms of country life (This established his fame as the foremost poet of his age.)

• his great epic, the “Aeneid” (叙事诗), which exercised a tremendous influence upon Latin and later Christian literature

2) Shakespeare

English playwright and poet whose body of works is considered the greatest in English literature. His plays, many of which were performed at the Globe Theatre in London, include historical works, such as Richard II, comedies, including Much Ado About Nothing (庸人自扰), The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It, and tragedies, such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. He also composed 154 sonnets.

5. Neanderthal

The Neanderthal was a species of genus Homo that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago (the Middle Paleolithic and Lower Paleolithic, in the Pleistocene epoch).

Neanderthals were adapted to cold, as shown by their larger brains, short but robust builds and large nose. These traits are promoted by natural selection in cold climates, and are also observed in modern sub-arctic populations. Their brains were roughly 10 percent larger than those of modern humans. On average, Neanderthals stood about 1.65m tall and were very muscular, comparable to modern weight-lifters.

通过学生和教师的双重准备，学生不仅对文章背景有了一个清晰的认识，同时也锻炼了学生勇于表达的勇气。