2010年考研英语(一)阅读理解全文翻译及解析.doc

Text 1 ? ?? ①Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage. ??? ①It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. ②Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. ③ To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies. ??? ①??We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War 2,at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared. ②In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. ③Theirs was a serious business. and even those reviews who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. ④These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. ⑤So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in ournalism,Newman wrote, that I am tempted to define journalism as a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are. ?? ①Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. ②Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. ③During his lifetime, though, he was also one of Englands foremost classical-music critics,