新SAT亚洲首考作文解析之写作重点和背景知识
- 2016年05月10日16:18 来源：互联网
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文化领域一直是报刊文章关心的重要话题，就像北美区首考作文致敬独立宣言一样，亚太区首考作文题也似乎像是别具匠心的致敬了亚洲的古国文化。本次阅读材料节选自“Vanity Fair” (美国当代著名生活杂志)，文章主旨是“British government should return original Parthenon structures to Greece”，作者目的是号召英国政府慷慨归还文物以保证希腊帕特农神庙装饰和文化的完整性。
Adapted from Christopher Hitchens, “The Lovely Stones.” ©2009 by Vanity Fair. Originally published June 16, 2009.
1 The great classicist A. W. Lawrence once remarked of the Parthenon that it is “the one building in the world which may be assessed as absolutely right.”
评注：阅读材料以著名古典建筑学家A. W. Lawrence对帕特农神庙的评注开篇，为全文的论证展开打下了坚实的可信度基础。尤其当古典学派的权威人物说到 “the one building in the world which may be assessed as absolutely right.”时，让读者从逻辑上相信神庙建筑工艺之精致，建筑视觉之精美，此时读者对神庙工艺的崇敬之情油然而生。
写作重点：考生抓住专家引言(Expert Quote)这个特证，使用RICE原则逐层展开评析，尤其从作者如何增强可信度角度来分析，并注意此段位于开篇的独特位置。
小知识：
A. W. Lawrence( Arnold Walter Lawrence)，剑桥大学古典建筑系教授，英国著名的古典雕塑和建筑作家。
帕特农神庙：著名的雅典卫城的主体建筑， 一座矗立在卫城的最高点的巍峨的巨型建筑物。
2 Not that the beauty and symmetry of the Parthenon have not been abused and perverted and mutilated. Five centuries after the birth of Christianity the Parthenon was closed and desolated. It was then “converted” into a Christian church, before being transformed a thousand years later into a mosque—complete with minaret at the southwest corner—after the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire. Turkish forces also used it for centuries as a garrison and an arsenal, with the tragic result that in 1687, when Christian Venice attacked the Ottoman Turks, a powder magazine was detonated and huge damage inflicted on the structure. Most horrible of all, perhaps, the Acropolis was made to fly a Nazi flag during the German occupation of Athens
评注：作者从第二段开始追溯到帕特农神庙逐渐被破坏的历史进程。随着几百年来世界历史的宗教变革或战争进程，神庙分别遭受过包括了基督教，清真教，甚至纳粹等各种势力的入侵，占据和破坏。作者回顾神庙的破坏史，并列举大量事例，在事例中使用了“converted”“complete”，“tragic” “huge damage inflicted” “Most horrible of all” 词汇和短语来描述神庙在不同阶段的破坏程度，让读者了解神庙逐步被动遭受毁坏的轨迹，激发读者心底深处的惋惜之情。
写作重点：在本段中考生可以首先抓住事例(Example)这个特证，使用RICE原则逐层展开评析，尤其从作者如何增加说服力角度来分析。同时考生可以抓住措辞(Diction)这个部分与下文的措辞(Diction)同时进行分析。另外还有拟人(Personification)等手法。
小知识：
Converted：特指宗教的皈依, 这里用拟人的手法让读者感受到帕特农神庙被被动占据的无奈。
3 The damage done by the ages to the building, and by past empires and occupations, cannot all be put right. But there is one desecration and dilapidation that can at least be partially undone. Early in the 19th century, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, sent a wrecking crew to the Turkish-occupied territory of Greece, where it sawed off approximately half of the adornment of the Parthenon and carried it away. As with all things Greek, there were three elements to this, the most lavish and beautiful sculptural treasury in human history.
Under the direction of the artistic genius Phidias, the temple had two massive pediments decorated with the figures of Pallas Athena, Poseidon, and the gods of the sun and the moon. It then had a series of 92 high-relief panels, or metopes, depicting a succession of mythical and historical battles. The most intricate element was the frieze, carved in bas-relief, which showed the gods, humans, and animals that made up the annual Pan-Athens procession: there were 192 equestrian warriors and auxiliaries featured, which happens to be the exact number of the city’s heroes who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Experts differ on precisely what story is being told here, but the frieze was quite clearly carved as a continuous narrative. Except that half the cast of the tale is still in Bloomsbury, in London, having been sold well below cost by Elgin to the British government in 1816 for $2.2 million in today’s currency to pay off his many debts.
评注：作者在本段首先给出了英国从神庙拿走了一半装饰物的事例，然后给出关于帕特农神庙装饰物的全景描述，向读者展示了神庙三个完整部分组成的华美壮观的全貌，尤其提及其中檐壁上所雕刻的雅典女神节(Pan-Athens procession)的神话故事，因为被被英国人强行拿走一半装饰物而无法保持艺术审美和故事欣赏的连续。尤其提及英国人用起卖掉用来偿还债务，让读者在为历史文物的史诗般的华美赞叹之余，为现今无法看到全貌而产生浓烈的遗憾情绪，让每一个历史和艺术的爱好者扼腕 叹息的同时，也为作者在下文指出英国拿走文物的不当行为做了有力的铺垫。
写作重点：在本段中考生可以首先抓住描述(Imagery)这个特证，使用RICE原则逐层展开评析，尤其从作者如何让读者形成画面感，并激发读者情感角度来解析。
小知识：
Pan-Athens procession：雅典人对雅典娜的崇拜集中体现在专为雅典娜庆生举行的“大型泛雅典人节”(Panathinaia)上,这个传统节日始于公元前566年,四年一度。
4 There has been a bitter argument about the legitimacy of the British Museum’s deal. I’ve written a whole book about this controversy and won’t oppress you with all the details, but would just make this one point. If the Mona Lisa had been sawed in two during the Napoleonic Wars and the separated halves had been acquired by different museums in, say, St. Petersburg and Lisbon, would there not be a general wish to see what they might look like if re-united? If you think my analogy is overdrawn, consider this: the body of the goddess Iris is at present in London, while her head is in Athens. The front part of the torso of Poseidon is in London, and the rear part is in Athens. And so on. This is grotesque.
评注：作者在第四段提出一个争议性话题，即英国博物馆占有神庙文物的合法性 。作者首先诉诸情感和信誉，提出“I’ve written a whole book about this controversy and won’t oppress you with all the details”， 首先塑造了自己关于神庙文物流向研究领域的深入性和权威性地位，让读者倾向于相信他以下的解释。同时因为作者不强制读者接纳自己所有观点，反而很客观地让读者在情感上觉得更容易接受他关于英国对文物占有合法性的相关辩驳。作者进而使用了类比论证，他先用著名油画蒙娜丽莎做了一个假设性类比，然后用希腊彩虹女神像做了进一步的现实性类比，这两个类比的对象都是人类历史上著名的文化财富，读者彷佛能感受到这些文物被分割后不完美的遗憾，而两个类比又从假设递进到现实，更从不同逐步让读者接受了文物具有不可分割性及英国行为的不合法性。尤其作者提及一旦被分割占据只会造成奇形怪状(grotesque)的后果，让文物的可观赏性大打折扣。
作者中间穿插了反问和虚拟假设等方式，唤起读者对文物被强行分割后果的深思，每个读到此处的人都更赞同英国强行占据文物，并造成其不完整性这一行为是极度不合理。
写作重点：在本段中考生可以首先抓住作者诉诸情感和信誉的部分来从客观性和情感性角度进行解析。或者考生可以选取类比( Analogy)这一特征来从情感说服力角度来解释。 另外措词，反问，虚拟假设等方法也有可分析之处。
小知识：
Goddess Iris: 伊里斯是希腊神话与传说中的彩虹女神，她从东飞到西替众神向生灵传递消息， 她在天空匆匆飞过时会留下一道色彩，形成彩虹。她还指引女人的灵魂到达她们的安息之地，因此蝴蝶花就成了女人墓地上常见的花束，以纪念伊里斯。
