时间:2019-01-14 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2012年(二月)


英语课

Dickens' Fans Mark 200th Anniversary of his Birth


This is Portsmouth, about 100 kilometers south of London. It's a city with a proud past, one of the main homes of the British Navy.

Tourists come here to see the historic port. But though the cultural heritage is rich, the city is not.

Many people here are on welfare. The navy does not employ as many as it once did. The city's last remaining shipbuilder, providing a livelihood 1 to 1,500 families, is under threat of closure.

But Portsmouth does have one thing it can never lose.

It's where one of Britain's most famous novelists, Charles Dickens, was born on February 7, 1812.

Portsmouth wants to make the most of its famous son.

The final touches are being put on a special exhibit at the city library. The star attraction - the original manuscript of Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens' third novel.

City council member Lee Hunt:

"We're going to get millions more people visiting our city, spending their money here," said Hunt. "Of course, those millions more people are going to arouse a curiosity of local children. Some, only some, who can't read and we hope that this whole celebration encourages them to pick up a Dickens novel and start reading."

Portsmouth may have been the city of Dickens' birth, but it was London where he spent much of his later childhood and adult life. It's locations in this city that spring to mind when you picture scenes or images in his novels. London's poor houses may have gone, but warehouses 2 and old style arcades 3 like these ones here in St. Katherine's dock in the east of the city center will be familiar to readers.

There are many locations central to Dickens' life and novels within just a few minutes' walk of this famous tourist spot.

Christopher West leads Dickens tours around these neighborhoods, taking visitors, for example, to the site of the old Marshalsea Prison on the other side of the river, where Dickens' father was jailed for not paying his debts.

West says Dickens still fascinates his audience.

“He was championing the problems of not enough health care, not enough police, problems in school, problems in parliament, problems in the law, banking 4 in particular," said West. "While we still have these problems - very relevant today.”

Here's West's favorite passage - it's from Great Expectations...

"In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice," quotes West.

Powerful stuff now, as it would have been then. And will be, he says, in another 200 years.



n.生计,谋生之道
  • Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
  • My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。
仓库,货栈( warehouse的名词复数 )
  • The whisky was taken to bonded warehouses at Port Dundee. 威士忌酒已送到邓迪港的保稅仓库。
  • Row upon row of newly built warehouses line the waterfront. 江岸新建的仓库鳞次栉比。
n.商场( arcade的名词复数 );拱形走道(两旁有商店或娱乐设施);连拱廊;拱形建筑物
  • Clothes are on sale in several shopping arcades these days. 近日一些服装店的服装正在大减价。 来自轻松英语会话---联想4000词(下)
  • The Plaza Mayor, with its galleries and arcades, is particularly impressive. 市长大厦以其别具风格的走廊和拱廊给人留下十分深刻的印象。 来自互联网
n.银行业,银行学,金融业
  • John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
  • He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。
学英语单词
academic editing
advertising expert
alfoil
alomars
antigastrin
apparent superluminal velocity
aspidium oleoresin
balance disc
bang up job
bartholian cyst
benign lipoblastoma
bezique
Bis-2-Ethyl-Hexyl-Phthalate
blanket washing machine
bunker fuel
ceilometry
centering fixture
combination variance
convergence spasm
corium erinacei
cotectic
cross removal
currency flows
Cyberdog
Dicrocoeliidae
differential-piston
direct-cut operation
dolichaster
electroanalgesia
ferricinum ion
finite observation time
flec
fluctuations in exchange
frequency booster
frequency coding
genus Argyrotaenia
geographical general name
glass faceplate
grading panel
grow up like mushrooms
herbaceous cover
hexyl group
high-temperature plasma physics
highly charged particle
horse gentians
household and population effect on aggregate consumption
hub in network
hypocrea lenta
indicator diagram, indicator card
initializing declaration
irritating gas
Kylestrome
lightwaters
low-head screen
lying around
mercury-contact switch
Meriones unguiculatus
metal-oxide-semiconductor array
metapyamine
monk's shoe
nominal rate.
non-purging type bulimia nervosa
non-volitional
nulla bona
panfrying
Paradombeya
Potier's electromotive force
probate division
proper journal
Ramus lateralis
receptor-effector system
requested dosage form
self renewal
shaving
shienarans
simple aerial cableway
sincock
sludge boat
soil sample
spastic spinal paralyses
Spurway syndrome
suite by chance
Sumarokovo
syntax error message
testicular sarcoma
the half poussette
thrust upon
transition of shots
tuclase
tutorship
two-section
unfothered
unlevel luffing
uranographia
velocity antiresonance
village forest
waiter's assistant
Wallis Warfield Windsor
well connected
without saying a word
zildes
zinc gahnite