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Чтение на английском

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English Reading - Чтение на английском Agnes REPPLIER - The Mission of Humour


Рассылка "English Reading" - http://www.english-reading-time.blogspot.com

Посмотреть архив выпусков - http://www.english-2days.narod.ru/archive.html.

Agnes Repplier (1858 – 1950)

Born in Philadelphia, USA. She wrote Books and Men (1888), Points of Friction (1920), To Think of Tea! (1932), In Pursuit of Laughter (1936).

American humour is the pride of American hearts. It is held to be our splendid national characteristic, which we flaunt in the faces of other nations, conceiving them to have been less favoured by Providence. Just as the most effective way to disparage an author or an acquaintance--and we have often occasion to disparage both—is to say that he lacks a sense of humour, so the most effective criticism we can pass upon a nation is to deny it this valuable quality. American critics have written the most charming things about the keenness of American speech, the breadth and insight of American drollery, the electric current in American veins; and we, reading these pleasant felicitations, are wont to thank God with greater fervour than the occasion demands that we are more merry and wise than our neighbours. Mr. Brander Matthews, for example, has told us that there are newspaper writers in New York who have cultivated a wit, "not unlike Voltaire's." He mistrusts this wit because he finds it "corroding and disintegrating"; but he makes the comparison with that casual assurance which is a feature of American criticism.

Indeed, our delight in our own humour has tempted us to overrate both its literary value and its corrective qualities. We are never so apt to lose our sense of proportion as when we consider those beloved writers whom we hold to be humourists because they have made us laugh. It may be conceded that, as a people, we have an abiding and somewhat disquieting sense of fun. We are nimble of speech, we are more prone to levity than to seriousness, we are able to recognize a vital truth when it is presented to us under the familiar aspect of a jest, and we habitually allow ourselves certain forms of exaggeration, accepting, perhaps unconsciously, Hazlitt's verdict: "Lying is a species of wit, and shows spirit and invention." It is true also that no adequate provision is made in this country for the defective but valuable class without humour, which in England is exceedingly well cared for. American letters, American journalism, and American speech are so coloured by pleasantries, so accentuated by ridicule, that the silent and stodgy men, who are apt to represent a nation's real strength, hardly know where to turn for a little saving dullness. A deep vein of irony runs through every grade of society, making it possible for us to laugh at our own bitter discomfiture, and to scoff with startling distinctness at the evils which we passively permit.

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Другие полезные ресурсы для изучающих английский язык:

YouTube: канал english2days (учебные видеоклипы по грамматике и лексике)

Сайты:

* Английский за 2 дня (сайт для изучающих английский язык)

* Top 1000s Words (первые 1000 английских слов)

* English Speaking Bay (интернет-магазин)

Блоги:

* English-2Days' Blog (новости сайта "Английский за 2 дня")

* 1000 английских слов на каждый день (лексика английского языка)

* Английские предлоги (все об английских предлогах)

* English Songs (видео + тексты популярных песен)

Почтовые рассылки (подписаться можно на сайте "Английский за 2 дня" здесь, а также посмотреть архив):

* D'you Speak English? - Yes, I Do! (разговорные фразы на каждый день)

* Английский для бизнеса (тексты, словарь, видео по деловому английскому)

* О, эти английские предлоги! (все английские предлоги, правила использования и тесты)

* Учёба за рубежом (международные тесты по английскому языку, университеты и бизнес-школы)

* 2000 самых распространенных английских слов (слова с транскрипцией и переводом, цитаты, пословицы и поговорки, отрывки из текстов с переводом)

* Чтение на английском языке (антология англоязычной литературы, оригинал с переводом, ссылка на бесплатное скачивание, аудио- и видео иллюстрации)

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