彭蒙惠英语：Much Ado about Shakespeare’s Hometown（在线收听）

Much Ado about Shakespeare’s Hometown

By Anne Chalfant

  ©2004 Contra Costa Times,

Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Distributed by Tribune Media Services

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The man peppered his writing with unspeakable violence and feverish desire. He then stirred in noble enterprise and romance, creating a famous recipe: the most enduringly popular works in English literature, otherwise known as the writings of William Shakespeare.

So where did all that turmoil come from? When reaching Stratford-upon-Avon, travelers will find few clues to Shakespeare’s love of probing the recesses of human nature. The swans bobbing along the pretty River Avon are mute. Nothing about the softly rolling green hills points to the origins of murderous Macbeth.

Who was Shakespeare?

Even 400 years after he lived here, William Shakespeare’s footsteps are surprisingly easy to trace in Stratford. He was a well-schooled middle-class lad, the son of a prosperous merchant. Though the seeker will not see roots of the playwright’s subjects, it is a quieting experience to walk the stone floors of his home, where the worn path once felt his footfall. It is also startling to see this man’s simple grave, just a few feet in front of the altar in the town’s Holy Trinity Church.

Since no likeness of the playwright was made in his lifetime, a statue above his gravestone is the closest we have. It is the basis for all his images today.

Birthplace

Shakespeare’s Birthplace, an attractive two-story home, feeds the visitor’s curiosity. The shop attached to the home, where young William worked with his father, may reveal one clue to the writer’s careful sculpting of words and sentences until they fit a plot like a glove. John Shakespeare was a glove maker, and fancy gloves indicated high status in the 16th century. Queen Elizabeth I, an enormously powerful monarch, loved this fashion for the hands. Fine crafting and precision fitting were skills young William learned at his father’s side. Perhaps these standards were later applied to crafting words.

Vocabulary Focus

pepper (v) [5pepE] to include a lot of one particular thing in something

recess (n) [ri5ses] a secret or hidden place

likeness (n) [5laiknis] a painting or other representation of a person that looks very like him or her

fit like a glove (idiom) to fit perfectly or be perfectly suited to something else; a perfect match

Specialized Terms

playwright (n) 剧作家 a person who writes plays

monarch (n) 君主 a nation’s king or queen