TASK 7. Agree or disagree with the following statements of the author.

1. ‘A man’s work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, and you can only gain a true knowledge of him by inferences from fleeting expressions, which cross his face unknown to him.’ (p. 154)

2. ‘Descriptions of pictures are dull…’ (p.156)

3. ‘Each one of us is alone in the world.’ Up to the end of this passage. (p. 157- 158)

4. ‘It may be that in order to realize the romance of life you must have something of the actor in you; and, capable of standing outside yourself, you must be able to watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed.’ (p. 161)

5. ‘But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions.’ (p. 163) (fathom - постигать, понимать; subtleties – оттенки, хитрость, коварство; decorous – благопристойное)

6. ‘For in men, as a rule, love is but episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life.’ (p. 162)

7. ‘As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.’ (p. 163)

8. ‘The rogue, like an artist and perhaps the gentleman, belongs to no class.’ (p. 171)

TASK 9. Speak on the following:

1. What do you think about the painters who say that they cannot work unless all the conditions are to their liking? (Плохому танцору и пол мешает.)

2. Have you ever felt ‘a peculiar thrill which it is the property of art to give.’?

3. Do you think the wealthy amateurs who buy the most famous pictures in the world and keep them as their treasured possessions are right in depriving other people from enjoying them in the museums?

4. What do you know about Impressionists and Post-Impressionists in general? Have you ever seen their pictures? If you take Sisley, Degas, Manet, Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh, whose pictures do you like more and why?

5. Do you need to know anything about the author’s technique to admire his/her work of art?

6. Do you like it when the object in a painting does not look like in real life? Do you think it should look like it?

7. Can you name any painters who made a revolution in art? Do you like their pictures?

8. Do you think pictures can speak? What can they tell you? Can you give and example of a picture that told you something?

9. The author was not sure that Strickland had chosen the right medium. What other medium in your opinion could Strickland have chosen?

10. Do you understand why the author felt compassion to Strickland after looking at his pictures?

11. What kind of people are called eternal pilgrims? Can you give example of people like this?

12. Do you think the author was right in his conclusion why Strickland hated Blanche?

13. Did in your opinion Strickland agree with the author’s explanation of his affair with Dirk’s wife? (p. 159)

14. Name all the changes the author could have introduced into the novel if he hadn’t been writing a true narration.

· Wife

· Children

· Old painter

· Prometheus

15. Do you agree with the author that the facts of Strickland’s life in his pre-Paris period are dull? (p. 160)

16. Do you think self-doubt is only the artist’s bitterest enemy?

17. Do you agree with the author’s explanations of Strickland’s and Blanche’s feelings to each other? (p. 162)

18. Why do you think the author put the sign of equality between a lovely woman, the Bay of Naples under the yellow moon and a picture of Titian?

19. Do you agree with the author that Strickland was an odious but great man? Can anything odious be great in your opinion? (Odious- мерзкий)

20. What do you think Strickland’s and Brueghel the Elder had in common? (p. 165)

21. Why do you think the author supposed that Strickland’s medium was literature if the latter according to his words was so taciturn?

22. Why do you think Captain Nichols had to flee from his native country?

23. How do you understand the author’s term ‘the married bachelor’? Why is the definite article used in this case?

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 814