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Lesson Nine A Dill Pickle

Part OneWarm upI. Dictation

Katherine Mansfield (1888—1923), British short-story writer, was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She is considered one of the greatest masters of the short-story form. At the age of 18 she settled in London to study music and to establish herself as a writer. In 1918 she married English literary critic ，John Middleton Murry.

Mansfield's middle class provided the setting for many of her stories and mortality—perhaps due to her illness—dominated her writing. Her background years were burdened with loneliness , illness, jealousy and alienation —all reflected from her work in the bitter depiction of marital and family relationships of her middle-class characters.

As a New Zealand's most famous writer, she was closely associated with D.H. Lawrence and something of a rival of Virginia Woolf. Her short stories are also notable for their use of . Much influenced by Russian writer Anton Chekhov, Mansfield depicted events and _____ changes in human behavior.

II. Poem Appreciation

Camomile Tea ——by Katherine Mansfield Outside the sky is light with stars; There's a hollow roaring from the sea. And, alas! for the little almond flowers, The wind is shaking the almond tree. How little I thought, a year ago, In the horrible cottage upon the Lee That he and I should be sitting so And sipping a cup of camomile tea. Light as feathers the witches fly, The horn of the moon is plain to see; By a firefly under a jonquil flower A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.

We might be fifty, we might be five, So snug, so compact, so wise are we! Under the kitchen-table leg

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My knee is pressing against his kneeOur shutters are shut, the fire is low, The tap is dripping peacefully; The saucepan shadows on the wall Are black and round and plain to see.

Part Two Background Information I. Author Katherine

Mansfield1888–1923, British author, born in New Zealand

Her original name was Kathleen Beauchamp. She is regarded as one of the masters of the short story. A talented cellist (大提琴演奏家), she did not turn to literature until 1908.

Her WorksIn a German Pension (1911), her first published book.Bliss (1920) which collected Mansfield's family memoirs and secured her reputation as a writer. The Garden Party (1922), her finest work written during the final stages of her illness which established her as a major writer.

Later volumes of stories include The Dove’s Nest (1923) and Something Childish (1924; U.S. ed. The Little Girl, 1924).

Other collections and poems: journal, letters, and scrapbook (edited by her husband) .

Her Adventurous Spirit1.Famously, Mansfield remarked \everything\

2.It was largely through her adventurous spirit, her eagerness to grasp at experience and to succeed in her work, that she became ensnared in disaster. . . If she was never a saint, she was certainly a martyr, and a heroine in her recklessness, her dedication and her courage.

3.Her last words were: \Her StyleMansfield's stories, which reveal the influence of Chekhov, are simple in form, luminous and evocative in substance. With delicate plainness they present elusive moments of decision, defeat, and small triumphThemes of Mansfield's novels

Themes: different human relationships interacting with each other; social classes and inequality in bourgeois society;

the frenzied exhortation to live, which is central to all her writings; the opposition of convention and nature;

the elevation of the great artist as the model for living and, by extension; art as a means of being\

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a function of desiring—to want something strongly enough is to legitimise the means of getting it.

In her most persuasive work, Mansfield found a way of

pressing the threads of such a credo into the weave of her fiction. The story of the rises and falls in Mansfield's popularity is fasci5nating, as it shifts with the major social, political and literary trends.

Mansfield's portrayal of social classes and the injustices of bourgeois society had obvious appeal to the Chinese. One of the translators, Tang Baoxin, writes: “With remorseless irony she lays bare the hypocrisy and shallowness of the leisured class and their men of letters.”Her Feministic Remarks on Women 1.\—are not you? The idea of sitting and waiting for a husband is absolutely revolting and it really is the attitude of a great many girls. . . It rather made me smile to read of your wishing you could create your fate—O how many times I have felt just the same. I just long for power over circumstances.\

Her Influence on the Short Story 1.Her influence on the development of the short story as a form of literature was also notable. Among her literary friends were Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, who considered her overpraised, and D.H. Lawrence.

2.\—the only writing I have ever been jealous of.\ —Virginia WoolfHer Quotes1.Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it is only good for wallowing in...

2.I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing...

3.Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order...

II. Dill PickleCucumber reserved in salty and spicy water with such

ingredients as pepper, garlic, dill and vinegar. In Russia, it is eaten with hamburger as an appetizer III. Pictures Kew Gardens

1.Kew Gardens, on the banks of the River Thames in southwest London, represents 250 years of landscape and garden history. The site also houses 40

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historically significant buildings, including Kew Palace, Queen Charlotte's Cottage, and the Palm House.

Kew Palace was the home of Augusta, Princess of Wales in the 18th centuryThe Palm House has 10 miles (16 kilometers) of stainless steel glazing bars. Corsica

Corsica, a region of France, was ruled over the centuries by the Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Goths and Saracens. It was eventually sold to France by the Genoese.

Located in the western Mediterranean, just to the north of Sardinia, it's 160 km (99 miles) southeast of Nice, France, and 82 km (51 miles) west of Tuscany, Italy.

Famous for its independent spirit, rugged beauty, olive oil, wine and citrus fruit, Corsica was the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Corte is the natural boundary between Corsica of North and Corsica of South. It reigns as a sentry from the top of its rocky peak, over the valleys where the Tavignano and the Restonica have cut from their torrents gorges so beautiful that they are classified as a \

Like a masterpiece that the final touch must sublimate, the gods only could give Corsica, in its extreme south, a unique place of interest. This one takes the look of a white ship which proudly attacks the open sea: Bonifacio ! The Volga

The Volga River is the longest river in Europe, about 2,300 miles (3,700 km). It originates at an elevation of only 740 feet (225 m) in the Valday Hills northwest of Moscow, and connects with the Rybinsk Reservoir. The river heads east past Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. From there it turns south past Samara and Volgograd. At Volgograd, it links, through canals, with the Don River and Black Sea. Since the initial elevation is so low, the river flows slowly, and finally enters the Caspian Sea, below sea level in a wide delta near Astrakhan.

In winter the river freezes to a depth of about 6 feetThe Volga River, being the longest in Europe has many cruise boats passing on its ways every day. The Black SeaThe Black Sea (known as the Euxine Sea in antiquity) is an inland sea between southeastern Europe and Asia Minor. It is connected to the Mediterranean Sea by the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara, and to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch.

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The most important river entering the Black Sea is the Danube. The Black Sea has an area of 422,000 km2 and a maximum depth of 2,210 m.

The Bulgarian coastline of the Black Sea doesn't have many islands. Those that exist are mostly small, uninhabited and covered with algae.

Countries bordering on the Black Sea are Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia.

From this map, we can see that important cities along the coast include: Istanbul, Burgas and so onSiberia

Siberia is the biggest part of Russia. It occupies two thirds part of Russia. It stretches from the borderline of Europe in the Ural Mountains to the very East of Russia at the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Ocean to the borders with China and Mongolia.

Siberia is the land of taiga's and tundra's wilderness, thousands of rivers and lakes.

Siberia has many big cities with history, intense cultural life, and theaters. The cities of Tomsk, Irkutsk, and Novosibirsk , the capital of Siberia ,are famous for their colleges and research institutions.

Baikal is a beautiful lake located in the southeastern part of Siberia. It is the deepest freshwater lake on the earth and the largest reservoir of fresh surface water.

Irkutsk kept the spirit of a 19th century Russian city. In the center, there are blocks of traditional wooden buildings with typical carvings. Krasnoyarsk is located in south-central Siberia on the 6th-longest river in the world, the Yenesei River

Part III Text Appreciation

I.Text Analysis 1.Structure

Plot of the story: a young woman and a young man who had been lovers once met again after six years of separation. They sat and reminisced… Setting of the story: in a restaurant

Protagonists: Vera and her ex-lover (his name was never told)

Theme of the story: about the relationship between lovers: the heroine's sensitivity and the man's insensitivity to others—their feelings, attitudes and inner motivations. The man's egoism prevented him from seeing how greatly their lives had diverged in the six years since they parted. 2.Sentence Analysis

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