2021年考研英语一阅读 Text 3 原文翻译及答案解析

As a bistorian who's always scarching for the text or the image that makes us re- evaluate the past,Ive become preoccupied with looking for photographs that show our Victorian ancestors smiling(what better way to shattr the image of 19th-cenury prudery?).Ive found quite a few, and—since I started posting them on Twitte-they have been causing quite a stir. People have been surprised to see evidence that Victorians had fiun and could, and did, laugh. They are noting that the Victorians suddenly seem to become more human as the hundred-or-so years that separate us fade away through our common experience of laughter. Of course,I need to concede that my collection of'Smiling Victorians'makes up only a tiny percentage of the vast catalogue of photographic portraiture created between 1840 and 1900,the majority of which show sitters posing miserably and stifly in front of painted backdrops, or staring absently into the middle distance.Howdo we explain this trend? During the 1840s and 1850s,in the early days of photography,exposure times were notoriously long: the daguerreotype photographic method(producing an image on a silvered copper plate)could take several minutes to complete, resulting in blurred images as sitters shifted position or adjusted their limbs.The thought of holding a fixed grin as the camera performed its magical duties was too much to contemplate,and so a non-commital blank stare became the norm. But exposure times were much quicker by the 1880s,and the introduction of the Box Brownie and other portable cameras meant that, though slow by today's digital standards, the exposure was almost instantaneous. Spontaneous smiles were relatively easy to capture by the 1890s,so we must look elsewhere for an explanation of why Victorians still hesitated to smile. One explanation might be the loss of dignity displayed through a cheesy grin. "Nature gave us lips to conceal our teeth,"ran one popular Victorian maxim, alluding to the fact that before the bith of proper dentistry,mouths were often in ashocking state of hygiene.A flashing set of healthy and clean,regular'pearly whites'was a rare sight in Victorian society, the preserve of the super-rich(and even then,dental hygiene was not guaranteed). A toothy grin{especially when there were gaps or blackened gnashers)lacked class: drunks,tramps, and music hall perforners might gurn and grin with a smile as wide as Lewis Carrol's gum-exposing Cheshire Cat, but it was not a becoming look for properly bred persons.Even Mark Twain,a man who enjoyed a hearty laugh,said that when it came to photographic portraits there could be"nothing more damning than a silly, foolish smile fixed forever".

作为一名总是寻找让我们重新评估过去的文本或图像的历史学家，我变得专注于寻找显示我们维多利亚时代祖先微笑的照片（还有什么更好的方式来打破19世纪假正经的形象呢？）。我找到了不少，而且自从我开始在推特上发布它们以来，它们引起了不小的轰动。人们惊讶地看到维多利亚时代的人有乐趣、能够并确实会笑的证据。他们注意到，随着将我们分隔开的一百多年通过我们共同的笑声体验而逐渐消失，维多利亚时代的人突然显得更加人性化。当然，我需要承认，我的“微笑的维多利亚人”收藏只占1840年至1900年间创建的庞大摄影肖像目录的一小部分，其中大多数显示拍摄者在中性背景前痛苦而僵硬地摆姿势，或者茫然地凝视着远方。我们如何解释这一趋势？在19世纪40年代和50年代，摄影的早期阶段，曝光时间众所周知地长：银版照相法（在镀银铜板上产生图像）可能需要几分钟才能完成，导致拍摄者移动位置或调整肢体时图像模糊。在相机执行其神奇职责时保持固定笑容的想法太难以想象了，因此一种无表情的茫然凝视成为了常态。但到了19世纪80年代，曝光时间快了很多，布朗尼相机和其他便携式相机的引入意味着，尽管以今天的数字标准来看仍然慢，但曝光几乎是瞬时的。到了19世纪90年代，捕捉自发微笑相对容易，所以我们必须从其他方面寻找维多利亚时代人仍然犹豫不决是否微笑的解释。一种解释可能是通过傻笑展示的尊严丧失。“自然赋予我们嘴唇以隐藏我们的牙齿，”一句流行的维多利亚时代格言这样说道，暗指在适当牙科诞生之前，口腔卫生常常处于令人震惊的状态。一口闪亮的健康、清洁、整齐的“珍珠白”在维多利亚时代社会是罕见的景象，是超级富豪的专利（即便如此，口腔卫生也不能保证）。露齿而笑（尤其是当有缺口或发黑的牙齿时）缺乏品位：醉汉、流浪汉和音乐厅表演者可能会像刘易斯·卡罗尔暴露牙龈的柴郡猫一样咧嘴大笑，但这对于有良好教养的人来说不是一种得体的外表。即使是马克·吐温，一个喜欢开怀大笑的人，也说过在摄影肖像中“没有什么比一张傻傻的、愚蠢的微笑永远固定下来更糟糕的了”。