·英译汉练习短文6篇· Passage 1
Satiric Literature1
Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it presents the familiar in a new form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is look at familiar conditions from a perspective that makes these conditions seem foolish, harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are false. Don Quixote makes chivalry seem absurd; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science; A Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of these ideas is original. Chivalry was suspected before Cervantes2, humanists objected to the claims of pure science before Aldous Huxley3, and people were aware of famine before Swift4. It was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of expression，the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing because with commonsense briskness5 they brush away illusions and secondhand opinions6. With spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude.
Satire exists because there is need for it. It has lived because readers appreciate a refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous thinking, cheap moralizing7, and foolish philosophy. Satire serves to prod people into an awareness of truth, though rarely to any action on behalf of truth. Satire tends to remind people that much of what they see, hear, and read in popular media is sanctimonious, sentimental, and only partially true. Life resembles in only a slight degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold the ideals that movies attribute to them, not do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unselfish service of humanity. Intelligent people know these things but tend to forget them when they do not hear them expressed8.
Notes
1．这篇文章用词正式，句式严谨、周密、冗长，文风较为华丽。翻译时选词要正式，可多用四字结构和铺排形式。
2．Cervantes: 塞万提斯（1754-1616），西班牙伟大的作家、诗人、戏剧家。 3．Aldous Huxley:奥尔德斯·赫胥黎（1825-1895），英国生物学家，作家。 4．Swift: 斯威夫特（1667-1745），英国作家，擅长用讽刺和幽默揭露社会黑暗现象。 5．briskness：brisk意为keen or sharp in speech or manner。 6．secondhand opinions：不可翻译为“二手的观点”，应该是“人云亦云的的观点”。 7．cheap moralizing：这里cheap意思不是“便宜的”，而是vulgar, contemptible; moralizing不是“道德”，而是“说教”。
8．when they do not hear them expressed：当直译不方便时，我们可用视点转移法：但是当周围人不谈起时 Key
讽刺文学
或许讽刺文学最突出的特点是它耳目一新、视角独创。讽刺文学很少给人以原创的思想,但是它却将人们熟悉的事情以全新的形式展现出来。讽刺作家并不给人以新的哲学理念。他们所做的只是从某一视角来看待一些为人熟知的事情，在这一视角下，这些事情显得愚蠢不堪、充满危害而又矫揉造作。讽刺作品将我们从自鸣得意中震醒，让我们既愉快又惊诧地看到，我们从未质疑、全盘接受的价值观中，有很多都是错误的。《唐吉珂德》使得骑士精神显得荒谬可笑；《挑战新世界》嘲笑了科学的自诩；《一个小小的建议》则建议食用人肉，使饥饿问题戏剧化。这些思想中没有一条是原创的：在塞万提斯之前就有人怀疑骑士精神；在赫胥黎之前人文主义者就反对宣称纯科学的至高无上；在斯威夫特之前人们就已经意识到饥荒问题。并不是思想的独创而使得讽刺文学受人欢迎，而是它的表述方式、嘲讽方法使得它趣味横生、有娱乐性。人们阅读讽刺文学只是因为在美学上它是让人心满意足的艺术品，而不是因为它在道德上有益或伦理上的教益。它激人兴奋、爽人身心，因为它只是运用常理通识、辛言辣语，便将各种幻想和人云亦云的观点一扫而光。讽刺文学自心而来不拘谦恭，它重新调整视角，将熟悉的事物紊杂地放置在一起，用个性化的语言而不是抽象的陈词滥语表述出来。
讽刺作品之所以存在是因为人们需要它。它存续至今，是因为读者欣赏爽身怡心的刺激和不拘谦恭的告诫，它提醒读者，他们生活的世界里充满了陈腐的思想意识、低俗的道德说教和愚蠢的哲学理念。讽刺作品虽然很少代表真理促成行动，但它却能使人们感悟到真理。讽刺作品常常告诉人们，他们在大众媒体中所看到的、听到的、读到的大多是伪装善良、多愁善感或只有部分真实。生活只在很小的程度上与大众对它的印象相符。士兵们很少拥有电影赋予他们的理想，而普通老百姓也决不会把自己的生命无私地奉献给人道主义服务。聪明人知道这些事实，但是当周围人不谈起时，他们常常会忘记掉。
Passage 2
American Folk Art
What we today call American folk art was, art of, by, and for ordinary, everyday1 “folks” who, with increasing prosperity and leisure, created a market for art of all kinds, and especially for portraits. Citizens of prosperous, essentially middle-class republics—whether ancient Romans, seventeenth-century Dutch burghers, or nineteenth-century Americans—have always shown a marked taste for portraiture. Starting in the late eighteenth century, the United States contained increasing number of such people, and of the artists who could meet their demands.
The earliest American folk art portraits come, not surprisingly, from New England — especially Connecticut and Massachusetts—for this was a wealthy and populous region and the center of a strong craft tradition. Within a few decades after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the population was pushing westward, and the portrait painters could be found at work in western New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. Midway through its first century2 as a nation, the United States’ population had increased roughly five times, and eleven new states had been added to original thirteen. During these years, the demand for portraits grew and grew, eventually to be satisfied by camera. In 1839 the daguerreotype was introduced to America, ushering in the age of photography, and within a generation the new invention put an end to the popularity of painted portraits. Once again an original portrait became a luxury, commissioned by the wealthy and executed by the professional.
But in the heyday of portrait painting—from the late eighteenth century until the 1850’s — anyone with a modicum of artistic ability could become a limner, as such a portraitist3 was called.
Local craftspeople—sign, coach, and house painters—began to paint portraits as a profitable sideline; sometimes a talented man or woman who began by sketching family members gained a local reputation and was besieged with requests for portraits; artists found it worth their while to pack their paints, canvasses, and brushes and to travel the countryside, often combining house decorating with portrait painting.
Notes
everyday: 意为commonplace, ordinary
midway through its first century: 美国独立后50年间 portraitist：译为“画师”，以和前面的limner（画家）相区别。 Key
美国民间艺术
我们所说的美国民间艺术是由普通百姓所拥有、创造并享受的艺术。随着财富和闲暇与日俱增，他们创造了各种艺术的市场，特别是肖像绘画。家境殷实的、主要是中产阶级的市民——不管他们是古罗马人，或是17世纪荷兰自治城市富裕居民，抑或是19世纪的美国人——都对肖像绘画艺术表现出突出的爱好。从18世纪晚期开始，美国这一群体的数量不断增加，而且满足画像要求的艺术家也不断地增加。
勿需惊奇，美国最早的民间艺术画像来自于新英格兰地区——特别是康涅狄格州和.麻萨诸塞州——因为这一地区富裕、人口稠密，而且是浓厚艺术传统的中心。1776年《独立宣言》宣布后的几十年中，人口不断西徙，在纽约州西部、俄亥俄州、肯塔基州、伊利诺斯州、密苏里州，人们随处可见肖像画师绘画的身影。美国独立后50年间，人口增加了近5倍，原先13个州又增加了11个。在这些岁月里，肖像绘画的要求不断增长，直到有了照相机才算得到满足。1839年银版照相法传入美国，摄影时代开始，而且，在不超过一代人的时间内，手工画像就不再风靡了。从此，人物画像又成为了奢侈品——有钱人提出绘画要求，专业画家来完成绘画。
但是在肖像绘画的全盛时期——从18世纪晚期到19世纪50年代——任何有一点艺术才能的人都可以成为“画家”，当时的肖像画师就是这么被人称呼的。当地艺人——标牌、马车、房屋的画师——也开始画人物肖像作为一个赚钱的副业。有时候有绘画天赋的男子或妇女一开始只给家庭成员勾勒画像，很快在当地声誉鹊起，然后很多人前来要求画像；艺术家们发现，他们收拾起颜料、画布、画笔去各地巡游，既做房屋装饰又画人物肖像，是一件非常值得的事情。
Passage 3 Crows
Crows are probably the most frequently met and easily identifiable members of the native fauna of the United States. The great number of tales, legends, and myths about these birds indicates that people have been exceptionally interested in them for a long time. On the other hand, when it comes to substantive─particularly behavioral─information, crows are less well known than many comparably common species and, for that matter, not a few quite uncommon ones, the endangered California condor, to cite one obvious example .There are practical reasons for this.