Charles Reznikoff （1894-1976） worked relentlessly, never leaving New York but for a brief stay in Hollywood, of all places. He was admired by Pound and Kenneth Burke, and often published his own works; in the Depression era, he managed a treadle printing press in his basement. He wrote three sorts of poems: exceptionally short imagistic lyrics; longer pieces crafted and cobbled from other sources, often from the Judaic tradition; and book-length poems wrought from the testimony both of Holocaust trials and from the courtrooms of turn-of-the-century America. Two of these full-length volumes were indeed titled "Testimony," as was an earlier prose work; it was a word that kept him close company. When asked late in life to define his poetry, it was not the word he chose.

"Objectivist," he wrote, naming his longstanding group, and mimicking poetic style with a single prose sentence: "images clear but the meaning not stated but suggested by the objective details and the music of the verse; words pithy and plain; without the artifice of regular meters; themes, chiefly Jewish, American, urban." If the sentence sounds hard-won, this is perhaps because it was. Four decades earlier, he wrote in a letter to friends, "There is a learned article about my verse in Poetry this month, from which I learn that I am an objectivist." The learned fellow was Louis Zukofsky, brilliant eminence of the Objectivists, "with whom I disagree as to both form and content of verse, but to whom I am obliged for placing some of my things here and there." So read Reznikoff’s conclusion in 1931, with its fillip of polite resentment.

Movements and schools are arbitrary and immaterial things by which poetic history is told. This must have rankled Reznikoff, who spent his writing life tracing the material and the necessary.

Born a child of immigrants in Brooklyn in 1894, he was in journalism school at 16, took a law degree at 21. Though he was little interested in legal practice, the ideas would be near the heart of his writing. Ideal poetic language, he wrote, "is restricted almost to the testimony of a witness in a court of law." If this suggests a congenital optimism about the law, it made for astonishingly care-filled poetry. Reznikoff is unsurpassed in conveying the sense that the world is worth getting right. Not the glorious or the damaged world, but the world that is everything that is the case. Reznikoff’s faith in the facts of the case takes on an intensity no less social than spiritual, no greater when surveying the Old Testament than New York. This collection gathers all his poems （but for those already book-length） by the technique of compressing onto single pages as many as five or six at a time. This can lessen the force; each is a sort of American haiku, though no more impressionistic than a hand-operated printing press. One such, numbered 69 in the volume "Jerusalem the Golden," runs in its length: "Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies / a girder, still itself among the rubbish." This exemplary couplet is sometimes taken to represent Reznikoff’s poetry itself, immutable and certain amid the transitory.

6. By saying "it was a word that kept him close company" （8th line, 1st para.）, the author implies   .

[A] Charles Reznikoff always wrote works about testimony.
[B] Charles Reznikoff was always involved in the testimony affairs.
[C] Charles Reznikoff liked to write testimony.
[D] Charles Reznikoff is a busy lawyer.

7. Reznikoff’s attitude to the fact that he was grouped as objectivist is   .

[A] approval
[B] indifference
[C] opposition
[D] suspicion

8. The word "rankled" （2nd line, 3rd para.） probably means   .

[A] interested
[B] Angered
[C] Pleased
[D] Consoled

9. We can learn from the 4th paragraph that   .

[A] Reznikoff liked to learn law.
[B] Reznikoff was more interested in spiritual world than in social world.
[C] It is astonishing that Reznikoff wrote care-filled poetry.
[D] Reznikoff was greatly influenced by his legal experience in his poetry writing.

10. By citing the poem in the last paragraph, the author intends to   .

[A] show that the force is lessoned in this way
[B] show that the poem is not impressionistic
[C] show that the poem is immutable
[D] show that the poem is compressed

　答案：A C B D D

题目分析

6．答案为A，属推理判断题。原句是"Two of these full-length volumes were indeed titled ’Testimony,’ as was an earlier prose work; it was a word that kept him close company.""长篇中的两篇题目就是’证词’，早些的散文作品也是，这个词一直伴随他左右。"从这句话前面对他作品的介绍也可以看出，这些长篇诗歌是来源于一些证词的，这就是为什么他一直和证词有关的原因，也就是为什么这个词一直和他有关。答案A：查尔斯经常写一些和证词有关的作品，答案B：查尔斯经常被卷入证词事件中，答案C：查尔斯喜欢写证词，答案D：查尔斯是个忙碌的律师，四个答案中最符合的是A.

7．答案为C，属推理判断题。Reznikoff对待他被归为客观主义流派的态度可以追溯文章中谈到客观主义部分。文章第二段提到他被看作是客观主义流派，对此他的态度可以从他的话语中看出，"’The learned fellow was Louis Zukofsky, brilliant eminence of the Objectivists, with whom I disagree as to both form and content of verse, but to whom I am obliged for placing some of my things here and there.’"从disagree一词中就可以看出他对这种评价持反对态度，后面提到"So read Reznikoff’s conclusion in 1931, with its fillip of polite resentment."从resentment也可以得出这个结论，因此答案该选C.

8．答案为B，属猜词题。该词所在原句是"This must have rankled Reznikoff, who spent his writing life tracing the material and the necessary.""这一定……Reznikoff，他的写作生涯主要就是描述物质的和必然的东西。"这句话还需要结合上下文来看，上文提到运动和流派是讲述诗歌历史的随意、非物质的东西，而上一段提到Reznikoff对于被归为客观主义流派不满，可以提到他对此持否定态度，因此答案中A"使感兴趣"，答案B"激怒"，答案C"使高兴"，答案D"安慰"，其中B最符合逻辑。

9．答案为D，属推理判断题。第四段主要讲述了Reznikoff青年学习法律，以及他诗歌创作中法律的作用。下面逐一分析答案，答案A"Reznikoff喜欢学习法律"：从第四段"he was little interested in legal practice"可以看出他对此并不热衷，该选项不符合原文；答案B"Reznikoff更加喜欢精神世界"：从第四段"Reznikoff’s faith in the facts of the case takes on an intensity no less social than spiritual……"可以看出，他对社会方面的热衷不比精神世界差，因此该选项不符合原文；答案C"Reznikoff能写出充满关切的诗歌来令人惊讶"：文章提到"If this suggests a congenital optimism about the law, it made for astonishingly care-filled poetry."（如果这暗示着对法律天生的乐观的话，这种天赋正是为了令人惊讶的充满关切诗歌而有的。）虽然提到"令人惊讶"，但不是说他可以写出诗歌令人惊讶，因此也不符合原文；答案D"Reznikoff的诗歌写作很大程度上受其法律经验的影响。"：其实整个段落讲述了他虽然年青时代不热衷法律，但是在其写作中处处有法律的影响，因此答案D是符合原文的答案。

10．答案为D，属推理判断题。文章最后一段刚开始讲的是诗集将五六首诗压缩在一页上，这样会削弱力量，尽管不是那么会留下深刻印象，但每首诗都是一种美国式俳句，这之后就说到"One such, numbered 60 in the volume ’Jerusalem the Golden’, runs in its length"有这么一首诗就是这么样的长度，因此可以看出，列出这首诗还是为了说明压缩诗后很短，因此答案为D.