7. Talk about the language of Shakespeare & the difficulties of presenting Shakespeare`s character to a modern audience («Shakespeare», «Drama in Cambridge»)

For any Englishman, there can never be any discussions as to who is the world`s greatest poet and greatest dramatist. Only one name can possibly suggest itself to him: that of W. S. All of us use words, phrases and quotations from Sh`s writings that have become part of the common property of English-speaking people.

S. , more perhaps than any other writer made full use of the great resources of the English language. Most of us use about 5 000 words in our normal employment of English. S. in his works used about 25000! There is probably no better way for a foreigner (or an Englishman) to appreciate the richness and variety of the English language than by studying the various ways in which S. uses it. For many years critics have been theorizing about Sh`s plays. Sometimes, indeed, it seems that the poetry of Sh will disappear beneath the great mass of comment that has been written upon it. Fortunately, this is not likely to happen. Sh`s poetry and Sh`s people (Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Falstaff and all the others) have long delighted not just the English but lovers of literature everywhere. These characters overflow (переполнены) with humanity-weakness, tenderness, jealousies, anger, grief (горе).

In bringing Sh`s delicate & resonant plays to the stage, many interpretations are likely to be rejected as facile (лёгкий).

The process is really difficult, but rewarding. For the language of Sh. Is still foreign even to British, and making Sh works for a modern English-speaking audience requires great thought & effort, to say nothing of presenting these works to people who are not British. It`s important to look further within the text & it`s a great stretch to imagination to try to grasp the essence of the play & bring it out in a way that doesn`t require a British sensibility to comprehend it, but which appeals to all. That`s why people prey to many fears over the reception of Sh`s plays.

8. Describe an English journalist`s impressions of travelling through vast spaces of Russia. China, Mongolia. («The Trans-Siberian Express»)

It`s no wander that trains are a literary genre all on their own. Writers from Graham Green to Agatha Christie realized that there is nothing quite like curtained sleeping compartments to quicken the narrative pulse. To board a train that crosses countries and continents is to feel that anything might happen.

From the 1^st days of the journey on board a Trans-Siberian Express the journalist was fascinated by the changing countryside, by his 1^st class compartment which had the air of a slightly down-at-heel gentlemen`s club. The scale of the Trans-Siberian, the longest & the greatest of rail journeys, is difficult to comprehend.

Food in the dining car was adequate, if uninspired. But the best food was to be found at the stations where the train made scheduled stops.

The towns they passed were different from one another, were a blur of smoking chimneys & grey apartment blocks. They rattled across wide rivers & climbed into the Urals. But the very ease of the journey began to betray the journalist. He read, slept, ate beginning, to forget who he was.

They crossed into Mongolia. For miles they saw nothing, then 2 or 3 yurts, a herd of horses grazing in a water meadow, a woman tending a flock of black goats.

In the Gobi desert the red soil blew away in the wind, & the track ran as straight as a drawn line. That night they crossed the boarder into China. Like Mongolia, China offered them a timeless landscape. But in China everything was man-made, every tree a planted one, every inch of land cultivated.

At Peking they came to a half & emerged blinking into the real world again. For all the enticement of China the journalist was said to leave the train. For a week it had been home, secure and familiar.

He enjoyed his holiday very much.