Министерство образования Российской Федерации

Магнитогорский государственный университет

МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЕ УКАЗАНИЯ ПО ВЫПОЛНЕНИЮ

Контрольной работы № 4

ПО ТЕМЕ: “ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ART”

для студентов неязыковых факультетов заочной формы обучения

Магнитогорск 2004

Методические указания по выполнению контрольной работы № 4 по теме: “English and american art” для студентов неязыковых факультетов заочной формы обучения. Магнитогорск: МаГУ, 2004. 27 с.

Составитель О. Н. Гурьянова

Рецензент А. Л. Солдатченко

 Гурьянова О. Н., 2004

 Магнитогорский государственный университет, 2004

Контрольная работа № 4.

English and American Art.

Grammar: The Passive Voice

The Present Perfect Tense

1. Before reading the text learn to pronounce some proper and geographical names:

the United States, Europeans, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart, Barton, Verdi, Irish, Scottish, Negro, the Civil War, Confederate, Copland, George Gershwin, Ravel, Europe.

2. Do you want to know more about American music?

Here’s a text for you. Read it and say what is new for you.

What kind of music do Americans play, sing, listen and compose?

Since the United States was settled largely by Europeans, it is not surprising that classical music and folk songs were brought over from that continent. Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bach, Mozart, Barton and Verdi are but a few names of European composers often seen on orchestra or opera programs. English, Irish, Scottish folk songs are sung very often and have been sung in America by so many generations that Americans are not even conscious that these songs are of foreign origin.

There are many folk songs that grew out of work. Working people had their own ballads and love songs. A cowboy, too, sang about his work and his girl. In recent years there has been increased interest in collecting and recording the folk songs from remote regions.

But the greatest contribution to American music, however, has been made by the Negroes in the South. Negro songs are now part of the nation’s most precious musical heritage.

Perhaps the Negro’s greatest contribution to American music has been jazz.

After the Civil War some of the brass instruments of the Confederate military bands fell into the hands of the Negroes, and the result was all kinds of rhythmical and melodic experiments. Thus jazz, free of conventions and written arrangements, was born. Such composers as Aaron Copland and George Gershwin in America and Stravinsky, Ravel in Europe have been influenced by American jazz.

After the American Revolution, when waves of immigrants came to the United States, many foreign musicians sought a home in the new world. They gave lessons, travelled about giving recitals and concerts, and awakened an interest in music. Musical societies were formed and amateur groups performed, both in public and in private, the Philharmonic Society of New York, American’s oldest permanent orchestra, was founded. Today interest in music has grown, there are orchestras all across the country, civic symphony orchestras as well as those in universities and schools. American children are given music instruction as part of their elementary education, and for those talented young people who want to make music their career there are schools, which give advanced training.

3. Word and phrase list:

to settle - поселяться, обосновываться

surprising - удивительно

folk song - народная песня

generation - поколение

to be conscious - сознавать

origin - происхождение

to increase - возрастать

remote - отдалённый

contribution - вклад

precious - драгоценный

heritage - наследство

brass instruments - духовные инструменты

to influence - влиять

to seek (sought, sought) - искать

recital - концерт одного артиста

amateur - любитель

4. Have you understood everything? Find in the text the sentences with the following word combinations:

классическая музыка

только некоторые имена

часто поются

в последние годы (с недавнего времени)

музыкальное наследие

военные оркестры

пробуждать интерес

были созданы

был основан

по всей стране

5. What do you remember? Complete the following sentences:

1. The United States was settled largely by ______

French / Russian / Europeans

2. Folk songs were brought over from ______

Australia / Europe /Africa

3. Names of European composers are often seen on ______

orchestra programs / posters / playbills

4. English, Irish, Scottish folk songs are sung ______

when it is holiday / seldom / very often

5. The greatest contribution to American music was made by ______

The Chinese / the black people / the Asians

6. As the result of rhythmical and melodic experiments _______

was born.

rock-n-roll / jazz / rap

7. Stravinsky and Ravel were influenced by _______

American jazz / folk songs / indie

8. When an interest in music was awakened _______

were formed.

musical societies / new theatre groups / bands.

9. Talented young people are given _______ instruction.

psychological / music / social.

6. Can you share your information with others?

Imagine you are interviewed by a person who wants to know much about American music. Answer the questions using the text as a guide.

1. Whom was the United States settled by?

2. What music was brought over to the United States from Europe?

3. What names of European composers were often seen on orchestra or opera

programs?

4. Are Irish folk songs sung very often in America?

5. Love songs are sung not only by cowboys, aren’t they?

6. What contribution to American music was made by the black people?

7. How was jazz born?

8. Who was influenced by American jazz?

9. Why were a lot of musical societies formed after the American

Revolution?

10. What is done for those talented young people in America who want to

make music their career ?

7. Help a person who doesn’t know English well ask the questions (choose the right form of the verb to be and the given verb).

1. _____ the United States______ by Europeans (to settle).

2. When ____ folk songs ___from Europe? (to bring).

3. _____ Tchaikovsky’s name ____ on programs at that time? (to see).

4. What songs ______ very often in America? (to sing).

5. The folk songs from remote regions ______ and ______ in recent years,

______ they? (to collect, to record).

6. What ______ by the black people in the south? (to do).

7. Do you know the names of the composers who ____ by American jazz? (to influence).

8. When ____ the Philharmonic Society of New York ____ (to found).

9. An interest in music ____ _____ after the American Revolution ___ it? ( to awaken).

10. Where _______ advanced training ______ to the talented young people? (to give).

8. One of the American musicians was interviewed, but the list of questions was lost. Here are the answers. What were the questions?

1. The greatest creative contribution to American folk and popular music was made by the black people.

2. Folk motives were treated by composers with affectionate freshness.

3. Musical societies were formed and amateur groups performed, both in public and in private, at that time.

4. Folk themes were used creatively.

5. They are given music instruction as part of their elementary education.

6. In 1940s serious efforts were made to bridge the gap between the “classical” and the “popular” music.

7. Jazz was created by black Americans from African drumbeats, work songs, blues and spirituals.

9. You are going to make a report on American music. Make up a plan of your report.

10. Make a short report on the following topics:

a) Folk songs in America

b) The greatest contribution to American music.

c) Foreign musicians in the United States.

11. This is the song by the Irish band U2. Is it a love song or a song about sport?

I have climbed the highest mountain

I have run through the fields

Only to be with you, only to be with you.

I have run, I have crawled,

I have scaled these city walls,

These city walls, only to be with you.

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

I have kissed her honey lips, felt the healing in her finger-tips,

It burns like fire, this burning desire,

I have spoken with the tongues of angels,

I have held the hand of the devil,

It was warm in the night,

I was cold as stone

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

12. Does the singer say when he climbed the mountain?

Does he say when he ran through the fields?

Do we know when the singer spoke with the “tongue of angels”?

Do we know when he was cold?

13. Read about Sir Peter Hall’s holidays. What does he love best?

My Holidays.

I like winter breaks. I’ve visited/visited lots of European cities. My wife Nicky and I have been/went to Florence at Christmas a few years ago. The streets have been/were empty so you could walk everywhere but the restaurants weren’t/haven’t been open. We have had/had Christmas lunch in a Chinese restaurant!

Greece is also very important to me. Nicky and I had/have had some wonderful holidays there. I love Greek theatres and I love the way you eat at midnight and go on all night.

I also stayed/have also stayed in New York many times. I first have been/went there in 1965 with Leslie Caron, my first wife.

When I was a boy my holidays have been/were very different - we haven’t had/didn’t have many because my parents couldn’t afford them!

Have + Subject + Past Participle

A: Have you (ever) had a holiday in Greece? B: Yes, I have. been to India? B: No, never. No, I haven’t.

a) Which is the correct verb form?

b) Work with a partner. You’re a TV reporter. You’re going to interview Sir Peter Hall about his holidays.

Make questions to ask him. Examples: Have you been to ... ? What did you do when you were there?

c) Take it in turns to be the reporter and Sir Peter Hall.

14. Work with a partner.

a) Take it in turns to ask and answer the questions in this quiz. If the answer is ‘Yes’, ask ‘Why?’ and ‘When?’

Do you dare to be different?

Have you ever...

1. (Wear) unusual clothes?

2. (Play/do) a dangerous sport?

3. (Eat) unusual food?

4. (Go) for a walk in a dangerous place?

5. (Have) a date with someone you didn’t know?

6. (Ask) a hairdresser for a very different hairstyle?

7. (Sleep) in an unusual place?

b) What is...

1. the most difficult thing you’ve ever done?

2. the most exciting day you’ve had?

3. the most delicious food/(eat)?

4. the most interesting place/(visit)?

5. the most embarrassing experience/(have)?

Who is ...

1. the most famous person you’ve ever met?

2. the nicest/most attractive person you’ve (ever meet)/(ever go) out with?

c) Work in groups. Share your experiences.

Level “A”

I. Read Text II (The Romantic Poets) without a dictionary and answer the questions:

1. Did the poets of the first thirty years of the nineteenth century speak about themselves as belonging to some “romantic revival”?

2. Why was this label attached to them?

3. What was the reason of their interest in nature?

4. What was their attitude to their own experiences?

5. What was the source of their themes?

6. Is there any difference between Wordsworth’s and Byron’s poetry as to subject-matter of their poems?

7. Why is it possible to speak about spiritual loneliness of each of them?

8. Why are they often fugitives from their fellowmen?

9. Where do the romantic poets lead the reader?

10. In what language do they express their ideas?

II. Find in the text the English equivalents of the following Russian words,

memorize them and use them in sentences of your own:

группа, ярлык, кошмар, защита, приходящий в упадок, искать, духовность, своеобразие, тяжесть, беглец, привидение, населять.

III. Make up a plan of the text and speak on the romantic poets according

to your plan.

Level “B”

I. Read Text II (The Romantic Poets) and express its main idea in a few sentences.

II. Make a written rendering of the text in English.

III. Translate Text II into Russian in written form.

Early Portraiture Art.

Painting in England in the period of the 15-17th centuries was represented mostly by foreign artists. In the 16tn century Hans Holden the Younger, a well-known painter, was invited to London by King Henry VIII. Though he did not create any painting school in England he nevertheless played an important part in the development of English portrait art. Later Charles I made the Flemish painter Van Duck (a pupil of Rubens) his court painter. Van Duck founded a school of aristocratic portrait painting. Another painter Peter Levy came from Holland in 1641. He became celebrated for his portraits of the idle and frivolous higher classes.

The 18th century was the century during which a truly national painting school was created in England. Portrait art at that time was the main kind of painting. It depended upon the conditions under which the English painting school developed. The first man to raise British pictorial art to a level of importance was William Hobart.

I. Find and translate international words; use a dictionary to find out the meaning of the words you don’t know:

master, normal, genius, labour, produce, satirize, tendency, fashion (-able), ordinary, artist, philanthropic, sympathy, subject, demonstrate, tempo, situation, comic, satire, original.

II. Find the Russian equivalents of the following English words and word combinations:

to draw, drawings; to paint, painting, portrait painter, self-portrait; picture; a schoolmaster, masterpiece; a key figure; background, foreground; title, to entitle; to look at, to look for, looking-glass; company, to accompany

III. Make up a plan of the text and speak on painting in England according to your plan.

15. Interview your partner on the things he/she has ever done. You may begin with:

Have you ever....

What is the most (difficult thing) you’ve ever....

Who is the (most famous person) you’ve ever...

Texts for reading and translating:

I. The Beginning of English drama.

The beginnings of the drama in England are obscure. There is evidence that when the Romans were in England they established vast amphitheatres, for the production of plays, but when the Romans departed their theatres departed with them. The earliest records of aсting in the Middle Ages are concerned not with plays but with individual players, jesters, clowns, tumblers, and minstrels. Of these the most important is the “minstrel”, who is a link between the Anglo-Saxon “scoop”, who sang the long poems of heroes, and the later theatre. Throughout the Middle Ages, in his multicolored coat, the minstrel must have been a familiar and welcome figure. He could be found at the King’s court, in castles, at tournaments and weddings, or in the market-places, gathering a crowd, and speaking or singing his stories. It is recorded that the army of William the Conqueror, the minstrel Taliaferro died reciting the lay of Roncesvalles. On occasion the minstrel could grow rich under wealthy patronage, and lands and valuable presents were assigned to him. Yet the life of the humbler minstrel was at best a hard one, tramping the roads, exposed to the weather, and relying upon the generosity of such audiences as he could find. Officially, the hand of the Church was against him, and there was little hope that his soul would be saved from damnation. At the same time the Church must have seen that the stories of the minstrels encouraged pilgrims in the more weary stages of their journeys. Some clerics even imitated the methods of the minstrels, and stood in public places mingling words of religious guidance with secular stories. Monks, too, were human after all, and enjoyed the minstrel’s stories, and sometimes an unfrocked cleric would himself turn minstrel.

If the Church did not look kindly upon the minstrels, and their less reputable companions, it was the Church itself that brought back the drama into England. The Church had condemned the theatre of the Roman Empire, and its spectacles and themes gave every reason for such an attack. Yet the ritual of the Church had itself something dramatic within it, and by the tenth century that ritual extended into the rudiments of a play.

II. The Romantic Poets.

The first thirty years of the nineteenth century are marked by a cluster of poets whose work has been as much discussed as that of any group of writers in our language. “Romantic revival” is the label that has been attached to them by the text-books, though they themselves might not have understood what it meant. The label is only an attempt to show how their work is different from that of their predecessors. They all had a deep interest in nature, not as a centre of beautiful scenes but as an informing and spiritual influence on life. It was as if, frightened by the coming of industrialism and the nightmare towns of industry, they were turning to nature for protection. Or as if, with the declining strength of traditional religious belief, men were making a religion from the spirituality of their own experiences.

They all valued their own experiences to a degree which is difficult to parallel in earlier poets. Spenser, Milton and Pope make verse out of legend or knowledge which is common to humanity. The romantic poets look into themselves, seeking in their own lives for strange sensations. With Wordsworth, such sensations have a moral value, and are often associated with simple and human objects. With Byron, they arise from the exotic pursuit of some mood or adventure, which man has seldom known before. In the poetry of all of them, there is a sense of wonder, of life seen with new sensibilities and fresh vision. This strangeness of the individual experience leads each of the romantics to a spiritual loneliness. They are keenly aware of their social obligations, but the burden of an exceptional vision of life drives them into being almost fugitives from their fellowmen. This sense, present in them all, can be found most strongly in Shelley, who seems even more content amid the dead leaves, the moonlit water, and the ghosts, than in the places where men inhabit. The romantic poets lead the reader to the strange places of human experience, but seldom welcome him in the language of ordinary conversation.