2. 外语
  3. At a time Jane Austin’s novels were published--between 181l and 1818--English literature was not part of any academic curriculum

At a time Jane Austin’s novels were published--between 181l and 1818--English literature was not part of any academic curriculum

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问题     At a time Jane Austin’s novels were published--between 181l and 1818--English literature was not part of any academic curriculum. In addition, fiction was under strenuous attack. Certain religions and political groups felt novels had the power to make so-called immoral characters so interesting that young readers would identify with them; these groups also considered novels to be of little practical use. Even Cole Ridge, certainly no literary reactionary, spoke for many when he asserted that "novel-reading occasions the destruction of the mind’ s powers."
    These attitudes toward novels help explain why Austin received little attention from early nineteenth-century literary critics.  (In any case, a novelist published anonymously, as Austin was, would not be likely to receive much critical attention. ) The literary response that was accorded her, however, was often as incisive as twentieth-century criticism. In his attack in 1816 on novelistic portrayals "outside of ordinary experience", for example, Walter Scott made an insightful remark about the merits of Austin’ s fiction. Her novels, he wrote, "present to the reader an accurate and exact picture of ordinary everyday people and places, reminiscent of seventeenth-century Flemish Painting." Scott did not use the word "realism", but he undoubtedly used a standard of realistic probability in judging novels. The critic Whately did not use the word realism either, but he expressed agreement with Scott’ s evaluation, and went on to suggest the possibilities for moral instruction in what we have called Austin’ s realistic method. Her characters, wrote Whately, are persuasive a gents for moral truth since they are ordinary persons "so clearly evoked that we feel an interest in their fate as if it were our own." Moral instruction, explained Whately, is more likely to be effective when conveyed through recognizably human and interesting characters than when imparted by a sermonizing narrator. Whately especially praised Austin’ s ability to create characters who "mingle goodness and villainy, weakness and virtue, as in life they are always mingled." Whately concluded his remarks by comparing Austin’ s art of characterization to Dickens’ , stating his preference for Austin ’ s.
    Yet the response of nineteenth-century literary critics to Austin was not always so laudatory, and often anticipated the reservations of twentieth-century critics. An example of such a response was Lewes’ complaint in 1859 that Austin’ s range of subjects and characters was too narrow. Praising her verisimilitude, Lewes added that nonetheless her focus was too often upon only the unlofty and the commonplace.  (Twentieth-century Marxists, on the other hand, were to complain about what they saw as her exclusive emphasis on a lofty upper-middle class. ) In any case, having been rescued by some literary critics from neglect and indeed gradually lionized by them, Austin steadily reached, by the mid-nineteenth century, the enviable pinnacle of being considered controversial.
It can be inferred from the passage that Whately found Dickens’ characters to be
选项 A、especially interesting to young readers
B、ordinary persons in recognizably human situations
C、less liable than Jane Austin ’ s characters to have a realistic mixture of moral qualities
D、more often villainous and weak than virtuous and good
答案C
解析 第二段讲了Whately很欣赏Austin作品的真实性，并在段末指出comparing Austin’s art of characterization to Dickens’，stating his preference for Austin’s，选项C表述符合文意。
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