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雅思閱讀精讀：圣誕節(jié)如何變成購物節(jié)?

中華考試網 2018-04-04 【大中小】

　　THERE were no neatly wrapped presents. Nor were there tinseled trees or Santa Claus. Christmas in preindustrial Europe and America looked very different from today’s iteration. Drunks, cross-dressers and rowdy carolers roamed the streets. The tavern, rather than the home or the church, was the place to celebrate. “Men dishonor Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides,”—so despaired Hugh Latimer, chaplain to King Edward VI, in the mid-1500s. Some 200 years later, across the Atlantic, a Puritan minister decried the “l(fā)ewd gaming” and “rude reveling” of Christmas time in the colonies. Those concerns seem irrelevant now. By the end of the 19th century, a rambunctious, freewheeling holiday had turned into the peaceable, family-centred one we know today. How?

　　沒有包裝整潔的禮品，沒有俗麗的圣誕樹，也沒有圣誕老人。工業(yè)化前的歐洲和美洲的圣誕節(jié)和他們現(xiàn)在每年過的，看起來很不一樣。人們在大街上痛飲、異裝秀、歡唱。酒館才是慶祝圣誕節(jié)的地方，家里或教堂不是。在1500年，愛德華六世的牧師Hugh Latimer悲嘆道“人們在圣誕節(jié)12天里對上帝的不敬，比在其它12個月里加起來都多”。大概200年后，一個新教的牧師譴責了北美殖民地里圣誕節(jié)期間人們進行的下流游戲和放縱的狂歡。但是，這些景象，和現(xiàn)在似乎已經不相關。到了19世紀末，圣誕節(jié)這個粗暴放縱的狂歡節(jié)，已經變成了我們如今所見的平和的，以家庭為中心的節(jié)日，這種轉變怎么發(fā)生的?

　　Men dishonor Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides。

　　人們在圣誕節(jié)12天里對上帝的不敬，比在其它12個月里加起來都多

　　In early modern Europe, between about 1500 and 1800, the Christmas season meant a lull in agricultural labor and a chance to indulge. The harvest had been gathered and the animals slaughtered (the cold weather meant they would not spoil). The celebration involved heavy eating, drinking and wassailing, in which peasants would arrive at the houses of the neighboring gentry and demand to be fed. One drinking song captured the mood: “And if you don’t open up your door, / We will lay you flat upon the floor.” Mostly this was tolerated in good humor—a kind of ritualized disorder, when the social hierarchy was temporarily inverted. Some were less tolerant. In colonial Massachusetts, between 1659 and1681, Puritans banned Christmas. They expunged the day from their almanacs, and offending revelers risked a five-shilling fine. The ban did not last, so efforts to tame the holiday picked up instead. Moderation was advised. One almanac-writer cautioned in 1761 that “The temperate man enjoys the most delight, / For riot dulls and palls the appetite.” Still, Christmas was a public ritual, enacted in the tavern or street and often fuelled by alcohol.

　　在近現(xiàn)代早期的歐洲，也就是公元1500年至1800年，圣誕季意味著農業(yè)勞動的停息和放縱的機會。農田的收成在庫，牲畜已經宰殺(天冷讓宰殺后動物的肉不容易腐敗)。慶祝活動涉及大吃大喝，期間農民們會去臨近的鄉(xiāng)紳家里要求接受款待。一首歌反應了當時的心情“如果你不開門，我們就讓你從豎著走的人變成橫著躺的人”。大部分時候，農民們的行為會被善意的容忍，這是一種儀式化的失序，社會階層短暫的發(fā)生倒置。

　　That soon changed. Cities had expanded at the turn of the 19th century to absorb the growing number of factory workers. Vagrancy and urban poverty were by now common. Rowdiness at Christmas could turn violent, with bands of drunken men roaming the streets. It’s little surprise that members of the upper classes saw a threat in the festivity. In his study of the holiday, Stephen Nissenbaum, a historian, credits a group of patrician writers and editorialists in America with recasting it as a domestic event. They refashioned European traditions, like Christmas trees from Germany and Christmas boxes from England, in which the wealthy would present cash or leftovers to their servants. St Nicholas, or Santa Claus, whose December name day coincided with the Christmas season, became the holiday’s mascot. Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St Nicholas”, first publized in 1823, helped popularize his image. In it, a jolly Santa descends via reindeer-pulled sleigh to surprise children with presents on Christmas Eve. Newspapers also played their part. “Let all avoid taverns and grog shops for a few dazays,” advised the New York Herald in 1839. Better to focus on “the domestic hearth, the virtuous wife, the innocent, smiling, merry-hearted children.”

　　情況很快就變了。城市在19世紀末吸收了更多的工廠工人。流浪和城市貧困至今都普遍，在當時更是嚴重的問題。一群醉漢在圣誕期間的大街上游蕩可能會引發(fā)暴力。所以上層社會的人把這個節(jié)日視為威脅毫不奇怪。歷史學家Stephen Nissenbaum把圣誕節(jié)被馴化為家庭內部節(jié)日歸功于上層社會的作家和編輯們。他們復興了歐洲的傳統(tǒng)，如來自德國傳統(tǒng)的圣誕樹，圣誕禮品盒本來是英國的富人用來給傭人們裝剩菜或錢等禮物的。

　　It was a triumph of middle-class values, and a coup for shop-owners. “Christmas is the merchant’s harvest time,” one industry magazine enthused in 1908. “It is up to him to garner in as big a crop of dollars as he can.” Soon this new Christmas would become a target of criticism in its own right: as commercialized and superficial. Nevertheless it lives on.

　　這是中產階級價值觀的勝利，也是零售店主們的出乎意料的好運。“圣誕節(jié)是商人們收獲的季節(jié)”，一份工業(yè)雜志在1908年興奮的表示�！爸灰�，想掙多少錢就能掙到多少錢”。沒多少時間，這種新的慶祝圣誕節(jié)的方式本身就成為批評的目標：因為過于的商業(yè)化和膚淺。但是，我們仍然這么過。

　　雅思閱讀經濟類高頻詞匯

　　enthuse：熱心

　　garner：獲得，儲存

　　tinseled：亮閃閃的，俗麗的

　　iteration：重復，迭代

　　tavern：酒館

　　chaplain：牧師

　　lewd：下流的

　　revel：狂歡

　　decry：譴責

　　rambunctious：粗暴的

　　wassailing：痛飲