2016年5月SAT亚太首考 作文原文及分析

本次考试的分析文章选自 vanityfair 传送门 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/07/hitchens200907

但原文过于冗长，官方进行了 改编，在这里我们通过记忆将改编的文章还原并进行了简要的分析和示范，希望能对6月考试的同学提供一些帮助。

Christopher Hitchens

Argument: Greek Sculptures should be returned

The greatclassicist A. W. Lawrence once remarked of the Parthenon that it is “the onebuilding in the world which may be assessed as absolutely right.”

Not that thebeauty and symmetry of the Parthenon have not been abused and perverted andmutilated. Five centuries after the birth of Christianity the Parthenon wasclosed and desolated. It was then “converted” into a Christian church, beforebeing transformed a thousand years later into a mosque—complete with minaret atthe southwest corner—after the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire.Turkish forces also used it for centuries as a garrison and an arsenal, withthe tragic result that in 1687, when Christian Venice attacked the OttomanTurks, a powder magazine was detonated and huge damage inflicted on thestructure. Most horrible of all, perhaps, the Acropolis was made to fly a Naziflag during the German occupation of Athens.

第一段和第二段通过literary allusion以及historical events 对希腊神殿的艺术重要性和在历史上所遭受的破坏做了对比

The damagedone by the ages to the building, and by past empires and occupations, cannotall be put right. But there is one desecration and dilapidation that can atleast be partially undone.

在本句之前文章都在铺垫，直到此句引出作者观点

此部分参考写作原创范例：

In lieu of arguing for the return of the sculpture directly, Hitchens initiallyalludes to Lawrence who claims that Parthenon is ““the one building in theworld which may be assessed as absolutely right”, followed by a series ofhistorical events to show how such a place of great significance was damaged.Reading this part of the article, most readers would pity for the vicissitude ofthe Parthenon and wonder whether there is a remedy.

Then Hitchens points out that although “the damage…..cannot all be put right”, “thereis one desecration and dilapidation that can at least be partially undone”,successfully engaging readers who are curious and eager to find out the method.

Early in the19th century, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, sent awrecking crew to the Turkish-occupied territory of Greece, where it sawed offapproximately half of the adornment of the Parthenon and carried it away. Aswith all things Greek, there were three elements to this, the most lavish andbeautiful sculptural treasury in human history. Under the direction of theartistic genius Phidias, the temple had two massive pediments decorated withthe figures of Pallas Athena, Poseidon, and the gods of the sun and the moon.It then had a series of 92 high-relief panels, or metopes, depicting asuccession of mythical and historical battles. The most intricate element wasthe frieze, carved in bas-relief, which showed the gods, humans, and animalsthat made up the annual Pan-Athens procession: there were 192 equestrian warriorsand auxiliaries featured, which happens to be the exact number of the city’sheroes who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Experts differ on precisely whatstory is being told here, but the frieze was quite clearly carved as acontinuous narrative. Except that half the cast of the tale is still inBloomsbury, in London, having been sold well below cost by Elgin to the Britishgovernment in 1816 for $2.2 million in today’s currency to pay off his manydebts.

本段是对历史事件的回顾，描述文物如何丢失，可以引发公众的义愤

Ever sinceLord Byron wrote his excoriating attacks on Elgin’s colonial looting, first inChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) and then in The Curse of Minerva (1815),there has been a bitter argument about the legitimacy of the British Museum’sdeal. I’ve written a whole book about this controversy and won’t oppress youwith all the details, but would just make this one point. If the Mona Lisa hadbeen sawed in two during the Napoleonic Wars and the separated halves had beenacquired by different museums in, say, St. Petersburg and Lisbon, would therenot be a general wish to see what they might look like if re-united? If youthink my analogy is overdrawn, consider this:

而本段通过历史假设和类比证明了作者的观点

以上两段可以简单这样来写：

By mentioning how the sculpture was sawed, looted and sold to British government, Hitchensrefers to historical events, indicating the capture of part of the sculpture byElgin was illegal and made the otherwise complete narrative broken. To make hisargument more potent, Hitchens utilizes a historical hypothesis that Mona Lisawas cut into two parts, appealing to pathos of his readers by putting them into the shoes of the Greeks.

It is unfortunately true that the city alloweditself to become very dirty and polluted in the 20th century, and as a resultthe remaining sculptures and statues on the Parthenon were nastily eroded by“acid rain.” But gradually and now impressively, the Greeks have been living upto their responsibilities. Beginning in 1992, the endangered marbles wereremoved from the temple, given careful cleaning with ultraviolet and infra-redlasers, and placed in a climate-controlled interior.

本段的重要特点为让步

Hitchens concedes that the city became “very dirty” in the 20^th century,anticipating possible counterarguments from the audience, yet he finally address such concern by pointing out that “Greeks have been living up to their responsibilities.”

TheAcropolis Museum has hit on the happy idea of exhibiting, for as long asfollowing that precedent is too much to hope for, its own original sculptureswith the London-held pieces represented by beautifully copied casts. This hastwo effects: It allows thevisitor to follow the frieze round the four walls of a core “cella” and see thesculpted tale unfold. And it creates a natural thirst to see the actualre-assembly completed. So, far from emptying or weakening a museum, thiscontroversy has instead created another one, which is destined to be amongEurope’s finest galleries. And one day, surely, there will be an agreement todo the right thing by the world’s most “right” structure.

结尾段的亮点为最后一句的right重复首尾呼应又强调了其双重含义

In the last sentence, Hitchens repeats the word right to emphasize its distinctive connotation that returning the sculpture is most reasonable choice to rescue one of the most significant artifacts in the world. [anti-both]