[1] Det moderne Gennembruds M?nd.
Jens Peter Jacobsen was born in Jutland, in the little town of Thisted, on April 7, 1847, and was the son of a merchant in moderate circumstances. From his mother he inherited a desire to write poetry, which asserted itself while he was yet a boy. His other chief interest was botany, - vi - then a new feature of the school curriculum. He had a fervent7 love of all plant-life and enjoyed keenly the fairy-tales of Hans Christian8 Andersen, in which flowers are endowed with personality. At twenty, Jacobsen wrote in his diary that he did not know whether to choose science or poetry for his life-work, since he felt equally drawn9 to both. He added: “If I could bring into the realm of poetry the eternal laws of nature, its glories, its riddles10, its miracles, then I feel that my work would be more than ordinary.”
He was one of the first in Scandinavia to realize the importance of Darwin, and translated The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, besides writing magazine articles elucidating11 the principles of evolution. Meanwhile he carried on his botanical research faithfully and, in 1872, won a gold medal in the University at Copenhagen for a thesis on the Danish desmidiaciae, a microscopic13 plant growing in the marshes14. In the same year, he made his literary debut15 with a short story, Mogens, which compelled attention by the daring originality16 of its style. From that time on, he seems to have had no doubt that his life-work was literature, though he became primarily a master of prose and not, as he had dreamed in his boyhood, a writer of verse.
In the spring of 1873, he wrote from Copenhagen to Edvard Brandes:[2] “Just think, I get up every morning at eleven and go to the Royal Library, where I read old documents and letters and lies and descriptions of murder, adultery, corn rates, whoremongery, market prices, gardening, the siege of Copenhagen, divorce proceedings17, christenings, estate registers, genealogies18, and funeral sermons. All this is to become a wonderful novel to be called ‘Mistress Marie Grubbe, Interiors from the Seventeenth Century.’ - vii - You remember, she is the one who is mentioned in Holberg’s Epistles and in The Goose Girl by Andersen, and who was first married to U. F. Gyldenl?ve and afterwards to a ferryman.”
[2] Breve fra J. P. Jacobsen. Med Forord udgivne af Edvard Brandes.
When the first two chapters were finished, an advance honorarium19 from his publisher enabled him to follow his longing20 and make a trip to the south of Europe, but his stay there was cut short by an attack of the insidious21 lung disease that was, eventually, to end his life. At Florence, he had a hemorrhage and was obliged to return home to Thisted, where the family physician declared his illness to be mortal. He recovered partially22 and lived to write his great works, but for eleven years his life was a constant struggle with physical disability.
Marie Grubbe cost him nearly four years of labor23, during which time he published nothing except a short story, Et Skud i Taagen (“A Shot in the Mist”), and a few poems. The first two chapters of his novel appeared under the title Marie Grubbes Barndom (“The Childhood of Marie Grubbe”), and were printed in October, 1873, in a monthly magazine, Det nittende Aarhundrede, edited by Edvard and Georg Brandes. The completed book was published in December, 1876, and had sufficient popular success to warrant a second edition in February. Conservative critics, however, needed time to adjust themselves to so startling a novelty, and one reviewer drew from Georg Brandes the retort that certain people ought to wear blue goggles24 when looking at a style so full of color.
Long before he had finished Marie Grubbe, Jacobsen felt a new novel taking shape in his mind. It was to be the story of a modern youth and be called Niels Lyhne. It was written, bit by bit, in Thisted and abroad, and did not appear until - viii - December, 1880, four years after Marie Grubbe. In the latter, he had written of Renaissance25 types, sensual, full-blooded, and impulsive26; only in Sti H?gh, who was always cutting up the timber of life into thought-shavings, had he foreshadowed that modern reflectiveness which Heidenstam calls the curse of the nineteenth century. Niels Lyhne is the embodiment of this spirit, and is generally accepted as Jacobsen’s self-portrait, although the events of the story are not those of the author’s life. F. Hansen calls it[3] “a casting up of accounts with life by a man whom death had marked. Thence its Pindaric elevation27 of thought and expression. It is instinct with a spirit like a swan that rises and rises, on broad, slow wings, till it is lost to sight.” It expresses Jacobsen’s struggle, not only against the bodily weakness that laid its paralyzing hand on his faculties28, but also against the sluggish29, dreamy blood he had inherited, which made all creative work an agonizing30 effort.
[3] Illustreret Dansk Litteraturhistorie.
Niels Lyhne is an outsider from life. He seems never to fill any particular place in his world. He has a poetic gift and high artistic31 ideals, but never writes. Two women leave him for other men less fine and lovable. Finally, he returns to his old home and family traditions, to manage his father’s estate, and to marry a sweet young girl, the daughter of an old neighbor. She and her child are taken away from him by death, and in her last illness she forsakes32 the atheism33 he has taught her and turns to the old religion, leaving Niels with a baffled sense that her spirit has left him even before the parting in death. At last Niels himself dies “the difficult death”—the closing words of the book.
This is perhaps the place to say a few words about the - ix - atheism that is a dreary34 side of Jacobsen’s rich and brilliant personality. Early in life, he became convinced that human beings must rid themselves of the idea that any supernatural power would interfere35 between themselves and their deeds. He saw a supreme36 moral value in the doctrine37 of evolution with its principle of a universe governed by laws of cause and effect. In Niels Lyhne he emphasized again and again the bitter theory that no one ever added an inch to his height by dreams, or changed the consequences of good and evil by wishes and aspirations38. Niels tries to instill into himself and his wife the courage to face life as it is, without taking refuge from realities in a world of dreams. Further than this, Jacobsen attacked no sincere faith. It would be interesting to search out how far, since his day, his principle of the immutability39 of law has penetrated40 religious thought, but that would be beyond the scope of this sketch41.
For eight years, while writing his two novels, Jacobsen had lived in his little native town in Jutland with occasional trips to the south. After the completion of Niels Lyhne, he resumed his place in the literary circles of Copenhagen, which he had shunned—so he humbly42 confessed—because he was ashamed of never getting anything finished. His old diffidence seemed to have left him; to the sweetness and quiet whimsicality that had always endeared him to his friends he added a new poise43 and assurance. He was deeply gratified by the reception given Niels Lyhne by people whose opinion he valued, and when he was told that Ibsen was reading it aloud to his evening circle, and had pronounced it the best book of its kind in modern literature, he characteristically remarked that this was pleasant to hear, even though John Poulson (Ibsen’s friend and biographer) no doubt exaggerated a little.
- x -
This period of Jacobsen’s life was in many ways a happy one, in spite of his declining health. He had his old lodgings44 and lived there with the same puritanic simplicity45 as in his student days, and indeed his books never brought him enough money to live otherwise, but he revelled46 in a luxurious47 couch, the gift of anonymous48 women admirers, and in the flowers with which his friends kept his rooms filled. He wrote at this time a few short stories, among them Pesten i Bergamo (“The Plague at Bergamo”) and Fru F?nss. The latter tells of a woman in middle life who had the courage to grasp the happiness that youth had denied her. She dies, and her farewell letter to her children gives Jacobsen the opportunity to express the longing to be remembered which he could never have brought himself to utter in his own person. “Those who are about to die are always poor. I am poor; for all this beautiful world, which has been my rich, blessed home for so many years, is to be taken from me. My chair will be empty; the door will be closed after me, and I shall never set my foot there again. Therefore I look on everything with a prayer in my eyes that it will love me; therefore I come to you and beg you to love me with all the love you once gave me. Remember that to be loved is all the part I shall have in the world of men. Only to be remembered, nothing more.”
With the last remnant of his strength, Jacobsen recast his poems, which were published after his death. Finally, when his illness could no longer be fought off, he went home to Thisted to be cared for by his mother and brother. There he died, on April 30, 1885, as quietly and bravely as he had lived.
The importance of the two short volumes that contain - xi - Jacobsen’s complete works has been more fully12 realized as they have been seen in the perspective of time. His poems, though few in number, are exquisite49. With Niels Lyhne, he introduced the psychological novel in Denmark. While at work on it, he wrote a friend that after all the only interesting thing was “the struggle of one or more human beings for existence, that is their struggle against the existing order of things for their right to exist in their own way.” Vilhelm Andersen points[4] to these casual words as marking the cleavage between the old and the new, saying: “Before Niels Lyhne, the poetic was the general; after this book, the poetic became the personal. The literature whose foremost representative is Adam Oehlenschl?ger had for its aim the exaltation of the things common to humanity; the art in which J. P. Jacobsen became the first master has only one purpose, the presentation and elucidation50 of the individual.”
[4] Litteraturbilleder, II.
Jacobsen has himself told us his ideal of style in a paragraph of Niels Lyhne, where he lets Fru Boye attack the generalities of Oehlenschl?ger’s description in his poem The Mermaid51 visits King Helge. “I want a luxuriant, glowing picture,” she exclaims. “I want to be initiated52 into the mysterious beauty of such a mermaid body, and I ask of you, what can I make of lovely limbs with a piece of gauze spread over them?—Good God!—No, she should have been naked as a wave and with the wild lure53 of the sea about her. Her skin should have had something of the phosphorescence of the summer ocean and her hair something of the black, tangled54 horror of the seaweed. Am I not right? Yes, and a thousand tints56 of the water should come and go in the changeful glitter of her eyes. Her pale breast must be cool with a voluptuous57 coolness, and her limbs have the flowing - xii - lines of the waves. The power of the maelstrom58 must be in her kiss, and the yielding softness of the foam59 in the embrace of her arms.” In the same passage, Jacobsen praises the vitality60 of Shakespeare’s style as a contrast to that of the Danish romanticists.
His search for unique and characteristic expressions had free play in Marie Grubbe, where he could draw on the store of quaint61 archaic62 and foreign words he unearthed63 in his preliminary studies. To avoid the harsh staccato of the North, he made full use of the redundant64 words and unaccented syllables65 that were more common in the old Danish than in the modern, and thereby66 he gained the effect of prose rhythm. While discarding outworn phrases, he often coins new words, as for instance when he is not satisfied to let the sunlight play on the wings of the doves circling around Frederiksborg castle, or even to make the sunlight golden, but must needs fashion the word “sungold” (solguld), which in two syllables is the concentrated essence of what he wishes to say. Sometimes he gives a sharper edge to a common expression merely by changing the usual order of two coupled words, as when he speaks of Ulrik Christian as slim and tall, instead of tall and slim—a minute touch that really adds vividness to the picture.
The habit of looking for characteristic features, which he had acquired in his botanical studies, became an apt tool of his creative faculty67. Sometimes his descriptions seem overloaded68 with details, as when he uses two pages to tell about the play of the firelight in the little parlor69 at Aggershus, where Marie Grubbe sits singing to the tones of her lute70. Yet the images never blur71 nor overlap72 one another. Every word deepens the central idea: the sport of the storm with the fire and the consequent struggle between light and - xiii - darkness in the room. Not only that, but the entire description ministers subtly to the allurement73 of the woman at the hearth74. Almost any writer except J. P. Jacobsen would have told us how the light played on Marie Grubbe’s hair and face, but he prefers to let us feel her personality through her environment. This is true also of his outdoor pictures, where he uses his flower-lore to good advantage, as in the first chapter of Marie Grubbe, where we find the lonely, wayward child playing in the old luxuriant, neglected garden full of a tangle55 of quaint old-fashioned flowers. But when she returns to the home of her childhood, we hear no more of the famous Tjele garden except as a place to raise vegetables in; her later history is sketched75 on a background of heathery hill, permeated76 with a strong smell of sun-scorched earth, which somehow suggests the harsh, physical realities of life in the class she has entered.
Another means in his favorite method of indirect approach to a personality is through woman’s dress. Marie Grubbe’s attire—from the lavender homespun and billowing linen77 ruffles78 of the young maiden79 to the more sophisticated daintiness of Ulrik Frederik’s bride in madder red robe and clocked stockings, the slovenly80 garb81 of Palle Dyre’s wife, and finally the neat simple gown marred82 by a tawdry brocaded cap which she dons when she falls in love with S?ren—is a complete index to her moral fall and rise. Sofie Urne’s shabby velvet83, her trailing plumes84 and red-nosed shoes, are equally characteristic of her tarnished85 attractions, and when her lover bends rapturously over the slim, white hand which is “not quite clean” we know exactly the nature of the charm she exercises, though Jacobsen never comments on her character, as an author of the older school would have done. Nor does he ask our sympathy for Marie - xiv - Grubbe, but he lets us feel all the promise and the tragedy of her life in the description of her eyes as a young girl—a paragraph of marvellous poignant86 beauty.
Jacobsen once jestingly compared himself to the sloth87 (det ber?mte Dovendyr Ai-ai) which needed two years to climb to the top of a tree. It was necessary for him to withdraw absolutely from the world and to retire, as it were, within the character he wished to portray88 before he could set pen to paper. It cannot be denied that the laboriousness89 of the process is sometimes perceptible in his finished work. His style became too gorgeous in color, too heavy with fragrance90. Yet there were signs that Jacobsen’s genius was freeing itself from the faults of over-richness. The very last prose that came from his hand, Fru F?nss, has a clarified simplicity that has induced critics to place it at the very head of his production. Indeed, it is difficult to say to what heights of artistic accomplishment91 he might have risen had his life been spared beyond the brief span of thirty-eight years. As it is, the books he left us are still, of their kind, unsurpassed in the North.
The translation of Marie Grubbe (a book which Brandes has called one of the greatest tours de force in Danish literature) was a task to be approached with diffidence. The author does not reconstruct exactly, in his dialogue, the language of the period; nor have I attempted it. Even had I been able to do so, the racy English of the Restoration would have been an alien medium for the flourishes and pomposities of Jacobsen’s Danish. On the other hand, it would clearly have been unfair to the author to turn his work into ordinary modern English and so destroy that stiff, rich fabric92 of curious, archaic words and phrases which he had been at such pains to weave. There seemed only one - xv - course open: to follow the original, imitating as far as possible its color and texture93, even though the resultant language may not be of any particular time or place. The translation has been a task, but also a pleasure. To live intimately for months with Jacobsen’s style is to find beauty within beauty and truth within truth like “rose upon rose in flowering splendor94.”
H. A. L.
New York, July 1, 1917.
点击收听单词发音
1 tuned | |
adj.调谐的,已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 );调整;(给收音机、电视等)调谐;使协调 | |
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2 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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3 pliant | |
adj.顺从的;可弯曲的 | |
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4 modulated | |
已调整[制]的,被调的 | |
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5 domain | |
n.(活动等)领域,范围;领地,势力范围 | |
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6 poetic | |
adj.富有诗意的,有诗人气质的,善于抒情的 | |
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7 fervent | |
adj.热的,热烈的,热情的 | |
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8 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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9 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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10 riddles | |
n.谜(语)( riddle的名词复数 );猜不透的难题,难解之谜 | |
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11 elucidating | |
v.阐明,解释( elucidate的现在分词 ) | |
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12 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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13 microscopic | |
adj.微小的,细微的,极小的,显微的 | |
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14 marshes | |
n.沼泽,湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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15 debut | |
n.首次演出,初次露面 | |
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16 originality | |
n.创造力,独创性;新颖 | |
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17 proceedings | |
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
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18 genealogies | |
n.系谱,家系,宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
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19 honorarium | |
n.酬金,谢礼 | |
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20 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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21 insidious | |
adj.阴险的,隐匿的,暗中为害的,(疾病)不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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22 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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23 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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24 goggles | |
n.护目镜 | |
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25 renaissance | |
n.复活,复兴,文艺复兴 | |
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26 impulsive | |
adj.冲动的,刺激的;有推动力的 | |
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27 elevation | |
n.高度;海拔;高地;上升;提高 | |
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28 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
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29 sluggish | |
adj.懒惰的,迟钝的,无精打采的 | |
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30 agonizing | |
adj.痛苦难忍的;使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦;折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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31 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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32 forsakes | |
放弃( forsake的第三人称单数 ); 弃绝; 抛弃; 摒弃 | |
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33 atheism | |
n.无神论,不信神 | |
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34 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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35 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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36 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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37 doctrine | |
n.教义;主义;学说 | |
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38 aspirations | |
强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 ); 志向; 发送气音; 发 h 音 | |
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39 immutability | |
n.不变(性) | |
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40 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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41 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
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42 humbly | |
adv. 恭顺地,谦卑地 | |
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43 poise | |
vt./vi. 平衡,保持平衡;n.泰然自若,自信 | |
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44 lodgings | |
n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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45 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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46 revelled | |
v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉 | |
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47 luxurious | |
adj.精美而昂贵的;豪华的 | |
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48 anonymous | |
adj.无名的;匿名的;无特色的 | |
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49 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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50 elucidation | |
n.说明,阐明 | |
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51 mermaid | |
n.美人鱼 | |
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52 initiated | |
n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始,创始,启蒙,介绍加入 | |
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53 lure | |
n.吸引人的东西,诱惑物;vt.引诱,吸引 | |
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54 tangled | |
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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55 tangle | |
n.纠缠;缠结;混乱;v.(使)缠绕;变乱 | |
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56 tints | |
色彩( tint的名词复数 ); 带白的颜色; (淡色)染发剂; 痕迹 | |
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57 voluptuous | |
adj.肉欲的,骄奢淫逸的 | |
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58 maelstrom | |
n.大乱动;大漩涡 | |
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59 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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60 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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61 quaint | |
adj.古雅的,离奇有趣的,奇怪的 | |
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62 archaic | |
adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的,已不通用的 | |
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63 unearthed | |
出土的(考古) | |
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64 redundant | |
adj.多余的,过剩的;(食物)丰富的;被解雇的 | |
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65 syllables | |
n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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66 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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67 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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68 overloaded | |
a.超载的,超负荷的 | |
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69 parlor | |
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅 | |
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70 lute | |
n.琵琶,鲁特琴 | |
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71 blur | |
n.模糊不清的事物;vt.使模糊,使看不清楚 | |
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72 overlap | |
v.重叠,与…交叠;n.重叠 | |
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73 allurement | |
n.诱惑物 | |
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74 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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75 sketched | |
v.草拟(sketch的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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76 permeated | |
弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 ); 遍布; 渗入; 渗透 | |
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77 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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78 ruffles | |
褶裥花边( ruffle的名词复数 ) | |
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79 maiden | |
n.少女,处女;adj.未婚的,纯洁的,无经验的 | |
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80 slovenly | |
adj.懒散的,不整齐的,邋遢的 | |
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81 garb | |
n.服装,装束 | |
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82 marred | |
adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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83 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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84 plumes | |
羽毛( plume的名词复数 ); 羽毛饰; 羽毛状物; 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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85 tarnished | |
(通常指金属)(使)失去光泽,(使)变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 ); 玷污,败坏 | |
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86 poignant | |
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的 | |
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87 sloth | |
n.[动]树懒;懒惰,懒散 | |
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88 portray | |
v.描写,描述;画(人物、景象等) | |
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89 laboriousness | |
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90 fragrance | |
n.芬芳,香味,香气 | |
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91 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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92 fabric | |
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织 | |
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93 texture | |
n.(织物)质地;(材料)构造;结构;肌理 | |
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94 splendor | |
n.光彩;壮丽,华丽;显赫,辉煌 | |
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