問題詳情
V. Reading Comprehension: Choose the best answer to each question/statement belowaccording to what is stated and implied in each passage.Questions 41-45In seeking to describe the origins of theater, one must rely primarily on speculation, since thereis little concrete evidence on which to draw. The most widely accepted theory, championed byanthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, envisions theater as emerging outof myth and ritual. The process perceived by these anthropologists may be summarized briefly.During the early stages of its development, a society becomes aware of forces that appear to influenceor control its food supply and well-being. Having little understanding of natural causes, it attributesboth desirable and undesirable occurrences to supernatural or magical forces, and it searches formeans to win the favor of these forces. Perceiving an apparent connection between certain actionsperformed by the group and the result it desires, the group repeats, refines and formalizes those actionsinto fixed ceremonies, or rituals.Stories (myths) may then grow up around a ritual. Frequently the myths include representativesof those supernatural forces that the rites celebrate or hope to influence. Performers may wearcostumes and masks to represent the mythical characters or supernatural forces in the rituals or inaccompanying celebrations. As a people becomes more sophisticated, its conceptions of supernaturalforces and causal relationships may change. As a result, it may abandon or modify some rites. But themyths that have grown up around the rites may continue as part of the group’s oral tradition and mayeven come to be acted out under conditions divorced from these rites. When this occurs, the first stephas been taken toward theater as an autonomous activity, and thereafter entertainment and aestheticvalues may gradually replace the former mystical and socially efficacious concerns.Although origin in ritual has long been the most popular, it is by no means the only theory abouthow the theater came into being. Storytelling has been proposed as one alternative. Under this theory,relating and listening to stories are seen as fundamental human pleasures. Thus, the recalling of anevent (a hunt, battle, or other feat) is elaborated through the narrator’s pantomime and impersonationand eventually through each role being assumed by a different person. In addition to exploring the possible antecedents of theater, scholars have also theorized aboutthe motives that led people to develop theater. Why did theater develop, and why was it valued afterit ceased to fulfill the function of ritual? Most answers fall back on the theories about the human mindand basic human needs. One, set forth by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C.E., sees humans asnaturally imitative—as taking pleasure in imitating persons, things, and actions and in seeing suchimitations. Another, advanced in the twentieth century, suggests that humans have a gift for fantasy,through which they seek to reshape reality into more satisfying forms than those encountered in dailylife. Thus, fantasy or fiction (of which drama is one form) permits people to objectify their anxietiesand fears, confront them, and fulfill their hopes in fiction if not fact. The theater, then, is one toolwhereby people define and understand their world or escape from unpleasant realities.But neither the human imitative instinct nor a penchant for fantasy by itself leads to anautonomous theater. Therefore, additional explanations are needed. One necessary condition seemsto be a somewhat detached view of human problems. For example, one sign of this condition is theappearance of the comic vision, since comedy requires sufficient detachment to view some deviationsfrom social norms as ridiculous rather than as serious threats to the welfare of the entire group.Another condition that contributes to the development of autonomous theater is the emergence of theaesthetic sense. For example, some early societies ceased to consider certain rites essential to theirwell-being and abandoned them; nevertheless, they retained as parts of their oral tradition the mythsthat had grown up around the rites and admired them for their artistic qualities rather than for theirreligious usefulness.
【題組】41. According to this article, theories of the origins of theater _____.
(A) are well supported by factual evidence
(B) have reached a consensus among historians
(C) were expressed in the early stages of theater’s development
(D) are mostly accurate and substantiated by facts
(E) are mainly hypothetical and drawn from inferences
參考答案
答案：E
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)