Unit 1: Short Fiction I
AP English Literature and Composition Topic 1 6:43 English narration · English + 中文 subtitles burned in
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Transcript
AP English Literature reads texts in three genres across nine units — short fiction, poetry, and longer fiction or drama — each visited three times at increasing difficulty.
AP 英语文学 在九个单元中阅读三种体裁的文本， 短篇小说、诗歌， 以及长篇小说或戏剧， 每一种都以递增的难度 被访问三次。
So Unit 1 is not the short-story unit.
所以第一单元 并不是"短篇小说单元"。
It installs the tools you will use on every text in the course, and the tools are worth more than any story you read with them.
它安装的是你在整门课程中 对每一个文本都会使用的工具， 而这些工具 比你用它们读过的任何一个故事 都更值钱。
Character is revealed by three things, and the CED names them exactly: description, dialogue and behaviour.
人物由三样东西揭示， 课程大纲说得很准确： 描写、对话与行为。
Descriptions may come from a speaker, a narrator, other characters, or the characters themselves — so who is describing is part of the evidence, not just what is described.
描写可能来自说话者、叙述者、 其他人物，或人物自己， 所以"谁在描写" 也是证据的一部分， 而不只是"描写了什么"。
Perspective is how narrators, characters or speakers understand their circumstances, informed by background, experience and values.
视角是叙述者、人物或说话者 如何理解自身处境， 由背景、经历与价值观所塑造。
And a character's perspective is both shaped and revealed by relationships with other characters, the environment and events.
而一个人物的视角 既被与其他人物、环境 与事件的关系所塑造， 也在这些关系中被揭示。
That last point is what turns character notes into analysis.
最后这一点 正是把人物笔记变成分析的东西。
A character is not a list of adjectives.
人物不是一串形容词。
A character is a way of seeing, which becomes visible in what they notice, what they misread, and how they respond.
人物是一种看的方式， 它体现在他们注意到什么、 误读了什么， 以及如何回应。
Setting includes the time and place during which the events of the text occur.
背景包括 文本中事件发生的时间与地点。
The CED's definition is deliberately minimal, and that is the trap.
课程大纲的定义故意写得很简， 而这正是陷阱。
Setting earns marks not when it is described but when it is shown doing something — constraining a character, explaining a value, or contrasting with an interior state.
背景得分， 不是在它被描写的时候， 而是在它被展示为在做某件事的时候， 约束一个人物、 解释一种价值， 或与内心状态形成对照。
A paragraph that establishes where a story happens has not yet made a claim.
一个只交代故事发生在哪里的段落 还没有提出任何主张。
Ask of every setting detail: what does this make possible, or impossible, for this character?
对每一个背景细节都要问： 它让这个人物 有可能做什么， 或不可能做什么？
Now the function of a sequence of events.
现在说事件序列的功能。
Plot is the sequence of events in a narrative — events connected, each building on those before it — and the dramatic situation includes the setting and action of the plot and how the narrative develops to place characters in conflict.
情节是叙事中事件的次序， 事件彼此相连， 每一个都建立在此前的事件之上， 而戏剧情境 包括情节的背景与动作， 以及叙事如何发展 把人物置于冲突之中。
The word sequence is doing work.
"次序"这个词在起作用。
Plot is not the events but their order, and an author who reveals something late that happened early has made a choice you can analyse.
情节不是那些事件， 而是它们的顺序， 一位把早先发生的事 放到后面才揭示的作者， 做出了一个你可以分析的选择。
Then the CED gives you the whole method for prose analysis in one sentence: plot and the exposition that accompanies it focus readers' attention on the parts of the narrative that matter most to the text's meaning.
随后课程大纲用一句话 给出了散文分析的整套方法： 情节以及伴随它的铺陈， 把读者的注意力 引向叙事中 对文本意义最重要的部分。
In other words, proportion is evidence.
换句话说，比例就是证据。
What the text lingers over, and what it passes in a clause, is the author telling you where to look.
文本在什么上停留， 又在什么上一笔带过， 就是作者在告诉你该往哪里看。
Narrators or speakers relate accounts and establish a relationship between the text and the reader.
叙述者或说话者讲述事情， 并在文本与读者之间 建立起一种关系。
And the CED separates two words students merge.
而课程大纲区分了 两个学生常常混为一谈的词。
Perspective refers to how narrators, characters or speakers see their circumstances.
视角指的是 叙述者、人物或说话者 如何看待自身处境。
Point of view refers to the position from which they relate the account.
叙述视点指的是 他们从什么位置讲述这件事。
How they see, and where they stand.
如何看，与站在哪里。
Keep them apart and both become usable.
把它们分开，两者才都可用。
Then the rule that saves the most marks in this course: a speaker or narrator is not necessarily the author.
接着是本课程中 最能保住分数的一条规则： 说话者或叙述者 不一定是作者。
Never write "the author feels" about a first-person narrator.
绝不要对一个第一人称叙述者 写"作者感到"。
The distance between the two is very often the point of the story.
两者之间的距离， 往往正是这个故事的要点。
The function of point of view is the analytical gold here.
视角的功能是这里最有分析价值的东西。
Point of view contributes to what narrators can and cannot provide in a text, based on their position.
叙述视点决定了 叙述者在文本中 能提供与不能提供什么， 这取决于他们所处的位置。
Narrators may also be characters, and that role may influence their perspective.
叙述者也可能是人物， 而这一身份可能影响他们的视角。
First-person narrators are involved in the narrative; their relationship to events and to other characters shapes what they can tell you.
第一人称叙述者 身处叙事之中， 他们与事件、 与其他人物的关系， 塑造了他们能告诉你什么。
Third-person narrators are outside observers, and their knowledge may range from observational to all-knowing, and their outside perspective may not be affected by the events of the narrative.
第三人称叙述者是外部观察者， 他们的知识范围 可以从"仅凭观察"到"全知"， 而他们的外部视角 可能不受叙事中事件的影响。
Now the analytical payoff, and it is the cannot.
现在是分析上的回报， 而回报在于"不能"。
A first-person narrator cannot report what they did not witness or will not admit, and every gap is meaningful.
第一人称叙述者 无法报告他们没有目睹的事， 或不肯承认的事， 而每一处空白都有意义。
A limited third-person narrator confines you to one consciousness, which is a choice about whose experience counts.
有限第三人称叙述者 把你限制在一个意识之内， 这是一个关于 谁的经历才算数的选择。
Finally, the writing — and it is worth knowing what you are writing FOR.
最后是写作——而且值得知道你是在为什么而写。
The free-response section sets three questions: poetry analysis, prose fiction analysis, and a literary argument on a work you choose.
自由作答部分有三道题：诗歌分析、散文小说分析， 以及一道关于你自选作品的文学论证题。
All three are marked on the same six-point rubric: one mark for the thesis, four for evidence and commentary, one for sophistication.
三道题都用同一个六分制评分标准： 论点句一分，证据与阐释四分，深度一分。
So four of the six marks are the join between quotation and claim.
所以六分里有四分，落在引文与分论点之间的那个连接上。
In literary analysis, writers read a text closely to identify details that, in combination, enable them to make and defend a claim.
在文学分析中， 写作者细读文本， 找出那些合在一起 能让他们提出并辩护一个主张的细节。
A claim is a statement that requires defence with evidence from the text, and the initial components of a paragraph are the claim and the textual evidence that defends it.
主张是需要用文本证据 加以辩护的陈述， 而一个段落最初的组成部分 就是主张， 以及为它辩护的文本证据。
Note those two words: in combination.
注意那三个字：合在一起。
A single detail rarely supports an interpretive claim.
单独一个细节 很少能支撑一个解读性的主张。
Two or three details that point the same way do — and finding the second and third is usually easier than defending the first alone.
两三个指向同一方向的细节可以， 而找到第二个和第三个， 通常比孤零零地为第一个辩护 要容易。
A real AP task.
一道真实的 AP 题。
For a prose fiction prompt asking how narrative technique reveals a character's attitude, a weak answer writes that the narrator is first-person, which makes it personal.
散文小说题问叙事手法如何揭示人物态度时， 弱答案只写叙述者是第一人称，所以很个人。
Pause here.
先暂停。
A scoring answer uses the cannot: because the narrator is a participant recounting events years later, the account gives his present judgement of his younger self and withholds what the other characters thought.
得分答案用的是「不能」： 因为叙述者是多年后回忆的参与者，叙述给出的是他对年轻自己的当下判断， 并扣住了其他人物怎么想。
So the reader receives his self-criticism as the only available evidence, and must decide whether the harshness is accuracy or performance.
于是读者只拿到他的自我批评作为仅有证据， 必须判断那份严厉是准确还是表演。
Narrators may also be characters, and that role may influence their perspective.
叙述者也可能是人物，这一身份会影响视角。
Point of view, its limit, and the effect on the reader.
视点、它的限度，以及这对读者的效果。
Five things to carry out.
带走五件事。
First, character is a way of seeing — analyse what they notice and misread.
第一，人物是一种看的方式， 要分析他们注意到什么、误读了什么。
Second, setting must do something; describing where a story happens is not yet a claim.
第二，背景必须在做事， 交代故事发生在哪里 还不是一个主张。
Third, plot is the order of events, so a late revelation is a choice.
第三，情节是事件的顺序， 所以推迟揭示是一个选择。
Fourth, proportion is evidence — what the text lingers over is where the meaning is.
第四，比例就是证据， 文本在什么上停留， 意义就在那里。
Fifth, the narrator is not the author, and the analytical gold is what the narrator cannot provide.
第五，叙述者不是作者， 而分析上的金矿 在于叙述者不能提供什么。