A) Read the following text dealing with comprehension of literature on school level

What does the reader bring to the study of his first literary work литературного произведения in a foreign language? Acquaintance знакомых in the mother tongue with the plot, characters, atmosphere , and general significance of a story may well be an excellent preliminary подготовительный step to the study of that story in the new language. This is comparable to the clarification прояснением of what the words stand for означают in an expression in the mother tongue before giving its equivalent in the language being learned. The relating of the two takes place at a psychological level that is for the most part preverbal, and is in no sense the same as translating, or matching one word with another.

By what steps may the language student gain what can be called knowledge on a literary level of a work of literature? By the same

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steps he presumably предположительно uses in reading a literary work in English. Reading between the lines — and this is most important in literary study — presupposes an accurate and comprehending reading of the lines themselves. In any story there will be first of all a plot in which something happens to someone, at some time and in some place. If answers to the simple questions "where" and "when" are not immediately obvious, that is good reason for the teacher to bring them up поднять вопрос. If nothing happens, but all is atmosphere , mood, introspection самоанализ, or background detail, this too is important and calls for observation and comment. Who are the characters? In what terms does the author present and describe them? What do they do or say? What is the manner of their speech and dress, their conduct toward people and affairs? What is the problem with which the characters are to deal, and how soon and in what terms is it made explicit прямо выражен (заключён)? How does the sequence of events move on переходят to a climax and a conclusion? How does the character reveal открывает itself or change as events proceed? In all this the author will naturally leave much to be inferred воображаемым, but at the beginning it is of first importance to compre­hend and restate формулировать по-другому, with whatever brevity and simplification seem appropriate подходящи, what the author says.

But there is a second step of even greater importance. The liter­ary artists's words and statements will of course be disappointing разочаровывающи to the reader who takes them merely at their face value видимой, кажущейся ценности. The author wishes not only to demonstrate and to prove доказывать, but to impress and persuade убедить, and he counts upon рассчитывает на the power of metaphor to make his words convey much more than they actually say. It is this quality that distinguishes literary writing from scientific writing, and it is in this area, where conceptions осмысление are woven сплетено by the reader about the concepts понятии which the words convey, that the reader plays a challenging стимулирующую and delicate role, one which calls for his full adherence приверженность to the author's intent намерение and the student's need. His success is in no small measure dependent upon the care and thoroughness основательности with which he has ful­filled his obligations обязательствах in step one.

As a third step we may ask the question, "How well has the au­thor accomplished довёл до конца what he set out начал to do? " No reader who has taken the first step and who has been encouraged and guided through the second is likely to remain entirely neutral when this question is asked. He will have enjoyed the experience of following the author's presentation or he will not, he will agree with the ideas set forth in the story or disagree, and he will have value judgements суждение to give of the author's performance as an artist. Of course it is a prime respon-

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sibility of the teacher to provide обеспечивать the student with the means of mak­ing these criticisms IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

(From: Brooks N. Language and Language Learning. N.Y., 1960.)

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