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  3. We sometimes hear that essays are an old-fashioned form, that so-and-so is the "last essayist", but the facts of the marketplace

We sometimes hear that essays are an old-fashioned form, that so-and-so is the "last essayist", but the facts of the marketplace

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问题     We sometimes hear that essays are an old-fashioned form, that so-and-so is the "last essayist", but the facts of the marketplace argue quite otherwise. Essays of nearly any kind are so much easier than short stories for a writer to sell, so many more see print, it’s strange that though two fine anthologies(collections)remain that publish the year’s best stories, no comparable collection exists for essays. Such changes in the reading public’s taste aren’t always to the good, needless to say. The art of telling stories predated even cave painting, surely; and if we ever find ourselves living in caves again, it(with painting and drumming)will be the only art left, after movies, novels, photography, essays, biography, and all the rest have gone down the drain — the art to build from.
    Essays, however, hang somewhere on a line between two sturdy poles: this is what I think, and this is what I am. Autobiographies which aren’t novels are generally extended essays, indeed. A personal essay is like the human voice talking, its order being the mind’s natural flow, instead of a systematized outline of ideas. Though more changeable or informal than an article or treatise, somewhere it contains a point which is its real center, even if the point couldn’t be uttered in fewer words than the essayist has used. Essays don’t usually boil down to a summary, as articles do, and the style of the writer has a "nap" to it, a combination of personality and originality and energetic loose ends that stand up like the nap(绒毛)on a piece of wool and can’t be brushed flat. Essays belong to the animal kingdom, with a surface that generates sparks, like a coat of fur, compared with the flat, conventional cotton of the magazine article writer, who works in the vegetable kingdom, instead. But, essays, on the other hand, may have fewer "levels" than fiction, because we are not supposed to argue much about their meaning. In the old distinction between teaching and storytelling, the essayist, however cleverly he tries to conceal his intentions, is a bit of a teacher or reformer, and an essay is intended to convey the same point to each of us.
    An essayist doesn’t have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he can shape or shave his memories, as long as the purpose is served of explaining a truthful point. A personal essay frequently is not autobiographical at all, but what it does keep in common with autobiography is that, through its tone and tumbling progression, it conveys the quality of the author’s mind. Nothing gets in the way. Because essays are directly concerned with the mind and the mind’s peculiarity, the very freedom the mind possesses is conferred on this branch of literature that does honor to it, and the fascination of the mind is the fascination of the essay.
Essays are characterized by all of the following EXCEPT______.
选项 A、careful arrangement and organization of chief ideas
B、remarkable concision and meaningful presentation
C、improbable condensation to any shorter accounts
D、flashes of wit and enlightenment of argumentation
答案A
解析 这是一道细节题。第二段中“……即使表达这个中心所使用的语言不能用少于散文家使用的语言；散文的风格犹如一层绒毛，将作者的个性、独创性以及激情的点缀在散文上”这几句话证实B和C是散文的特征。第三段中“借助语调和跌宕的情节，散文表达了作者思想的特征；正是借助于散文，思想的自由才得以舒展，使得散文获得荣耀，因此，思想的魅力就是散文的魅力”这几句话证实D是散文的特征。只有A“主要观点的认真编排与组织”与第二段第三句话“个体散文就像人类在说话，它是大脑思维的自然流露，而不是思想的系统化表达”的意思不符。
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