Lesson 15 No Signposts in the Sea课件.ppt

Lesson 15
No Signposts in the Sea

Victoria Mary Sackville- West
Objectives of teaching
get familiar with the background of the author;
understand the main idea and theme of this text;
master the key words and phrases and their use;
try to learn and appreciate the writing style of this passage
Important and difficult points
understand the main idea of this passage;
learn to use key words and phrases;
learn and appreciate the writing style
I. Background information
1. About the author
Victoria Mary Sackville- West (1892-1962) was an English poet and novelist, a member of the Bloomsbury group, an informal group of literary and artistic friends, a close friend of Virginia Woolf.
Her poems include The Land (1926), Solitude (1938), The Garden (1946), All Passion Spent (1931). Her poetry is traditional in form, reminiscent of the work of the English nature poets of the age of romanticism.
A prolific writer, Victoria Sackville-West is the author of 15 novels, as well as biographies and travel books.
I. Background information
2. About the novel No Signposts in the Sea
This novel is writen in the form of a journal kept by a man called Edmund Carr, 50, an influential political columnist and bachelor. He learns that he has a limited time to live--- a few days or weeks, a month or two at most. How shall he spend them? In this quandary, he learns that a widow who he has lately met at random social occasions has booked passage on a cruise to the Far East. Her qualities, her intelligence and warmth stiffened by a deep reserve, have struck him as mon; he decided to be abroad. His contact with Laura, the widow, gives Carr an unfamiliar peace and a profound change in perspective. Power, prestige, practicality--- the former watchwords of his career--- lose their ring. Illusion, which he had adhorred, and the natural world, uninvaded by civilization, begin to seem transcendent. And a third-some Colonel arouses his all-too-human ignominy of jealousy, despair, meanness,