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II
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| The age demanded an image | |
| Of its accelerated grimace, | |
| Something for the modern stage, | |
| Not, at any rate, an Attic grace; | |
| Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries | 25 |
| Of the inward gaze; | |
| Better mendacities | |
| Than the classics in paraphrase! | (27-28) |
| The"age demanded"chiefly a mould in plaster, | |
| Made with no loss of time, | 30 |
| A prose kinema, not, assuredly, alabaster | |
| Or the"sculpture"of rhyme. | |
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Line
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Annotation
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| its accelerated grimace：its是指Age.全句是指現代社會變化快速如一張扭曲的臉，故意做小丑狀的臉。[back] | |
| Not, at any rate, and Attic grace：Attic grace是指維多利亞式虛偽的高雅作風。[back] | |
| obscure reveries：難解的晦澀夢幻或白日夢之類的思想。[back] | |
| Better mendacities . . . paraphrase意謂有創造性的即使是謊言也好，總比沒有創造性，只知模擬或改寫古典文學要來得強。[back] | |
| no loss of time：立即做好，馬上做好。指大量生產之意。[back] | |
| kinema：希臘文，謂「動作片子」──指「電影」。全句是說二十世紀的藝術如電影，是平面的，散文化的，而不是詩的，不是立體化的。[back] |
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