TASK 6. (12 points)
Read the following text. For questions 6.1.-6.7. choose the appropriate paragraph
and write the corresponding letter (A-F) in the ANSWER column. Some paragraphs
may match more than one question. Then answer questions 6.8.-6.12 in the space
provided. Do not quote from the text.
For each correct answer you will be given 1 point.
END THE EXILE
A. In August, the world congress of art historians begins in Athens. Many people from
all over the world will come to the city crowned by the Parthenon. But the Greeks, hoping
against hope, have invited a very special group of guests who will not be coming.
The sacred figures of the Elgin Marbles, sawn off the temple by a Scottish nobleman
almost 200 years ago, will be staying in the British Museum.
B. Where are they going, those grave maidens carrying wreaths, those bareback horsemen
brooding as they ride? I'm one of those who hope that they are going back to Greece.
Not just because Lord Elgin took them wrongfully, and not just because the Greeks need
them more than we do. But because it's time they left England. They have been here too
long for England's good.
C. The Marbles in the British Museum are performers, trained as actors in a ceremony.
But this is not the Panathenaic Procession. It is a Great British ceremony, about
an imperial splendour which thought of itself as universal rather than merely national.
The figures exhibited in the Duveen Gallery no longer deliver Athens any more than
the bagpipers who tramp round banquets at Windsor Castle deliver Scotland. They are
guests from Greece who became so well known during the 19th century that they were
adopted into the family.
D. The controversy has been running for two centuries. The arguments for keeping
the Marbles in London change all the time, but the arguments for returning them stay
much the same. In 1828, a Polish visitor to London wrote in her diary: 'There [in Athens]
everything had its reason for existence and meaning and formed one whole;
here everything is in pieces, almost in ruins, without any sense or order. In a word, these
remains brought to England are no longer what they were in Greece where the common
people, even through looking at them, developed their taste and perception.' That remains
the core of the returners' case. The Marbles only make sense when they are together
in the context of the great building of which they were an integral part, and they are
the central symbol of the Greek nation's identity.
E. Repatriation is in vouge and the current of opinion is moving against the British Museum.
But what about the fear of many big museums that returning the marbles would unleash
a flood of demands for other treasures to be repatriated - Berlin’s Pergamon Altar back
to Turkey or Napoleon’s loot in the Louvre back to Venice or Egypt? Richard Allan MP,
like the Greeks, insists that the Parthenon is a special case which sets no precedent.
The Marbles, he says, are not isolated objects, but part of the monument that still exists.
And that makes the difference.
F. The Greeks are planning to open the so-called 'virtual Parthenon'. When this museum
on the Acropolis is complete, a new situation will exist in which Greece and Britain could
invent a solution which humiliates neither side. The Greeks no longer insist on property
rights and suggest the marbles could be loaned to a part of the Acropolis Museum under
British Museum authority. After all, England has had its turn and sucked its own bizarre
identity-juice from these stones. That was long ago, and they do not matter to this culture
as they once did. Greece has been very patient, but should now welcome its exiles home.
abridgeded from Neal Ascherson, ‘End the exile’, The Observer, 20 June 2004
Część II
5
Which paragraph
ANSWER
6.1. mentions exact location of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum?
6.2. presents a foreigner’s justification for returning the Marbles?
6.3. compares the Elgin Marbles figures to refugees?
6.4. describes the figures of the stolen masterpiece in detail?
6.5. mentions the origin of the man who took the Marbles from Greece?
6.6. expresses hope for a compromise?
6.7. presents the author’s reasons for returning the Marbles to Greece?
6.8.
Explain the meaning of the phrase ‘hoping against hope’ as used in the first paragraph.
6.9.
In what way are the Elgin Marbles in London and bagpipes in Windsor similar in
the eyes of the author?
6.10. The Elgin Marbles ‘were adopted into the family’. What does this mean?
6.11. Explain who the ‘returners’ are.
6.12. Is Richard Allen in favour of returning all works of art to the country of their origin?
Why/Why not?
TRANSFER ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 6.1.-6.7. TO THE ANSWER
SHEET!
Część II
6
6.4
X