“How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
施弘尉
曾擔任台北市高中英文老師多年
現為英國愛丁堡大學博士生
前言
本課“How Much Land Does a Man Need?”乃高中英文遠東版第二冊第十一課，因為課文淺
顯易懂，故常被學校英文老師視為自學課文。不過，為加強學生的閱讀及文法能力，筆者
亦以三十分鐘的小組討論加深學生對本課內容及相關背景知識的了解。儘管如此，筆者基
於本課課文乃是由俄國大文豪托爾斯泰的短篇小說改寫而成，故精心編製討論講義，除了
讓學生有機會藉由小組討論認真看完課文及練習相關文法，也能避免學生「不教就不唸」
的草率心態，更重要的是，讓學生有機會對文學家的生平及其作品有些概略的了解。以下
筆者將提供私房之課程講義與其他英文老師分享之。
Lesson 11 “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
Outside Reading and Group Work
(Error Analysis + Q&A)
Leo Tolstoy’s Career
(1) Tolstoy was one of the giant of 19th century Russian literature.
His most famous works include the novels Warand Peace and Anna
Karenina, and many shorter works, (2) include the novellas The
Death of Ivan Ilych and HadjiMurad. His autobiographical novels,
Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, his first publications (1852–1856),
(3) telling of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the differences about him and
his peasant playmates. Although in later life Tolstoy rejected these books as sentimental, a great
deal of his own life is revealed, and the books still have relevance for their telling of the
universal story of growing up.
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(4) Tolstoy served like a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, (5)
recounting in his Sevastapol Sketches. His experiences in battle helped develop his pacifism,
and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his later work.
His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically (6) the Russian society in that he lived.
The Cossacks (1863) describes the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian
aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. (7) Anna Karenina (1867) tells parallel stories of a
woman traped by the conventions of society and of a philosophical landowner (much like
Tolstoy), who works alongside his serfs in the fields and seeks to reform their lives.
(8) Tolstoy not only drew from his experience of life and created characters in his own image,
such as Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace, Levin in Anna Karenina and to some extent, Prince
Nekhlyudov in Resurrection.
(9) War and Peace is generally thought to be as one of the greatest novels ever written,
remarkable for its breadth and unity. (10) It’s vast canvas includes 580 characters, many
historical, others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon,
from the court of Alexander I of Russia to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. It was
written with the purpose of exploring Tolstoy's theory of history, and (11) by particular the
insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander. (12) Somewhat surprising,
Tolstoy did not consider War and Peace to be a novel (nor did he consider any of the great
Russian fictions written up that time to be novels). (13) This view becomes less surprised if one
considers that Tolstoy was a novelist of the Realist school which considered the novel to be a
framework for the examination of social and political issues in middle class life. War and Peace
(which is really an epic in prose) therefore did not qualify. Tolstoy thought that Anna Karenina
was his first true novel, and it is indeed one of the greatest of all realist novels.
(14) After Anna Karenina, Tolstoy concentrated in Christian themes, and his later novels such
as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1884) and What Then Must We Do? develop a radical
anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy (15) which led in his excommunication from the
Orthodox church.
Q & A (No more than three words)
1. What is Leo Tolstoy’s nationality?
2. What is Tolystoy’s first published work?
3. What event provided Tolstoy with inspiration to describe the horrors of war in his work?
4. Among Tolystoy’s works, what work especially talks about a woman confined to a
conservative society?
5. In which novel did Tolystoy employ 508 characters?
6. What writer is Tolstoy thought to be?
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7. What concerns were specifically mentioned in Tolstoy’s War and Peace?
Q & A (Based on Lesson 11 “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”)
8. What measure was the way the peasant Pahom bought the land?
9. What was Pahom’s motto with which he would bear all the pain merely for more land?
10. As a result, how much land was enough to bury Pahom’s body?
Answer keys
Error analysis
(1) giant Æ giants (2) include Æ including (3) telling Æ tell (4) like Æ as
(5) recounting Æ recounted (6) that Æ which (7) traped Æ trapped
(8) and Æ but
(9) to be as Æ to be (10) It’s Æ its (11) by particular Æ in particular
(12) surprising Æ surprisingly (13) surprised Æ surprising (14) in Æ on (15) in Æ to
Q&A
1. Russia 2. Childhood 3. Sevastapol Sketches 4. Anna Karenina
5. War and Peace 6. Realist 7. Social and political
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