Dicembre 2016 e ditoriale

81

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SAMI DI

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TATO

2016

Nuova Secondaria - n. 4 2016 - Anno XXXIV - ISSN 1828-4582

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his article analyses and discusses the Literature

and Art papers of the 2016 Seconda Prova Scritta

dell’Esame di Stato of English for Liceo Lin-

guistico. Both papers are given answers with a com-

mentary on the skills and knowledge necessary to per-

form the tasks successfully. The basic reading sub-skill

involved is scanning, which for the sake of brevity will

not be mentioned, while the other sub-skills will be

analysed and explicitly stated. The reading texts do not

generally present relevant grammar difficulties, but may

be loaded with lexical density with which the candidates

can cope by using various strategies or their dictionar-

ies. It is assumed that the candidates have been trained

in this sense as well as to use the monolingual diction-

ary for synonyms and rephrasing, and to write different

genres with appropriate stylistic features. Some sug-

gestions for classroom practice and further study are pro-

vided at the end.

Inglese - Letteratura

Flavia Zappa

When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less

capable than the next fellow.

So at least he thought, and there was a certain amount of evidence to

back him up. He had once been an actor – no, not quite, an extra – and

he knew what acting should be. Also, he was smoking a cigar, and

when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage;

it is harder to find out how he feels. He came from the twenty-third

floor down to the lobby on the mezzanine to collect his mail before

breakfast, and he believed – he hoped – that he looked passably well:

doing all right. It was a matter of sheer hope, because there was not

much that he could add to his present effort. On the fourteenth floor

he looked for his father to enter the elevator; they often met at this

hour, on the way to

breakfast. If he worried about his appearance it was mainly for his old

father’s sake. But there was no stop on the fourteenth, and the eleva-

tor sank and sank. Then the smooth door opened and the great dark-

red uneven carpet that covered the lobby billowed toward Wilhelm’s

feet. In the foreground the lobby was dark, sleepy. French drapes like

sails kept out the sun, but three high, narrow windows were open, and

in the blue air Wilhelm saw a pigeon about to light on the great chain

that supported the marquee of the movie house directly underneath the

lobby. For one moment he heard the wings beating strongly. 

Most of the guests at the Hotel Gloriana were past the age of retire-

ment. Along Broadway in the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties, a great

part of New York’s vast population of old men and women lives. Un-

less the weather is too cold or wet they fill the benches about the tiny

railed parks and along the subway gratings from Verdi Square to Co-

lumbia University, they crowd the shops and cafeterias, the dime

stores, the tearooms, the bakeries, the beauty parlors, the reading

rooms and club rooms.

Among these old people at the Gloriana, Wilhelm felt out of place. He

was comparatively young, in his middle forties, large and blond, with

big shoulders; his back was heavy and strong, if already a little

stooped or thickened. After breakfast the old guests sat down on the

green leather armchairs and sofas in the lobby and began to gossip and

look into the papers; they had nothing to do but wait out the day. But

Wilhelm was used to an active life and liked to go out energetically

in the morning. And for several months, because he had no position,

he had kept up his morale by rising early; he was shaved and in the

lobby by eight o’clock. He bought the paper and some cigars and drank

a Coca-Cola or two

before he went in to breakfast with his father. After breakfast – out,

out, out to attend to business. The getting out had in itself become the

chief business. But he had realized that he could not keep this up much

longer, and today he was afraid. He was aware that his routine was

about to break up and he sensed that a huge trouble long presaged but

till now formless was due. Before evening, he’d know.

Nevertheless he followed his daily course and crossed the lobby. Ru-

bin, the man at the newsstand, had poor eyes. They may not have been

actually weak but they were poor in expression, with lacy lids that

furled down at the corners. He dressed well. It didn’t seem necessary

– he was behind the counter most of the time – but he dressed very

well. He had on a rich brown suit; the cuffs embarrassed the hairs on

his small hands. He wore a Countess Mara painted necktie. As Wil-

helm approached, Rubin did not see him; he was looking out dream-

ily at the Hotel

Ansonia, which was visible from his corner, several blocks away. The

Ansonia, the neighborhood’s great landmark, was built by Stanford

White. It looks like a baroque palace from Prague or Munich enlarged

a hundred times, with towers, domes, huge swells and bubbles of metal

gone green from exposure, iron fretwork and festoons. Black television

antennae are densely planted on its round summits. Under the changes

of weather it may look like marble or like sea water, black as slate in

the fog, white as tufa in sunlight. This morning it looked like the image

of itself reflected in deep water, white and cumulous above, with cav-

ernous distortions underneath. Together, the two men gazed at it.

(776 words)

Saul Bellow, Seize the Day, [first ed. the Viking Press, 

New York, 1956] Kindle edition 2013.

TRACCIA MINISTERIALE

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