托福考试背景知识：愚人节的由来.pdf

智 课 网 托 福 备 考 资 料 托福考试背景知识 愚人节的由来 今天是一年一度的April Fool s Day 愚人节 大家知道愚人节是 怎么来的吗 下文小编为大家详述下愚人节的由来和传说 以及愚人节 相关庆祝活动和礼物 愚人节是西方的节日 备考托福的同学了解一下 愚人节相关文化背景是十分有必要的 今天是一年一度的April Fool s Day 愚人节 大家知道愚人节是 怎么来的吗 下文小编为大家详述下愚人节的由来和传说 以及愚人节 相关庆祝活动和礼物 愚人节是西方的节日 备考托福的同学了解一下 愚人节相关文化背景是十分有必要的 愚人节起源于法国 人们在4月1日便互相愚弄 成为法国流行的风 俗 18世纪初 愚人节习俗 传到英国 接着又被英国的早期移民带到了美国 April Fool s Day 愚人节 1st April is a day to be careful or you could easily get tricked by someone It s April Fool s Day a for fun only observance a day when people traditionally like to try to make a fool of someone else and laugh at them Origins 愚人节起源 There are lots of theories surrounding the origins of the day As we look back in time many ancient predecessors of April Fool s Day are found A French legendry 法国关于愚人节的传说 The most widespread theory about the origin of April Fool s Day links the day to the calendar reform in France In 1582 France became the first country to switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar This meant that the beginning of the year was moved from the end of March 25th and April 1st various jokes would be played on him This story might explain why April 1st became the date of the modern holiday Mythological roots 关于愚人节的神话起源 There have been quite a few attempts to provide mythological explanations for the rise of April Fool s Day One story dates back to Roman mythology particularly the myth of Ceres and Proserpina In Roman mythology Pluto the God of the dead abducted Proserpina called out to her mother Ceres for help But Ceres who could only hear the echo of her daughter s voice searched in vain for Proserpina The fruitless search of Ceres for her daughter was commemorated during the Roman festival of Cerealia and believed by some to have been the mythological antecedent of the fool s errands popular on April 1st British folklore 英国民间传说 British folklore links April Fool s Day to the town of Gotham According to the legend it was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the King travelled over to become public property People in Gotham didn t want to lose their main road and spread a false story to stop the King A messenger was sent to Gotham after King John learned the people s trick But when the messenger arrived in Gotham he found the town was full of lunatics who were engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fences The King fell for the hoax and declared the town too foolish to warrant punishment And ever since then April Fool s Day has supposedly commemorated their trickery Anthropological explanations 人类学的解释 Anthropological and cultural historians provide their own explanations for the rise of April Fool s Day According to them the celebration traces its roots back to festivals marking the springtime Spring is the time of year when the weather becomes fickle as if Nature is playing tricks on man and festivals occurring during the spring traditionally mirrored this sense of whimsy and surprise They often involved temporary inversions of the social order Normal behavior no longer governed during the brief moment of transition as the old world died and the new cycle of seasons was born Jokes trickery and the turning upside down of status expectations were all allowed In addition the linkage between April Fool s Day and the springtime is seen in another story that traces the origin of the custom back to the abundance of fish to be found in French streams during early April when the young fish had just hatched These young fish were easy to fool with a hook and lure Therefore the French called them Poisson d Avril or April Fish Soon it became customary to fool people on April 1st as a way of celebrating the abundance of foolish fish Celebrated 庆祝活动 In France today April first is called Poisson d Avril French children fool their friends by taping a paper fish to their friends backs When the young fool discovers this trick the prankster yells Poisson d Avril April Fish In Scotland April Fool s Day is actually celebrated for two days The second day is devoted to pranks involving the posterior region of the body It is called Taily Day The origin of the kick me sign can be traced to this observance Mexico and many Spanish speaking countries have Innocent s Day on December 28 to make innocent a person with jokes and hoaxes The origin for the pranking is derived from the Catholic feast day Day of the Holy Innocents for the infants slaughtered by King Herod at the time of Jesus birth The New York April Fools Day Parade was created in 1986 to remedy a glaring omission in the long list of New York s annual ethnic and holiday parades These events fail to recognize the importance of April 1st the day designated to commemorate the perennial folly of mankind In an attempt to bridge that gap and bring people back in touch with their inherent foolishness the parade annually crowns a King of Fools from the parading look alikes Gag gifts 恶作剧的礼物 What kind of pranks do people play on April Fool s Day Starving students A good prank for most university s is to print up a bunch of fake leaflets advertising a non existent restaurant that has cheap eats and offers free food with the coupons printed on the leaflets Most colleges have a student union so the leaflets can be dropped off there and pinned up on various bulletin boards around campus When this is done you can sit back and watch the marks wandering around looking