In discussion about James Boswell and Samuel Johnson , I found the two of them makes a complementary couple.
Boswell was younger than Johnson; although their goal and aim of writing targeted at different field( Johnson's achievements at the dictionary and periodical essays while Boswell dedicated himself to writing the biographies of great people) they still become colse friends.
we spend a entire hour watching the movie "Gulliver's Travels" in the class. Too bad that I had to go promote for English Drama or I would love to stay for the entire film and to see the Houyhnhnms and yahoos in the movie.
Samuel Johnson is a brilliant poet and talker, I admire his purpose of writing " to see life as it is"
Today's class we learned Gulliver's Travels. I remember reading it when I was little, but I couln'e remember the context clearly somehow(maybe it was because I was very young when I read the story) so it was like listening to the whole story again.
of course I didn't know Galliver's Travels was a satirical story about human flaws; In fact I didn't even remember Gulliver hates his yahoo family and turn his love to the two hourse he bought. (that's kinda funny~) another new word to learn: misanthropy (which means general dislike of human beings).
Both the works of John Milton, Lysidas is a verse bewail a friend who drown while Pradise Lost is a prose about the rvenge of Satan and the exile of human form Eden.
among there two works, I like Paradise lost better. Lycidas used too many references and it is sort of complicated to understand, one must know the stories of all the references to gain a total understand of this work. Maybe that showed our igornance compared with Miltion's great knowledge.
paradise lost is a great work by John Milton. Before we studied it, the writing class teacher has mentioned it many times in his class about this epic work. I was glad that finally we are going to study it, this work might be the more interesting interature work I have ever learn.
paradise lost is about the lost of Sadan and Adam and Eve from heaven,how Sadan lead his army(mostly other fallen angels) striking for the God and Heaven. And that's the reason God sends his son (the christ)to earth to help human being against the dark force.
Today in English Literature we've done lots of things; we calculated our grades so far, decided things needs be improved in our final exam, reschedual the date of the final exam (oh now I probabaly have to take the composition, spanish and English finals in the same week, crap!)
I though it was interesting to see one of the classmates gave his opinion on the questions in our midterm XD, it was more like an debate between professor and him during the class. But I do think there are something need to be improved in the exams; for instance, the coverage of the whole exam was huge. It was a blessing for us to read everything in the text, not even to mention memorizing some details. Narrow down the coverage more and give more concise direction of the exam would help students in preparing the finals.
We discussed many poems in class today, many of my classmates choose to the poem " Easter Wings." Like the poem I did as my class assignment, Easter Wings is a patterned poem, it is made into the shape of two wings. I found it very different and interesting.
The content of the poem is religious. The poet at beginning of the poem is weaken by his desire and shame, he then praise to the God and hope that the God can be with him to the glorious victories which make his soul flies higher and higher.
After reading all the poems which have been taught this week, I am very fond of the poem" Death, be not proud" (sonnet10)
I don't think I have ever seen a poem like it before telling us not to be afraid of death; most of the poems are always trying to convey that how dreadful is the death and how we should treasure every moment and not to waste our youth. However, this sonnet of John Donne is trying to convey to us that death is nothing; it is not the ruler of lives, not the lord of living creature, instead, it is the slave of fate, chance, kings, and desperate men.
among these two authors (Thomas Campion, Richard Barnfield), I prefer Richard Barnfield's works better, his poems are much easiler for us to understand. Maybe this opinion of mine may seems shallow, but a good literature work should be understood by people, and from this understanding, people can further see the wisdom inside of it and appreciate the beauty of the work. Richard Barnfield did that, through his poem, I can understand clearly what he was trying to tell us. Though I chose to transcribe Thomas Campion's poem, Barnfield's poems are indeed my favorite.
It was fun in Class, to listen to different people's opinion about the same poem, It was a good thing that we can understand things from different aspect.
King Lear is one of the famous tragedies written by William Shakespeare. It's a story about how King Lear lose his kingdom and respect due to his false judgement; in the beginning of the story, he has his three daughters standing in the public, each of them has to tell him how much they love their father (kind of competition??)but only the youngest daughter tells her father the true feeling (I shall love you as much as I love my husband, no more and no less, according to my bond between us) while the two older one say brag about how their love to their father is beyond measure.
The King banished his youngest daughter in rage and divides his king into two for the other two daughters; however, the older daughters treat their father as the old fool after getting what they want(the kingdom of course~) this eventually cause the old king go insane and lead him a vagrant life. Though taken care by his youngest daughter who marry to the France prince, the king still cannot stop his fate go the the sad end. He soon die from the great sorrow of the death of his dearest youngest daughter who commited suiside in despair (she was put in prison by her own nephews)
After learning the background history of the early seventeenth centery, I realized that religion was a big issue during that time period for the English people.The conflict between catholic and christian kept going on with their hatred toward each other. The tension built higher and higher,eventually led to the"Gunpowder Plot" the history would be total different if those disaffected catholics did success, it would have eliminated much of England's ruling class in a single tremendousexplosion,leaving the land vulnerable to invasion by a foreign, catholic power. Many religious problems also exist to people. such as, how should public worship be conducted? How should the Script be understood? How should people pray?What happened to people's souls after they died?
In my opinion, the celemony of worship should be conducted separately. It would be hard to find the balance since catholic and christian have different definition on the same matter of Bible. Since the worship celemony are hold separately, both the catholic and the christian can have their own explanationon the Script to their own believers. As for praying, I think both catholic and christian pray in a kind similiar way, they whisper they prayers their God (some of them say it in their heart without making any sound). so pray should not be a big problem for them unless they were looking for the absoute rule in praying. what would happen to people after they die? This I cannot answer; maybe there's nothing, maybe a heaven for good people to go, a hell for bad ones. Nobody on the earth really knows; but for either a catholic or a christian, there must be an after life waiting after he or she dies. The most pratical thing to so is to stay faithful to their only God.
In this chapter so far, I've only learn some historical events of James I since we had a english professor gave us a lecture during the class.
James I was not an ideal king for England compare with Queen Elizabeth I. He was a wasting king, put the money on his queen, his son and lots of
What I remember most after the class is the family of Elizabeth. She was the second daughter of Henry VIII, her sister was the famous "Bloody Mary" and the young knig Edward was her younger brother. They all came from different mothers, Henry divorced his first wife, the mother of Mary, because she didn't give him a boy to succeed to the throne. It was then, he declared that he and England will not be a part of Catholic since the Catholic don't approve of divorce. (it's kinda funny that a man changed history only because he wanted a son.) Finally, his third wife born him a son. BUT... after Henry VIII passed away, Edward died soon after his father, he was a knig of short period. Soon after that, Mary became the Queen of England since she was the oldest heir left. Mary's religion was differnt from her father and sister, she was a religious Catholic. This might related to her mother, because her mother was divorced, it is reasonable that she's a catholic who disapprove of divorce. In the view of Catholic, Mary is maybe the only legal heir of the throne. Elizabeth was not a legal heir because she was born as Christian. Even though Mary didn't want to give the throne to a Christian, she had no choice. Elizabeth eventually became the Queen of England and lead her country to prosperity.
關於 The Defense of Poetry 這一課我比較了解的是作者寫它的背景吧，是為了反駁Gosson對於作家還有詩人的批判所以Sidney才寫出了這個作品，至於作品的內容我就真的不了解了。上課的時候內容只由老師說明了一下，這一課還跟Amoretti 一起在同一次上，總覺得有點囫圇吞棗的感覺，才一知半解就要寫期末了，哎哎哎哎~~~~真希望以後不要再這樣啦!
Amoretti 的內容是由許多不同的小詩構成的，聽到老師說這裡的詩是比較屬於Happy Ending 讓我有一種鬆一口氣的感覺~因為之前Earl of Surrey 的詩真的都比較偏向作者心碎呀什麼之類的，因為詩本身就沒有很容易了如果讀到最後結局很憂鬱~會讓讀的人更難讀下去吧~讀詩的時候也會覺得上下文好像沒有什麼邏輯觀念，從一個點又忽然跳到另一個點很突兀，上一句跟下一句不一定有什麼關聯
而且期末題目又要翻譯，真是困擾呢 : (
其實在Farrie Queen中有一個部份我不是很了解，就是第47小段的地方，忽然有一個Genius 出現，他到底是誰我到現在都還不知道~XD 哈哈~因為這段是我報告的所以有點愧疚啦~讀的時候一直看一直看但都還是不了解，就只好先跳過它繼續看下去囉。不過這個故事有點不太真實，因為如果是真人去面對這些挑戰的話應該早就被誘惑了吧(尤其是男生XD) 可能是為了要朔造一個騎士的形象吧~ 但也多虧了Plamer 騎士到最後才沒有功虧一簣失敗，此時我們就知道身邊有一個明辨是非的朋友的重要啦 (XD~很奇怪的結尾)
1.Compare the several aspects, such as, entertainment, working system, city management, occupations, social relations and values, travels, religion, education, public laws, and the value of happiness, and so on of Utopia with our Taiwan’s society.
In the entertainment aspect, utopians don't do gamble and ruinous games, they play music or enjoy the pleasure of chatting when they have some free time to spare. people in Taiwan do all sort of things for recreation, such as playing video games, reading, going hiking, watching movies etc.
1. choose two of your favorite Henry Howard, earl of Surry's poems and translate them into modern English.
Th'Assyrians' king, in peace with foul desire
1.where is your ideal world? Describe it in detail in your blog this week.
My ideal world would be a place without any pollution, where people don't have to kill other animal for living. Creatures there don't have to eat anything to keep themself alive, their lives are supported by magic. And there's no quarrel, no fighting, a world without any violence. The whole place is surrounded with the atmosphere of peace and happiness all year around.
1. if death comes to you, right now,how can you face him? what would you do to your life?
I will just go with death to whereever i should be, since no man can escape death, why not just accept your destiny and let go of everything. as long as one does't do any bad thing, one should not be worried about death and the final reckoning. i will give my life to the hand of death.
