Approaches to Literature week10

▲Comedy- no harm done

　　In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or to amuse by inducing laughter, especially   in theatre, television, film and stand-up comedy.  In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.

　▽A doll’s house- is a three-act play in prose by Henrik Ibsen.

　　Ibsen was inspired by the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint."

　▽Hedda Gabler- is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.

　　It’s 19th-century naturalistic drama reimagined as black comedy, recognized as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama.The title character, Hedda, who is newly married and bored with both her marriage and life, seeks to influence a human fate for the first time.

 ▲Romeo & Juliet: theme→unfulfilled love

　　Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays.

▲Iambic pentameter

　　It is a commonly used type of metrical line in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm that the words establish in that line, which is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". 

　▽Octave:

　　An octave is a verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter (in English) or of hendecasyllables (in Italian). The most common rhyme scheme for an octave is abba abba.

　▽Sestet:

　　A sestet is the name given to the second division of an Italian sonnet (as opposed to an English or Spenserian Sonnet), which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, succeeded by a sestet, of six lines.

▲I wander lonely as a cloud- It is a lyric poem by William Wordsworth. The poem was inspired by an event on 15 April 1802, in which Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came across a "long belt" of daffodils. 

→figures of speech: There are mainly five figures of speech according to Maggie Tucker: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification and synecdoche. 

→daffodils

▲The Dove and Olive Branch

The story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible ends with a passage describing a dove bringing a freshly plucked olive leaf, a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land. 

→Peace symbols

<c.f>The Raven: ominous symbol   

　　According to Hebrew folklore, Noah sends a white raven to check conditions while on the ark.It learns that the floodwaters are beginning to dissipate, but it does not immediately return with the news. It is punished by being turned black and being forced to feed on carrion forever.

▲New Words

1. mor-: “death”

moribund (adj.)- (especially of an organization or business) not active or successful

→How can the Trade Department be revived from its present moribund state?

mortality (n.)- the way that people do not live forever

→Her death made him more aware of his own mortality.

→Infant mortality is much higher in the poorest areas of the city.

2. fra-: “brittleness, breaking”

fragment

franchise (n.)- a right to sell a company's products in a particular area using the company's name

→a fast-food franchise

frailty, thyname is woman

3.gay( adj.)- extremely happy

→We had a gay old time down at the dance hall.

glee (n.)- happiness, excitement or pleasure

→She opened her presents with glee.

→a gleeful smile/shout

4. sol-: “lonely”

solar system

solitude

5. dic-: “to say; to tell and word”

diction

predict

dictator

6. gon-: “side angle”

trigonometry: It is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships involving lengths and angles of triangles.

pentagon- a shape with five sides and five angles

Approaches to Literature week9

Midterm

Approaches to Literature week8

▲大學生知道了沒

1. Before taking the class: read assignments and do research

2. Core skills such as critical thinking, reasoning, and writing skills are important skills you have to acquire in academic development

▲Creative writing - It is any writing that goes outside the bounds of

normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics.

　▽John Gardner: 

　　He was an American novelist, essayist, literary critic and university professor. He is perhaps most noted for his novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the monster's point of view.

　　→It is a retelling of part of the Old English poem Beowulf from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel. In the novel, Grendel is portrayed as an antihero. The novel deals with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil.

▲The Canterbury Tales - is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer. 

The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from London to Canterbury in order to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. 

　　▽names of places: 人們造飯埋骨群聚之所

　　1. New Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire

　　2. Canterbury, Glastonbury, Wednesbury, Aylesbury

　　3. Oxford, Chelmsford, Dartford, Bideford

▲Thomas Hardy- He was an English novelist and poet.

　　　　　

　　A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Most of his fictional works were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.

　　▽Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's fictional masterpiece, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.

　　→theme: ache of modernlism, and the sexual double standard 

In Hardy's view, a truly good woman, she is despised by society after losing her virginity before marriage.

Stonehenge

At the end, when Tess and Angel come to Stonehenge, which was commonly believed in Hardy's time to be a pagan temple, she willingly lies down on a stone supposedly associated with human sacrifice.

▲New Words

1. magn-: “make it big ”

magnum opus - the Latin for "great work", is the masterpiece, the greatest work of a writer, artist, or composer.

→Picasso's Guernica is considered by many to be his magnum opus.

magnate(n.)- a person who is very rich and successful in business or industry

→a well-known shipping magnate

magnanimous(adj.)- very kind and generous towards an enemy or someone you have defeated

→Arsenal's manager was magnanimous in victory, and praised the losing team.

2. attend a class/ a church

Approaches to Literature week7

Tomb-Sweeping Day