seminar
keynote speech
--Teaching
children English
Format of Sample Writing [p.777]
First paragraph: write about the motivation of your personal choice to
convince others
Second paragraph: write about the themes, what this choice is about,
associate with your target lines or events
Modern
Language Association (MLA)è文學類作注
Term explanation
stanza: is a grouped
set of lines within a poem, usually set off from other stanzas by a blank line
or indentation. Stanzas can have regular
rhyme and metrical schemes, though stanzas are not strictly required to have
either. There are many unique forms of stanzas. Some stanzaic forms are
simple, such as four-line quatrains. Other forms are more complex, such as the
Spenserian stanza. Fixed verse poems, such as sestinas, can be defined by the
number and form of their stanzas. The term stanza is similar to strophe, though
strophe is sometimes used to refer to irregular set of lines, as opposed to
regular, rhymed stanzas.
Dover Beach
is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. The title, locale and subject of
the poem's descriptive opening lines is the shore of the English ferry port of
Dover, Kent, facing Calais, France, at the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part
(21 miles) of the English Channel, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.
analysis-“Dover Beach” is a
dramatic monologue of thirty-seven lines, divided into four unequal sections or
“paragraphs” of fourteen, six, eight, and nine lines. In the title, “Beach” is more significant than “Dover,”
for it points at the controlling image of the poem.
The sea is calm
tonight.
The tide is full,
the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;
on the French coast the light
Gleams and is
gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and
vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the
window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the
long line of spray
Where the sea
meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear
the grating roar
Of pebbles which
the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return,
up the high strand,
Begin, and cease,
and then again begin,
With tremulous
cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note
of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the
Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the
turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery;
we
Find also in the
sound a thought,
Hearing it by this
distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at
the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds
of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only
hear
Its melancholy,
long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the
breath
Of the night-wind,
down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles
of the world.
Ah, love, let us
be true
To one another!
for the world, which seems
To lie before us
like a land of dreams,
So various, so
beautiful, so new,
Hath really
neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor
peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as
on a darkling plain
Swept with
confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant
armies clash by night.
--Matthew Arnold: was an English
poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was
the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to
both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and
colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer,
a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social
issues.
To His Coy Mistress
is a metaphysical poem written by the English author and
politician Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) either during or just before the
English Interregnum (1649–60).
This poem is considered one of Marvell's finest and is possibly the
best recognized carpe diem poem in English. Although the date of its
composition is not known, it may have been written in the early 1650s.
analysis- Marvell wrote this poem in the classical tradition of a Latin
love elegy, in which the speaker praises his mistress or lover through the
motif of carpe diem, or “seize the day.” The poem also reflects the tradition
of the erotic blazon, in which a poet constructs elaborate images of his
lover’s beauty by carving her body into parts
[兩行押一個韻]
Had we but world
enough and time,
This coyness,
lady, were no crime.
We would sit down,
and think which way
To walk, and pass
our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian
Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies
find; I by the tide
Of Humber would
complain. I would
Love you ten years
before the flood,
And you should, if
you please, refuse
Till the
conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love
should grow
Vaster than
empires and more slow;
An hundred years
should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on
thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to
adore each breast,
But thirty
thousand to the rest;
An age at least to
every part,
And the last age
should show your heart.
For, lady, you
deserve this state,
Nor would I love
at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd
chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all
before us lie
Deserts of vast
eternity.
Thy beauty shall
no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble
vault, shall sound
My echoing song;
then worms shall try
That
long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint
honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all
my lust;
The grave’s a fine
and private place,
But none, I think,
do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin
like morning dew,
And while thy willing
soul transpires
At every pore with
instant fires,
Now let us sport
us while we may,
And now, like
amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our
time devour
Than languish in
his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all
our strength and all
Our sweetness up
into one ball,
And tear our
pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron
gates of life:
Thus, though we
cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet
we will make him run.
explain how the 'Carpe Diem' theme is
expressed in Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."
The term "carpe diem" means "seize the day." In
modern English we would probably say it as "take what you can get, when
you can get it." In other words,
don't put things off -- life is short.
Given this, you
should be able to see how this theme is shown in the poem. The speaker is
telling his love that if life wasn't short, he would be really patient. For
example:
And you should, if
you please, refuse
Till the
conversion of the Jews.
But, in the second
stanza, he says that time is flying by.
Because of that, there's no point in waiting. He says that they should start sleeping
together sooner rather than later. Otherwise,
And your quaint
honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all
my lust.
The grave's a fine
and private place,
But none I think
do there embrace.
This is very much
a "carpe diem" idea -- we will soon be dead, let's live life now and
not wait for later.
-- Andrew Marvell: was
an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the
House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the
Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend of John Milton. His poems
range from the love-song "To His Coy Mistress", to evocations of an
aristocratic country house and garden in "Upon Appleton House" and
"The Garden", the political address "An Horatian Ode upon
Cromwell's Return from Ireland", and the later personal and political
satires "Flecknoe" and "The Character of Holland".
On her loving two
equally
--Aphra Behn: was a
British playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer from the
Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her
writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for
later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice
of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London
and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage.
She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot,
Lord Rochester. She wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the
turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and
prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of
her writing to prose genres and translations. She is famously remembered in
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let
flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather
appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right
to speak their minds."
How strongly does
my passion flow,
Divided equally
twixt two?
Damon had ne’er
subdued my heart
Had not Alexis
took his part;
Nor could Alexis
powerful prove,
Without my Damon’s
aid, to gain my love.
When my Alexis
present is,
Then I for Damon
sigh and mourn;
But when Alexis I
do miss,
Damon gains
nothing but my scorn.
But if it chance
they both are by,
For both alike I
languish, sigh, and die.
Cure then, thou
mighty winged god,
This restless
fever in my blood;
One golden-pointed
dart take back:
But which, O
Cupid, wilt thou take?
If Damon’s, all my
hopes are crossed;
Or that of my
Alexis, I am lost.
to the virgins to
make much of time
Gather ye
rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still
a-flying;
And this same
flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be
dying.
The glorious lamp
of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s
a-getting,
The sooner will
his race be run,
And nearer he’s to
setting.
That age is best
which is the first,
When youth and
blood are warmer;
But being spent,
the worse, and worst
Times still
succeed the former.
Then be not coy,
but use your time,
And while ye may,
go marry;
For having lost
but once your prime,
You may forever
tarry.
analysis: is a short lyric poem that at first reading seems to be simply a call to young women to enjoy life,
particularly its physical pleasures, while they are young. Robert
Herrick is considered one of the circle of poets (sometimes called the “sons of
Ben”) that gathered around poet and playwright Ben Jonson in London in the
early seventeenth century. Herrick became a country pastor in 1629, but when
upon the advent of the English Civil War he remained loyal to his king, he was
ousted from his post by the Puritans, who closed the theaters and taverns—and eventually
executed the king. They are further instructed to marry while they can, with
the warning that once they have lost whatever it takes to get a husband, once
the time to do so has passed, they may “tarry,” wait, or procrastinate,
forever.
Heroic couplet
is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in
epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic
pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer
in the Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales, and was perfected by John
Dryden in the Restoration Age.
--Example: A
frequently-cited example illustrating the use of heroic couplets is this
passage from Cooper's Hill by John Denham, part of his description of the
Thames:
O could I flow
like thee, and make thy stream
My great example,
as it is my theme!
Though deep yet
clear, though gentle yet not dull;
Strong without
rage, without o'erflowing full.
Sophocles
is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have
survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus,
and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote 120
plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete
form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra,
Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the
most-fêted playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens
that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus
and also Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays,
although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other
members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the
drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the
importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his
characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.
Vocabulary
hyper:
excessive
hyperbole
meaning: language
that describes something as better or worse than it really is
Example: She
strove to restrain my wild hyperbole and
place my arguments on a firmer foundation of rigorous logic
hypothesis
meaning: an idea
or theory that is not proven but that leads to further study or discussion
Example: Recent
theological hypothesis was suspect .