2014年10月29日 星期三

2014.10,29 note: Ralph Waldo Emerson & Nathaniel Hawthorne (week 8)

Note:

1.The tell tell heart

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. (The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it.) The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the form of the sound—possiblyhallucinatory—of the old man's heart still beating under the floorboards.

THE TELL-TALE HEART.

                           ——
                            ——
        Art is long and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
       Funeral marches to the grave.   Longfellow.

                            ——

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Themes

1.Sin, Knowledge, and the Human Condition
2.The Nature of Evil
3.Identity and Society

Motifs

1.Civilization Versus the Wilderness (village v.s. forest)

2.Night Versus Day
3.Evocative Names

Symbols

1.The Scarlet Letter
2.The Meteor
3.Pearl
*character
1.Hester Prynne -  Hester is the book’s protagonist and the wearer of the scarlet letter that gives the book its title. 
2.Roger Chillingworth -  “Roger Chillingworth” is actually Hester’s husband in disguise.
3.Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale -  Dimmesdale is a young man who achieved fame in England as a theologian and then emigrated to America. In a moment of weakness, he and Hester became lovers.  

* political allegory: "... you may rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux."
→ 不在尋求英國從軍的親戚
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70298269.N12khBQV.72SalemWitchMuseum.jpg (404×500)

Salem's Most Visited Museum

Twenty innocent people were put to death
during the Witch Hysteria of 1692.
History made them famous...
we make them real
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4) A Streetcar Named Desire 慾望街車
Streetcar_original.jpg (218×320)

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name by Tennessee Williams. Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul on the screenplay and Elia Kazan, who directed the stage production, went on to direct the film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden, all members of the original Broadway cast, reprised their roles for the film. Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was brought in for the film version in lieu of Jessica Tandy, who had created the part of Blanche DuBois on Broadway.

*Gone with the Wind (亂世佳人)
Poster_-_Gone_With_the_Wind_01.jpg (1299×2000)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel. It was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. Set in the 19th-century American South, the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, from her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, to her marriage to Rhett Butler. Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, the story is told from the perspective of white Southerners. The leading roles are portrayed by Vivien Leigh (Scarlett), Clark Gable (Rhett), Leslie Howard (Ashley), and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie).
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5) Self-Reliance (天助自助者)
Emerson_by_Johnson_1846.png (876×1032)
Self-Reliance is an essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."[1] This essay is an analysis into the nature of the “aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

* individual self-culture
* valuing individual rights
* self-reliance
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"Nature" is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. In this essay Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, a belief system that espouses a non-traditional appreciation of nature


Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline. These distinctions define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another and their understanding of the world.[3] Emerson followed the success of Nature with a speech, "The American Scholar", which together with his previous lectures laid the foundation for transcendentalism and his literary career.

*The essay consists of eight sections: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline,Idealism, Spirit and Prospects.


*I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD --- William Wordsworth
nsGx2SAo5TExHzQgjCBCTw.jpg (500×375)
I wandered lonely as a cloud                      孤獨流浪我似雲
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,        
飄過溪谷和高山,
When all at once I saw a crowd,                
驟然看見一大群,
A host of golden daffodils;                         
簇簇金色的水仙;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,              
在湖畔在樹林下,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.           迎著風抖擻起舞。

Continuous as the stars                                
綿延不絕如繁星
that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way,     
在銀河閃爍發光,
They stretched in never-ending line              
伸展成一條長線

along the margin of a bay:                             沿著湖水的邊緣:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,                    
一眼瞧見千萬朵
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.           
搖著頭快樂翻舞

The waves beside them danced; but they      
湖水伴著花起舞
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:             
但花比水波還樂:
A poet could not but be gay,                        
詩人高興都不及,
in such a jocund company:                           
有歡樂花海相伴:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought         
凝視再三未及思

what wealth the show to me had brought:    
盛景於我如財富:

For oft, when on my couch I lie                  
我經常橫躺小床

In vacant or in pensive mood,                     
放空心情或沈思,
They flash upon that inward eye                 
心眼裡花海乍現
Which is the bliss of solitude;                     
此誠獨處的福報;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,         
心頭即湧滿歡欣,

And dances with the daffodils.                   
伴著水仙花共舞。


華茲華斯把詩定義為: “spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility”。

這首 “I wandered lonely as a cloud”,正是這個主張的

現身說法。這首詩的前三節描述看到一大片水仙花,

心中感動,不自覺引起強烈的感情回應。最後一節

說的是:夜深人靜,日間那一幕花海搖曳的景象,

重回眼前,化作詩意,激起無限歡愉。

這就是詩的過程,也是詩的意境。



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"The American Scholar" was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

*Emerson uses Transcendentalist and Romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar's relationship to nature. There are a few key points he makes that flesh out this vision:
  • We are all fragments, "as the hand is divided into fingers", of a greater creature, which is mankind itself, "a doctrine ever new and sublime."
  • An individual may live in either of two states. In one, the busy, "divided" or "degenerate" state, he does not "possess himself" but identifies with his occupation or a monotonous action; in the other, "right" state, he is elevated to "Man", at one with all mankind.
  • To achieve this higher state of mind, the modern American scholar must reject old ideas and think for him or herself, to become "Man Thinking" rather than "a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking", "the victim of society", "the sluggard intellect of this continent".
  • "The American Scholar" has an obligation, as "Man Thinking", within this "One Man" concept, to see the world clearly, not severely influenced by traditional/historical views, and to broaden his understanding of the world from fresh eyes, to "defer never to the popular cry."
  • The scholar's education consists of three influences:
    • I. Nature as the most important influence on the mind
    • II. The Past manifest in books
    • III. Action and its relation to experience
    • The last, unnumbered part of the text is devoted to Emerson's view on the "Duties" of the American Scholar who has become the "Man Thinking."
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Word:

1) liquid paper: 立可白

2) bleach : 漂白水 (粉)

3) lonely/ alone: 被丟下
  
*solitude: solo (獨處) 


2014年10月22日 星期三

2014.10.22 note: The Scarlet Letter (week 7)

Note:

1) The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is considered to be his magnum opus.[1] Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

*key facts
SETTING (TIME)  · Middle of the seventeenth century
SETTING (PLACE)  · Boston, Massachusetts
PROTAGONIST  · Hester Prynne
MAJOR CONFLICT · Her husband having inexplicably failed to join her in Boston following their emigration from Europe, Hester Prynne engages in an extramarital affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. When she gives birth to a child, Hester invokes the condemnation of her community—a condemnation they manifest by forcing her to wear a letter “A” for “adulteror”—as well as the vengeful wrath of her husband, who has appeared just in time to witness her public shaming.
RISING ACTION · Dimmesdale stands by in silence as Hester suffers for the “sin” he helped to commit, though his conscience plagues him and affects his health. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, hides his true identity and, posing as a doctor to the ailing minister, tests his suspicions that Dimmesdale is the father of his wife’s child, effectively exacerbating Dimmesdale’s feelings of shame and thus reaping revenge.
CLIMAX  · There are at least two points in The Scarlet Letter that could be identified as the book’s “climax.” The first is in Chapter 12, at the exact center of the book. As Dimmesdale watches a meteor trace a letter “A” in the sky, he confronts his role in Hester’s sin and realizes that he can no longer deny his deed and its consequences. The key characters confront one another when Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale in an “electric chain” as he holds his vigil on the marketplace scaffold, the location of Hester’s original public shaming. Chillingworth appears in this scene as well. The other climactic scene occurs in Chapter 23, at the end of the book. Here, the characters’ secrets are publicly exposed and their fates sealed. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth not only acknowledge their secrets to themselves and to each other; they push these revelations to such extremes that they all must leave the community in one way or another.
FALLING ACTION  · Depending on one’s interpretation of which scene constitutes the book’s “climax,” the falling action is either the course of events that follow Chapter 12 or the final reports on Hester’s and Pearl’s lives after the deaths of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth.
THEMES  · Sin, experience, and the human condition; the nature of evil; identity and society
MOTIFS  · Civilization versus the wilderness; night versus day; evocative names
SYMBOLS  · The scarlet letter; the town scaffold; the meteor; Pearl; the rosebush next to the prison door
FORESHADOWING  · Foreshadowing is minimal, because the symbols tend to coincide temporally with events, enriching their meaning rather than anticipating their occurrence.
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He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem witch trials who never repented of his actions. Nathaniel later added a "w" to make his name "Hawthorne" in order to hide this relation

Much of Hawthorne's writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, Dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend Franklin Pierce.
*Salem ( inherit guilt/ original sin)
*Salem witch trials 
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns in the Province of Massachusetts Bay: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich andAndover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. 
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3) Bourbon Street (波旁街)
Bourbon Street (French: Rue des Bourbon) is a street in the heart of New Orleans' oldest neighborhood, the French Quarter, in New Orleans, Louisiana. It extends 13 blocks fromCanal Street to Esplanade Avenue.[1] While it is now primarily known for its bars and strip clubs, Bourbon Street's history provides a rich insight into New Orleans' past.
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4)Old North Church
Old North Church (officially, Christ Church in the City of Boston), at 193 Salem Street, in the North End of Boston, is the location from which the famous "One if by land, and two if by sea" signal is said to have been sent. This phrase is related to Paul Revere's midnight ride, of April 18, 1775, which preceded the Battles of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution.
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5)Antebellum (戰前)
Antebellum or ante-bellum (literally, Latin for "before [the] war") may refer to any pre-war period, but usually refers to:
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6)Fort Sumter(南北戰爭的第一站)
Fort Sumter is a Third System masonry sea fort located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots that started the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.[4][5] In 1966, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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7)The Boone Hall Plantation(莊園)
The Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens is an antebellum plantation located in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1][2][3][4]
The plantation includes a large Colonial Revival plantation house (1933–35) that replaces the lost original house on the site, a number of slave cabins (which were occupied bysharecroppers well into the 20th century), several flower gardens, and the historic "Avenue of Oaks": a nearly one-mile (1.6 km) drive up to the house with live oaks on either side, originally planted in 1743. Boone Hall plantation sits on Wampacheeoone Creek in Christ Church Parish about 10 miles (16 km) from historic downtown Charleston.
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8) Rip Van Winkle
Rip Van WinkleA henpecked husband who loathes 'profitable labor'. Meek, easygoing, never-do-well resident of the village who wanders off to the mountains and meets strange men playing ninepins.
Dame Van WinkleRip Van Winkle's cantankerous and nagging wife.
*theme: escape, solitude
* matriarchy: 母權制度
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Word:
1) tercentenary (ter- : three)
    the 300th anniversary of an event