...Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz reveals a lot about the Mexican person and its character, manners and thinking. Much of what he proclaims in his book resonates with many of those who call themselves Mexicans. I, as a proud Mexican-American agree with Octavio’s idea of what the Mexican is, wherever he or she may be in North America. The Pachuco in Octavio’s account resonates closely with me because as someone who grew up in a developing neighborhood in a major city, I witnessed many fellow Mexicans rebelled in order to be different - as a way to identify as someone other than an American or a Mexican. Indeed, I saw with my very own eyes my closest friend become radically different. He became a different person and our relationship diminished....
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...Without sympathizing someone's emotions it could lead to solitude, which could linger devastating ones being. In both novels Beowulf, by Seamus Heaney, and Grendel, by John Gardner, it primarily focuses on the malicious conflict between the human civilization and creatures out of the ordinary, considered to be monsters. The main discrepancy was a monster named Grendel and Beowulf a hero from a kingdom terrorized for years, by Grendel himself. The monster was said to have killed many people, however, his reasoning was unsure. Without remorse the warrior slain the monster to stop the terror in which Grendel created; however, the reason the beast killed so many people was because of the lack of understanding between him and the society, this in...
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...in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting -- but waiting for what?" - Edward Abbey, 1968 (National Park Service). Arches National Park located in Moab, Utah, was established in April of 1929 when president Herbert Hoover signed presidential proclamation No.1875. This proclamation reserved 1,920 acres in the Windows and 2,600 acres acres in the Devil's Garden, these boundaries have expanded several times and in 1771 the park was recognized for over 10,00 years of human history that flourished in this now-famous landscape of rock (National Park Service). Today people visit Arches for the amazing views and tails, but those who came before sought wealth, solitude, adventure, or a home. There are the remains of the prehistoric people like the...
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...January 30, 2009 The End of Solitude By William Deresiewicz What does the contemporary self want? The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge — broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider — the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. This is the quality that validates us, this is how we become real to ourselves — by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility. So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn't say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding these riches as fast as we can. I was told by one of her older relatives that a teenager I know had sent 3,000 text messages one recent month. That's 100 a day, or about one every 10 waking minutes, morning...
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...January 30, 2009 The End of Solitude By William Deresiewicz What does the contemporary(當代的) self-want? The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge — broadband(寬頻) tipping (使傾斜/輕拍) the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh(網絲)of interconnection(互相連)絡ever wider (前所未有的寬度發展)— the two cultures betray(露出…跡象)a common impulse(衝動). Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions(數百萬), on Survivor(倖存者) or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. This is the quality that validates(使有效) us, this is how we become real to ourselves — by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity匿名者. If Lionel Trilling美國文學評論家was right, if the property(财产/所有权) that grounded (打基础) the self, in Romanticism(浪漫主义 , was sincerity(真实), and in modernism it was authenticity(真实性), then in postmodernism it is visibility. * So we live exclusively(排外地) in relation to(about) others, and what disappears from(从…处消失) our lives is solitude. Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn't say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding(丢弃) these riches as fast as we can. I was told by one of her older relatives that a teenager...
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...full of meaning. Every verse consists of eight syllables with an alternating stress pattern of weak, strong, weak, strong. The eight syllables can be divided into four feet. The first syllable of each foot is weak and the second is strong. Poems with eight-syllable verses and a weak-strong stress pattern are in iambic tetrameter. The poem has regular rhyme. The first three verses all rhyme as well as the final three. Thus, the rhyme scheme is a,a,a,b,b,b. The first verse of the poem exemplifies personification. Though the eagle has claws, Tennyson uses the word "hands". In the second verse, Tennyson makes it clear that the eagle is very high in the sky when he says it is close to the sun. The phrase "lonely lands" expresses the eagle's solitude. It is also an example of alliteration because "lonely" and "lands" both start with the letter "l". In the third verse, Tennyson expresses the eagle's connection to the sky. The sky is described as an azure world which completely encircles the eagle. The word "stands", not a word that is usually associated with the eagle, is another example of personification. The final three verses of the poem mark a shift in the direction of the poem because they describe the ocean, the eagle's home of mountain walls, and finally, his descent to the world below....
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...Marianne Angeli Diaz Professor Jan Lombardi English 221 21 May 2015 The Storyteller Who Started a Movement As I sat through another session in class, I did not think I would become so immersed about the wonders of magical realism. But as the Magical Realism group presented the historical significance of this movement, I found myself nodding at everything they said. I was intrigued by the ways this movement influenced Latin America, portraying enchanting events in realistic tones. As they moved on further about the people who started it all, the person that grabbed my attention became the key of discovering stories that truly captured magical experiences in the real world: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Throughout his life, not only did Marquez brought Latin America stories that incorporated magic to real life, but he was also the one who started the most recognized movement in Europe: the power and influence of magical realism. Being from Latin America himself, Marquez was inspired by the place where he was born and the avid experiences he remembered with his maternal grandparents in Aracataca, Colombia. His grandmother, Tranquilina Iguaran Cortes, was the one who “gave Marquez a deep reservoir of folkloric knowledge about omens, premonitions, dead ancestors, and ghosts” (EGS). Since people pay closer attention to stories that paint pictures in their mind, we can say these tactics work well in literature, where describing the events illustrate a better portrait rather than just...
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...opened. When one only hears the name of the author or the title of the novel, some associations appear almost automatically. These associations can later on influence the reader’s impressions or even – to some degree – the analysis of a chosen literary work. Thus, when the name of Marquez is evoked, the very first thing to come to one’s mind is probably ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ and – for some readers – the term of ‘magic realism’. Every other Marquez’s work must ‘take into an account’ such inevitable context. Then, the title also determines reader’s expectations. In the case of ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ – the subject of this essay – all enormous tradition of love literature passes in the background, due to the novel’s title. To what degree these associations help in the understanding of Marquez’s famous book it is to be discovered. To begin with, obviously not all of the Colombian writer’s works have been created in the magic realist mode. In ‘In Evil Hour’ (1961) or ‘The General in His Labyrinth” (1989) there are hardly any magic realist elements. On the other hand, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ still functions as the main and most eminent example of magic realism in the world literature, and the one best recognised by an average reader, too. As to ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, it seems to lie somewhere in between a purely magic realist fiction and a realistic one, with some supernatural elements present in the text, but seeming not to be of fundamental importance...
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.... Discuss the relationship between colour and space in the writings and paintings of Rothko. “The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their colour relationships then you miss the point.” – Mark Rothko There is no quote but the one I have mentioned above that really and truly culminates the message that Rothko (figure 1) wanted to communicate. Rothko forms part of the movement today coined the Abstract Expressionism, or which also became known as the New York School. This is a period in American art when the debt to European art is overcome and this new vivacious spirit takes over, emerging from Paris and New York. This movement took place after World War II. When studying the works and writings of an artist, one must keep into consideration the political background of the artist where there is a sense of tragedy, the writings which were taking place at that period of time and also in Rothko’s case as in his contemporaries like Newman and Reinhardt the religious background. Judaism will play a big part in Rothko’s works, which are ultimately there to bring out emotion. This school focused on two separate directions: one being that of gesture, which was brought out by artists such as Jackson Pollock (famous for his drip paintings) in his work...
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.... 7) “Write a critical study of a recent Spanish or Latin American film or play that you have seen, and that has made a social or political impact in the country in which you are living. You should bring into your study criticism and reviews, both from the press and, where possible, from academic sources, and…discuss the ways in which the film has been received and analysed, making comparisons with other films where appropriate.” Almodóvar ’s 2001, La piel que habito, received mixed reviews from Spanish critics, one favourably calling it an “irracionalidad transcendida” whereas Spanish film critic Carlos Boyero called it a “notable idiotez”. However, most critics agree that this film merits a second viewing in order to appreciate the rich texture of the film, in which a lonely and haunted plastic surgeon (Banderas) becomes dangerously entangled with his personal experiment, Vicente, or “Vera” (Anaya) whom he believed had assaulted his mentally ill daughter, provoking her suicide. The film is the director’s first exploration of science fiction, containing an amalgamation of themes concerning gender and sexuality identity, whilst at the same time exploring the prison house of the self. In this essay I will discuss the ways in which these main themes are manifested in the plot and cinematography, their effect and finally the way in which Spanish critics have received Almodóvar’s latest work. Entrapment, or, the prison house of the self, is the confinement that all...
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...The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Summary & Analysis The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam presents an interesting challenge to any reader trying to sort through its heavy symbolism and not-so-obvious theme. Not only does the poem provide us with a compelling surface story, but a second look at the text can reveal a rich collection of seperate meanings hidden in the poem’s objective descriptions and sprawling narrative-which in the space of a few pages includes such disparate characters as the Moon, God, the Snake (and his traditional Christian neighborhood, Paradise), the “Balm of Life”, not to mention nearly every animal and sexual symbol the human mind can come up with. Obviously, on one level, the poem can present itself in a fairly straightforward manner in the vein of CARPE DIEM. In the third stanza, theauthor writes, “‘Open then the Door!/ You know how little while we have to stay,/ And, once departed, may return no more.” There’s several refrains to this throughout the poem, first in the seventh stanza: “Come, fill the cup. . ./ The Bird of Time has but a little way/ To flutter-and the bird is on the Wing.” The entire ninth stanza describes the summer month “that brings the Rose” taking “Jamshyd and Kaikobad away”, and so forth and so on ad nauseum. Again, in the fifty-third stanza: “You gaze To-Day, while You are You-how then/ Tomorrow, You when shall be You no more?” The poet seems to be in an incredible hurry to get this life going before some cosmic deadline comes due, and...
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...Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude Chapter 1 MANY YEARS LATER as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point. Every year during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tents near the village, and with a great uproar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions. First they brought the magnet. A heavy gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands, who introduced himself as Melquíades, put on a bold public demonstration of what he himself called the eighth wonder of the learned al-chemists of Macedonia. He went from house to house dragging two metal ingots and everybody was amazed to see pots, pans, tongs, and braziers tumble down from their places and beams creak from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge, and even objects that had been lost for a long time appeared from where they had been searched for most and went dragging along in turbulent confusion behind Melquíades’ magical irons. “Things have a life of their own,” the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. “It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls.” José...
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...A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Context James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in the town of Rathgar, near Dublin, Ireland. He was the oldest of ten children born to a well-meaning but financially inept father and a solemn, pious mother. Joyce's parents managed to scrape together enough money to send their talented son to the Clongowes Wood College, a prestigious boarding school, and then to Belvedere College, where Joyce excelled as an actor and writer. Later, he attended University College in Dublin, where he became increasingly committed to language and literature as a champion of Modernism. In 1902, Joyce left the university and moved to Paris, but briefly returned to Ireland in 1903 upon the death of his mother. Shortly after his mother's death, Joyce began work on the story that would later become A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Published in serial form in 1914–1915, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mandraws on many details from Joyce's early life. The novel's protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, is in many ways Joyce's fictional double—Joyce had even published stories under the pseudonym "Stephen Daedalus" before writing the novel. Like Joyce himself, Stephen is the son of an impoverished father and a highly devout Catholic mother. Also like Joyce, he attends Clongowes Wood, Belvedere, and University Colleges, struggling with questions of faith and nationality before leaving Ireland to make his...
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...英文荟萃网 http://www.ywhc.net 友情提供 The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Monsieur J. B. Nacquart, Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine. Dear Doctor--Here is one of the most carefully hewn stones in the second course of the foundation of a literary edifice which I have slowly and laboriously constructed. I wish to inscribe your name upon it, as much to thank the man whose science once saved me as to honor the friend of my daily life. De Balzac. THE LILY OF THE VALLEY ENVOI Felix de Vandenesse to Madame la Comtesse Natalie de Manerville: whom we ignore their I yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women love more than they love us to make the men who love them the ordinary rules of common-sense. To smooth the frown upon brow, to soften the pout upon their lips, what obstacles we miraculously overcome! We shed our blood, we risk our future! exact the history of my past life; here it is. But remember in obeying you I crush under foot a reluctance Why are you jealous of the sudden reveries midst of our happiness? Why show the when silence grasps me? Could you of my character without inquiring You this, Natalie; hitherto unconquerable. which overtake me in the pretty anger of a petted woman not play upon the contradictions into the causes of them? Are there secrets in your heart which seek absolution through a knowledge of mine? Ah! Natalie,...
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...[Transcriber's Notes] Original "misspellings" such as "fulness" are unchanged. Unfamiliar (to me) words are defined on the right side of the page in square brackets. For example: abstemious diet [abstemious = Eating and drinking in moderation.] The blandness of contemporary (2006) speech would be relieved by the injection of some of these gems: "phraseological quagmire" "Windy speech which hits all around the mark like a drunken carpenter." [End Transcriber's Notes] BY GRENVILLE KLEISER HOW TO BUILD MENTAL POWER A book of thorough training for all the faculties of the mind. Octa cloth, $3.00, net; by mail, $3.16. HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC A practical self-instructor for lawyers, clergymen, teachers, businessmen, and others. Cloth, 543 pages, $1.50. net; by mail, $1.615. HOW TO DEVELOP SELF-CONFIDENCE IN SPEECH AND MANNER A book of practical inspiration: trains men to rise above mediocrity and fearthought to their great possibilities. Commended to ambitious men. Cloth. 320 pages, $1.50. net; by mail, $1.65. HOW TO DEVELOP POWER AND PERSONALITY IN SPEAKING Practical suggestions in English, word-building, imagination, memory conversation, and extemporaneous speaking. Cloth, 422 pages, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.65. HOW TO READ AND DECLAIM A course of instruction in reading and declamation which will develop graceful carriage, correct standing, and accurate enunciation; and will furnish abundant exercise in the use of the best examples...
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