美國文學---Week4

* Sisyphus - "The gods had comdemned Sisphus"

-In Greek mythology Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity.

* self-aggrandizing(n.)

- the act of making oneself more powerful, wealthy, etc., esp. in a ruthless way

*Winston Churchill

-was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also anofficer in the British Army, a historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

*" An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last" --- Winston Churchill Quotes

meaning:

1. To bring peace, quiet, or calm to; soothe.

2. To pacify or attempt to pacify (an enemy) by granting concessions often at the expense of principle.

*appease(v.)

-to pacify or quiet, esp. by giving in to the demands of

         Winston Churchill                   appeaser   

*To Act, To Love 敦愛篤行

* The Freedom Trail

-  is a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) path through  downtown   Boston ,  Massachusetts  that passes by 16 locations significant to the  history of the United States . Marked largely with brick, it winds between  Boston Common  to the  USS Constitution  in Charlestown .

* Paul Rever

- was an American  silversmith ,  engraver , early industrialist, and a  Patriot  in the  American Revolution . He is best known for alerting the Colonial militia to the approach of  British forces  before the battles of Lexington and Concord , as dramatized in  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's poem, " Paul Revere's Ride ".

*Ralph Waldo Emerson

- was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalistmovement 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.

*"Traveling is a fool's paradise"

“Travelling is a fool's paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern Fact, the sad self, unrelenting identical that I fled from.”

―   Ralph Waldo Emerson ,  Self-Reliance

*John Donne

- was an English poet and a  cleric  in the Church of England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the  metaphysical poets . His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets , love poems, religious poems,  Latin  translations,  epigrams ,  elegies , songs, satires and  sermons . His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of  metaphor , especially compared to that of his contemporaries. 

*No Man is an Island--- Poem by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 

―  John Donne

*Vocabulary

1. furile (adj.) 徒勞無功的

- in van

2. carpe diem

= Sieze the day

- make the most of present opportunities