WEEK 12 文導筆記

1. Information 

a. somewhere i have never travelled  

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond 

(wrong grammar → 逗點沒有隔開代表倒抽一口氣)

any experience,your eyes have their silence: 

                           (無法愛的無力感)  

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

(→ 握緊手，不敢開口)

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose 

(括號後面應概要空一格，但沒有→ 因為忐忑和開心上氣不接下氣)

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) 

(→ 呼應 your eyes have their silence)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands 

b. E. E. Cummings 

Edward Estlin Cummings, known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings (in the style of some of his poems—see name and capitalization, below), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th century English literature.

c. anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)

cared for anyone not at all 
(→無憂無慮)

they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same

sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew

autumn winter spring summer)

that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy she cried his grief

bird by snow and stir by still

anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones

laughed their cryings and did their dance

(sleep wake hope and then)they

said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin to explain

how children are apt to forget to remember 

                                                          (get used to)

with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess

(and noone stooped to kiss his face)

busy folk buried them side by side

little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep

and more by more they dream their sleep

noone and anyone earth by april

wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars rain

  (→ 時間流逝)

d. elegy

(1) since the Renaissance, usually a formal lament (feel sorry) on the death of a particular person, but focusing mainly on the speaker’s efforts to come to terms with his or her grief; (2) more broadly, any lyric in sorrowful mood that takes death as its primary subject. An example is W. H. Auden’s "In Memory of W. B. Yeats."

e. Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

f. free verse

Free verse is a poetry characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines. (GLOSSARY A6)

g.  The Lake Isle of Innisfree

written by William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

2. extra information

a. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’ d

written by Walt Whitman

part of the poem:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’ d,   

                                             (四月的花朵)

And the great star early droop’ d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’ d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

b. Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on an earlier voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee."Call me Ishmael" is among world literature's most famous opening sentences. 

c. The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

                                                   (→ 鷹)

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  

(→ 末世要來了期待和害怕，對於現世的感傷)  

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  

The darkness drops again; but now I know  

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

d. Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation, often known simply as Revelation or The Apocalypse of John, is a book of the New Testament that occupies a central place in Christian eschatology. Its title is derived from the first word of the text, written in Koine Greek: apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic document in the New Testament canon (although there are short apocalyptic passages in various places in the Gospels and the Epistles).