American Literature(15)

•  Sylvia Plath ( 1932 –  1963) was an American poet, novelist and short story writer.

       Plath suffered from depression for much of her adult life, and in 1963 she committed suicide.Plath is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for her two published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel.
       In 1982, she won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems. She also wrote The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death.

•  Anne Sexton ( 1928 –  1974) was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. 

She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Themes of her poetry include her long battle against depression and mania, suicidal tendencies, and various intimate details from her private life.

 On returning home she put on her mother's old fur coat, removed all her rings, poured herself a glass of vodka, locked herself in her garage, and started the engine of her car, committing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.

• 推薦電影：Sylvia(2004)

American Literature(15)

• THE COLD WAR

(點入連結)

• Containment 

was a United States policy to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. It represented a middle-ground position between appeasement and rollback.

The word containment is associated most strongly with the policies of U.S. President Harry Truman (1945–53), including the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact. 

• Samuel Langhorne Clemens ( 1835 –  1910)

 better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885),the latter often called "the Great American Novel."


Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age," and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."

•  Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various reasons. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been repeatedly restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word "nigger," which was in common usage in the pre-Civil War period in which the novel was set.

• 英語口語文學

1. 雙重否定文法(I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out.)
2. 拼錯字

• "Moon River"  (music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Johnny Mercer)

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

• 推薦電影：Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

• "The Open Boat"

 is a short story by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). First published in 1897, it was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent.

American Literature(14)

• Henry James(1843–1916)

1. was an American-born British writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He is primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounter of Americans with Europe and Europeans.James contributed significantly to literary criticism, particularly in his insistence that writers be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world.
2. James is noted for his "international theme" – that is, the complex relationships between naïve Americans and cosmopolitan Europeans.
3. If the main theme of Twain's work is appearance and reality, James's constant concern is perception. In James, only self-awareness and clear perception of others yields wisdom and self-sacrificing love. As James develops, his novels become more psychological and less concerned with external events. In James's later works, the most important events are all psychological – usually moments of intense illumination that show characters their previous blindness.

Read more:( http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2008/05/20080512222313eaifas0.993786.html#ixzz2oM58lYkO)

• works

The Portrait of a Lady(1881)

The Wings of the Dove(1902)

Daisy Miller(1878)
Transatlantic Sketches (travel pieces, 1875)

• Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900)

 was an American author. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.

 Crane's first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, generally considered by critics to be the first work of American literary Naturalism.
 He won international acclaim in 1895 for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote without any battle experience.

• realism(literature)

Like Romanticism, naturalism first appeared in Europe. It is usually traced to the works of Honoré? de Balzac (巴爾札克)in the 1840s and seen as a French literary movement associated with Gustave Flaubert(古詩塔夫‧福樓拜),  Émile Zola(埃米爾·左拉), and Guy de Maupassant(居伊·德·莫泊桑). It daringly opened up the seamy underside of society and such topics as divorce, sex, adultery, poverty, and crime.

Naturalism flourished as Americans became urbanized and aware of the importance of large economic and social forces. By 1890, the frontier was declared officially closed. Most Americans resided in towns, and business dominated even remote farmsteads.

"You are all a "génération perdue."   

                                                                            ──  Gertrude Stein

•  "Lost Generation"

The "Lost Generation" was the generation that came of age during World War I.
The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises.

• Gertrude Stein(點入連結)

American Literature(13)

• Naturalism( Literature)

 was a literary movement or tendency from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. It was a mainly unorganized Literary movement that sought to depict believable everyday reality, as opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. 

 Naturalistic writers were influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. They often believed that one's heredity and social environment largely determine one's character. 

Naturalistic works exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution, and filth. As a result, naturalistic writers were frequently criticized for focusing too much on human vice and misery.

•  Realism ( Literature)

Literary realism is the trend, beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors, toward depictions of contemporary life and society as it was, or is.

 In the spirit of general "realism," realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

George Eliot's novel Middlemarch stands as a great milestone in the realist tradition.

• Vernacular

           Mark Twain

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206

American Literature(12)

• 聖經裡的40

1. 洪水四十晝夜　
2. 摩西在埃及四十年，在曠野牧羊四十年　
3. 以色列人在曠野飄流四十年
4. 神給尼尼微人四十天悔改的機會　
5. 耶穌在曠野禁食四十晝夜
6. 主復活後在地四十天

•  Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) 

 is the sixth book by American writer Herman Melville. The work is an epic sea-story of Captain Ahab's voyage in pursuit of Moby Dick, a great white whale. It initially received mixed reviews and at Melville's death in 1891 was remembered, if at all, as a children's sea adventure, but now is considered one of the Great American Novels and a leading work of American Romanticism.

•  Herman Melville(1819 –  1891) 

was an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry. His contributions to the Western canon are the whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851); the short work Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853) about a clerk in a Wall Street office; and Billy Budd, Sailor, left unfinished at his death and published in 1924.

When he died in 1891, Melville was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.

• 「Starbucks」這個名字，來自美國作家梅爾‧維爾（Melville Herman）所寫的世界名著《白鯨記》（Moby Dick）裡那艘船上大副的名字史塔巴克（Starbuck）。

American Literature(11)

•  Life of Pi 

 is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001.

• 推薦電影：Life of Pi (2012) 

• 推薦音樂："Sigh No More, Ladies..."(From "Much Ado about Nothing")
                                         by   William Shakespeare

•  Walter "Walt" Whitman ( 1819 – 1892)
  
  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.
  
   Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892.

 

•  Song of Myself

 "Song of Myself" is a poem by Walt Whitman that is included in his work Leaves of Grass. It has been credited as "representing the core of Whitman’s poetic vision."

•  詩人自比

      13

 Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird!
 Sing from the swamps, the recesses—pour your chant from the bushes;
 Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
 Sing on, dearest brother—warble your reedy song;
 Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
 O liquid, and free, and tender!
 O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
 You only I hear......yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;) 
 Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.

                                             ───  When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd

 
 The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,  If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

                                                ─── Ode to the West Wind

To seek new worlds for gold, for praise, for glory.

''paul's case'' →滅頂於美感的瞬間。

Joyce Carol Oates  →學院派的驕傲與憂鬱。

''The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas''   →我以決絕的姿態做出回應。

It's asking for the taking. → 這世界不允許我們沉默。

You are the apple of my eye.→ 只要結局圓滿，就是幸福的人生。

Time and tide wait for no man .→   1.跳越時空的少女  2.逢魔時刻  3.秋季的星期四下午
                      

作家狂想(3)──萬城目學

初讀《鹿男》時的我還興致沖沖，畢竟當時的評價讚譽相當不錯，同時還夾帶玉木宏將飾演日劇版的問世。

故事內容架構完整，層層疊起的支脈最後完整的勾勒出清晰的結局。利用日本歷史上有名的卑彌呼女巫之謎團串聯動物使者們的使命，這部分也考究的相當細緻，但是……我就是沒什麼熱情或感動的情緒耶。

還記得當時友人問我讀後感，我停頓了一下說：恩…大概我不是日本人吧！所以覺得還好。因為整篇故事的終點高潮就是破解日本歷史上有名的卑彌呼女巫之謎團，有些溶入骨血與呼吸中的歷史帶入感，我就是感受不太到(泣)。

改看日劇，讓可愛的鹿安慰一下吧(淚) ！

接下來是《豐城公主》。

我並沒有直接閱讀小說，而是改看電影的版本，所以這因該算是電影的評價而非小說。開始都很棒，鮮豔的畫面營照出大阪城停擺的衝擊，如營大敵的查稅橋段相當有趣，而當我看菁英檢察官鬼之松平(堤真一飾演)一步一步直搗核心的氣勢，也被其節奏抓住。但是，就在揭露大阪城的秘密，發現豐臣家族竟還留有後裔，公主茶子以一介平民之姿，自在地生活在由全大阪人替她守候的國度裡之後……就這樣?

但是，經過前面種種細節的鋪敘吊起胃口，最後得到的結果卻無法徹底滿足。

架構完整，但對我而言，就是不夠吸引人。

《鴨川荷爾摩》則是大推。

  這種校園式奇幻風，又帶一點點搞笑與認真。是我目前為止，唯一喜歡的他的作品。

  數度有讓我想笑的衝動，又頗能體會主角悲苦的鬱悶心情。 

《偉大的咻啦啦砰》則又是蠢蠢青春風。真的。

  轉學生的梗已經用爛了吧.........但最後大家能做好朋友還是很感動(←明明很買帳)

  不知為何我看完有種「我們要好好保護環境(尤其是湖)」的感想??

American Literature(10)

• 報佳音 (Christmas caroling)

•  槲寄生(mistletoe)

According to an old Christmas custom, a man and a woman who meet under a hanging of mistletoe were obliged to kiss.

• Andy Williams - It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

• Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day(Sonnet 18)

                                                                        by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee

• Three quatrains plus a concluding couple(Sonnet 18)

• types of meter

Types of Meter Poetry   (點入連結)

• End rhyme=rhym scheme尾韻
• alliteration=頭韻

• "God Save the Queen"

(alternatively "God Save the King" during the reign of a male sovereign)
 is an anthem used in a number of Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies.

• "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States.

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

三島屋奇異百物語系列─閱讀題記(6)

三島屋奇異百物語系列   宮部美幸

怪談：三島屋奇異百物語之始（2010年8月 獨步文化）

  收錄作品：曼珠沙華/ 凶宅 / 邪戀 / 魔鏡 / 滿屋作響

暗獸：續三島屋奇異百物語（2012年8月 獨步文化）

 收錄作品：逃走的水/ 竹林裡冒出一千根針/ 暗獸/ 吼佛

 

 這次的奇異百物語系列完全沒有按照順序來閱讀(笑)。但實際上這點並不會影響到閱讀就是了。

 怪談的開頭第一篇〈曼珠沙華〉，是在講述兄弟間的情感和人性的恐怖與溫柔。令人涓然淚下的同時又微微的感到毛骨悚然。恐懼原然世間的人情冷暖與道德倫理，是如何巧妙的影響人心，一點一滴的侵蝕掉往日的溫情光輝；然而又在鑄下大錯的時刻，去了解到無法斬斷的血緣羈絆意義。

〈凶宅〉是描述一間寄居著惡靈的豪宅，不停呼喚、勾引著人們以便吞食的淒涼故事。此為貫穿本書的重要事件。

〈邪戀〉則披露了主角少女阿近所背負的罪業，也與〈魔鏡〉相互呼應；不祥的愛情，最終所導致無法挽回的悲劇。世間上的事物，尤其在於人情事理，皆是有跡可循的啊！

 最後的〈滿屋作響〉，所有的故事都宛如串珠般被聯繫起來，阿近進入了凶宅之中面對自己的過去……。

我所說出的話語，其中包含著藏在心底深處的黑暗、悔恨、與不容於世間的一切魁魅魍魎。只盼望傾聽者能對此能感同身受，讓寬容的淚水化去這些罪業，使之熠熠生輝。