A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere* profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery** thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth*** roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

(Source: Donne, John. Poems of John Donne.vol I. E. K.Chambers, ed. London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 51-52).

* 'Twere – It were

** Aery - airy

*** doth - does

Exercises

1. What is the first strophe of the poem about?

2. Can you find any words typical for scientific text? Give examples.

3. “Compasses” (“twin compasses, pair of compasses”, usually in plural) were popular tools in Donne’s times. Can you describe them and their function?

4. What is “metaphysics”? Why is Donne’s poetry called “metaphysical”? Give your ideas.

5. Find English equivalents for:

правильный круг, разрыв, расширение (растяжение), жесткий, двигаться наискось (наклонно), твердость.

B.

Meditation №17 By John Donne From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII:

Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and engrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. (…)

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.

Exercises

1. “…That action concerns me”. Give synonyms to the verb concern.

Give all possible family root words.

Tell in other words:

A matter of great concern -

As far as I am concerned -

Have a concern in -

To whom it may concern -

1. Match verbs with the prepositions

Bind (leaves) out

Wash (clod) away

Involve (man) off

Toll in

Tear (torn) (chapter) for

1. The stylistic device of comparison in literature is “simile”. Find examples of it in the text.

Text VII.

William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) was an Anglo-Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20 century literature.

This poem is based on the ancient Celtic myth. This is a dialogue between King Fergus and the Druid – old priest and magician.

W. H. Auden (21 February 1907 – 1973) was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues. Sometimes his verse sounds like jazz.

The Ship

All street are brightly lit; our city is kept clean;

The third class deal from greasiest cards,

The first play high;

The beggars sleeping in the bows have never seen

What can be done in state-rooms: no one asks why.

Lovers are writing letters, athletes playing ball,

One doubts the honour, one the beauty of his wife,

A boy’s ambitious: perhaps the Captain hates us all;

Someone perhaps is leading a civilized life.

Slowly our Western culture

In full pomp progress

Over the barren plains of sea; somewhere ahead

A septic East, a war, new flowers,

Odder dresses.

Somewhere a strange and shrewd

To-morrow goes to bed,

Planning a test for men from Europe; no one guesses

Who will be most ashamed, who richer,

And who dead.

January 1938

(from http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/120)

Exercises

1. Replace adjectives in the following combinations with synonyms saving the meaning of the whole:

Greasiest cards

Play high

Civilized life

Shrewd tomorrow

Septic East

Odder dresses

Barren plains

1. What passengers are on board the vessel?
2. Where do the beggars sleep?
3. Give different types of pronunciation and different meanings of the word “bow”. Read and translate:

Tie a ribbon in a bow!

He took a bow and started to play.

When you meet the Queen you bow.

He was sitting on a bow and looking at me.

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 – 1961) was an American author and journalist. His distinctive writing style, characterized by economy and understatement, influenced 20th-century fiction, as did his life of adventure and his public image. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Many of his works are classics of American Literature. Hemingway was born and raised in Illinois. After leaving high school he worked for a few months as a reporter, before leaving for the Italian front to become an ambulance driver during World War I, which became the basis for his novel “A Farewell to Arms”.. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home within the year. In 1922 Hemingway married the first of his four wives, and the couple moved to Paris/, where he worked as a foreign correspondent. Hemingway covered the Spanish Civil War. During the World War II he was present at D-Day (the first day of the Allied Invasion of Normandy) and the liberation of Paris. Shortly after the publication of “The Old Man and the Sea” in 1952 Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Florida and Cuba during the 1930s and '40s. He committed suicide in the summer of 1961.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 2130