2015.11.19 - Week 10

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) morph- form
2) ATM auto teller machine
3) mock make fun of ; laugh at
4) bull's eye 正中靶心
5) venerate to honor or very much respect a person or thing
5-1) worship to have or show a strong feeling of respect and admiration for God or a god
6) provocative  causing thought about interesting subjects
7) grotesque strange and unpleasant, especially in a silly or slightly frightening way
8) rebellion violent action organized by a group of people who are trying to change the political system in their country
9) conceit when you are too proud of yourself and your actions
10) uri- 尿
11) authority the moral or legal right or ability to control
12) plot the story of a book, film, play, etc
13) premier best or most important
14) twin compass 圓規

B. Kafka

Franz Kafka was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th century literature. His work, which fused elements of realism and the fantastic, typically featured isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" , Der Process, and Das Schloss. The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing.
Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He trained as a lawyer, and after completing his legal education he obtained employment with an insurance company while writing in his spare time; for the rest of his life would complain about the little time he had to devote to his passion due to the demands of his Brotberuf ("day job", literally "bread job"). Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family and close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained and formative relationship. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.
Few of Kafka's works were published during his lifetime: the story collections Betrachtung (Contemplation) and Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), and individual stories (such as "Die Verwandlung") were published in literary magazines but received little public attention. Kafka's unfinished works, including his novels Der Process, Das Schloss and Amerika (also known as Der Verschollene, The Man Who Disappeared), were ordered by Kafka to be destroyed by his friend Max Brod, who nonetheless ignored his friend's direction and published them after Kafka's death.
C. John Donne

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. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorized. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.

Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes, and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children. In 1615, he became an Anglican priest, although he did not want to take Anglican orders. He did so because King James I persistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He also served as a member of parliament in 1601 and in 1614.

* metaphysical poetry的代表人物

Island

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.