2017年4月19日 星期三

Approaches to Literature(week10)


Fiction is the classification for any story or similar work derived from imagination—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact. Fiction can be expressed in a variety of formats, including writingslive performancesfilmstelevision programsanimationsvideo games, and role-playing games, though the term originally and most commonly refers to the narrative forms of literature (see literary fiction), including the novelnovellashort story, and play. Fiction does not refer to a specific mode or genre, unless used in its narrowest sense to mean a "literary narrative". Fiction is traditionally regarded as the opposite of non-fiction, whose creators assume responsibility for presenting only the historical and factual truth; however, the distinction between fiction and non-fiction can be blurred, for example, in postmodern literature.






A persona (plural personae or personas), in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning. Its meaning in the latter Roman period changed to indicate a "character" of a theatrical performance or court of law, when it became apparent that different individuals could assume the same role, and legal attributes such as rights, powers, and duties followed the role. The same individuals as actors could play different roles, each with its own legal attributes, sometimes even in the same court appearance. According to other sources, which also admit that the origin of the term is not completely clear, persona could possibly be related to the Latin verb per-sonare, literally: sounding through, with an obvious link to the above-mentioned theatrical mask.


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

     W. H. Auden


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



Wystan Hugh Auden was an English-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues", poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles", poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae."[ He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended English independent schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29 he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in English public schools, then travelled to Iceland and China in order to write books about his journeys. In 1939 he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria.





Related Poem Content Details

Helen, thy beauty is to me 
   Like those Nicéan barks of yore, 
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
   The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 
   To his own native shore. 

On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
   Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
   To the glory that was Greece,       
   And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche 
   How statue-like I see thee stand, 
The agate lamp within thy hand! 
   Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 
   Are Holy-Land! 





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