j09083的部落格

  Naturalism 

       Naturalism 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 believableeveryday reality, as opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Naturalism was an outgrowth of literary realism, a prominent literary movement in mid-19th-century France and elsewhere. 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. Whereas realism seeks only to describe subjects as they really are, naturalism also attempts to determine "scientifically" the underlying forces (e.g., the environment or heredity) influencing the actions of its subjects. Naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter; for example, Émile Zola's works had a frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism. 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.

   狂飆運動

        浪漫主義的直接淵源為法國盧梭與日耳曼的狂飆運動 (Surm und drang ; Storm and stress)

        18世紀德國文學的運動，為文藝形式從古典主義向浪漫主義過度時的階段。

        中心代表人物是歌德和席勒。歌德的《少年維特的煩惱》是典型代表作品，表達人類內心感情的衝突和奮起精神。

        狂飆突進時期的作家受到當時啟蒙運動的影響，特別是受到了盧梭哲學思想的影響，他們歌頌「天才」，主張「自由」、「個性解放」，提出了「返回自然」的口號。

        這個運動持續了將近二十多年，從1765年到1795年，然後被成熟的浪漫主義運動所取代。

    Roman Fever

      "Roman Fever" is a short story by American writer Edith Wharton. It was first published in the magazine Liberty in 1934, and was later included in Wharton's last short-story collection, The World Over.

          Plot summary:   

The protagonists are Grace Ansley and Alida Slade, two middle-aged American women who are visiting Rome with their daughters, Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade. The elder women grew up in Manhattan, New York, and were friends from childhood. A youthful and romantic rivalry led Mrs. Slade to nurture feelings of jealousy and hatred against Mrs. Ansley.

In the opening pages of the story, the two women compare their daughters and reflect on each other's lives. Eventually, Mrs. Slade reveals a secret about a letter written to Mrs. Ansley on a visit to Rome many years ago. The letter was purportedly from Mrs. Slade's fiancé, Delphin, inviting Mrs. Ansley to a rendezvous at the Colosseum. In fact, Mrs. Slade herself had written the letter, in an attempt to get Mrs. Ansley out of the way of the engagement by disappointing her with Delphin's absence (and, it is implied, to get Mrs. Ansley sick with Roman Fever). Mrs. Ansley is upset at this revelation, but reveals that she was not left alone at the Colosseum—she responded to the letter, and Delphin arrived to meet her. Mrs. Slade eventually states that Mrs. Ansley ought not to feel sorry for her, because "I had [Delphin] for twenty-five years" while Mrs. Ansley had "nothing but a letter he didn't write." Mrs. Ansley responds, in the last sentence of the story, "I had Barbara."

   莎莎:「聰明的女生是不隨便去男人家的。年經輕輕就算愛的再濃烈，也不要對男生全盤托出，不然你拿什麼留給以後的丈夫?」

  Adventures of Hukleberry Finn 頑童歷險記

      Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in aSouthern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.

Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger", despite strong arguments that the protagonist, and the tenor of the book, is anti-racist.

  Mark Twain Quotes

        Go to heaven for the climate, Hell for company.

        It is better ti remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. 

        Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
        More : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html

  莎莎:「文學是個可以優遊漫步在其中的花園。」

  Useful websites:

        Free ebook : http://www.gutenberg.org

        University of Virginia : http://www.library.virginia.edu

        台大圖書館公開取用電子書: http://ebooks.lib.ntu.edu.tw/Home/ListBooks

   天主教不節育( Religion and birth control)

        Religious adherents vary widely in their views on birth control. This can be true even between different branches of one faith, as in the case ofJudaism. Some religious believers find that their own opinions of the use of birth control differ from the beliefs espoused by the leaders of their faith, and many grapple with the ethical dilemma of what is conceived as "correct action" according to their faith, versus personal circumstance, reason, and choice.

        Among Christian denominations today there are a large variety of positions towards contraception. The Roman Catholic Church has disallowed artificial contraception for as far back as one can historically trace. Contraception was also officially disallowed by non-Catholic Christians until 1930 when the Anglican Communion changed its policy. Soon after, most Protestant groups came to accept the use of modern contraceptives as a matter of Biblically allowable freedom of conscience.

  在西方文化中，月圓代表的印象是負面的，恰與中國文化相反

  T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets." Born in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25) and was naturalisedas a British subject in 1927 at age 39.

Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday(1930) and Four Quartets (1945).^[2] He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".

  NATO 北大西洋公約組織

北大西洋公約組織（英語：North Atlantic Treaty Organization，簡稱NATO；法語：Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord，簡稱OTAN），簡稱北約組織或北約，是一個為實現防衛協作而建立的國際組織。1949年3月18日，美國和西歐國家公開組建北大西洋公約組織，於同年4月4日在美國華盛頓簽署《北大西洋公約》後正式成立。為與以前蘇聯為首的東歐集團國成員相抗衡，公約第5條規定成員國受到的攻擊一旦被確認，其他成員國將作出即時反應。該條款被理解為各國部隊將自動參戰，並不再次需要各國政府的參戰授權。但這一條條款在九一一事件之前，一直都未有動用過。及至蘇聯解體，華沙條約組織宣告解散，北約就成為一個地區性防衛協作組織。北約的最高決策機構是北約理事會。理事會由成員國國家元首及政府高層、外長、國防部長組成。總部設在比利時的布魯塞爾。北約軍事開支佔世界國防開支的70%。

                   會員國