Another School Year--- What For?

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Another School Year---What For?
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• Warming-up Questions
• Background Information
• Shakespeare/ Homer / Virgil / Dante / Aristotle
  
• Chaucer / Eistein / La Rochefoucauld
• Word Study
• 1. Verbal affixies
• 2. body / faculty / staff
• 3. testify / justify / verify / Certify
• 4. say / speak / talk / tell / converse
• 5. rather / fairly / quite / pretty
• 6. sensitive / sensible
• Writing Technique
• Euphemism
• Text Analysis
• Structure

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Warming-up Qs

• 1. Did you have a good holiday? What did you do
  during the holiday?
• 2. Have you had any reflections on your first
  term college life? What do you think is your most
  impressive experience in the last semester?
• 3. According to your own understanding, what are
  the major differences between high school and
  college educations?

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Background Information

• William Shakespeare

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• Tragedies
• (1) 'Hamlet', 'Macbeth', 'King Lear', 'Othello'
• (2) 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Coriolanus', 'Romeo
  and Juliet', 'Julius Caesar'
• (3) 'Richard II', 'Richard III', 'Timon of
  Athens'
• (4) 'King John', 'Titus Andronicus', 'Henry VI'.

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• Comedies
• (1)
• 'The Tempest',
• 'As You Like It',
• 'The Winter's Tale',
• 'The Merchant of Venice',
• Twelfth Night',
• 'Much Ado about Nothing',
• 'Cymbeline',
• 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

(2) 'The Merry Wives of Windsor', 'The Taming
of the Shrew', 'Two Gentlemen of Verona',
'All's Well That Ends Well', 'A Comedy of
Errors', 'Pericles', 'Love's Labour's Lost',
'Two Noble Kinsmen'.
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• Histories
• (1)
• 'Henry IV', Parts 1 and 2,
• 'Henry V',
• 'Richard II',
• 'Richard III',
• 'Henry VIII,
• (2) 'King John',
• 'Henry VI', Parts 2 and 3,
• 'Henry VI', Part 1.
• Serious Plays, or Bitter Comedies
• 'Measure for Measure',
• 'Troilus and Cressida'.

Shakespeares Burial Site
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The Globe Theatre

• Globe Theatre in London The Globe Theatre, where
  
• dramatist William Shakespeare saw his plays
  performed
• 400 years ago, has been rebuilt near its original
  location on
• the south bank of the Thames River in London,
  England.
• The rebuilt theater opened in 1997 and offers
  performances
• of Shakespeares plays during the summer.

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Bach

• Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750), was
  considered by many of his peers to be the supreme
  master of counterpoint (compositional technique
  pitting note against note or melody against
  melody). This quality was expressly illustrated
  in his fugal compositions. In this excerpt from
  his famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, written
  in his early years as a court organist, Bach
  expands on the toccata (short, intricately
  articulated keyboard movement) form in an
  elaborately constructed fugue.

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• Homer
• Homer, name traditionally assigned to the author
  of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two major epics
  of Greek antiquity. Nothing is known of Homer as
  an individual, and in fact it is a matter of
  controversy whether a single person can be said
  to have written both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
  Linguistic and historical evidence, however,
  suggests that the poems were composed in the
  Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor
  sometime in the 8th century bc.

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• THE ILIAD
• The Iliad is set in the final year of the Trojan
  War, fought between the Greeks and the
  inhabitants of the city of Troy. The legendary
  conflict forms the background for the central
  plot of the story the wrath of the Greek hero
  Achilles. Insulted by his commander in chief,
  Agamemnon, the young warrior Achilles withdraws
  from the war, leaving his fellow Greeks to suffer
  terrible defeats at the hands of the Trojans.
  Achilles rejects the Greeks' attempts at
  reconciliation but finally relents to some
  extent, allowing his companion Patroclus to lead
  his troops in his place. Patroclus is slain, and
  Achilles, filled with fury and remorse, turns his
  wrath against the Trojans, whose leader, Hector
  (son of King Priam), he kills in single combat.
  The poem closes as Achilles surrenders the corpse
  of Hector to Priam for burial, recognizing a
  certain kinship with the Trojan king as they both
  face the tragedies of mortality and bereavement.
• .

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• THE ODYSSEY
• The Odyssey describes the return of the Greek
  hero Odysseus from the Trojan War. The opening
  scenes depict the disorder that has arisen in
  Odysseus's household during his long absence A
  band of suitors is living off of his wealth as
  they woo his wife, Penelope. The epic then tells
  of Odysseus's ten years of traveling, during
  which he has to face such dangers as the
  man-eating giant Polyphemus and such subtler
  threats as the goddess Calypso, who offers him
  immortality if he will abandon his quest for
  home. The second half of the poem begins with
  Odysseus's arrival at his home island of Ithaca.
  Here, exercising infinite patience and
  self-control, Odysseus tests the loyalty of his
  servants plots and carries out a bloody revenge
  on Penelope's suitors and is reunited with his
  son, his wife, and his aged father.

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• VIRGIL, or VERGI
• (70-19 BC).
• The greatest of the Roman poets, Publius
  Vergilius Maro, was not a Roman by birth. His
  early home was on a farm in the village of Andes,
  near Mantua. His father was a farmer, prosperous
  enough to give his son the best education. The
  young Virgil was sent to school at Cremona and
  then to Milan. At the age of 17 he went to Rome
  to study. There he learned rhetoric and
  philosophy from the best teachers of the day.

Mosaic of Virgil and the two muses Cleo and
Melpomene
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• Virgil studied the Greek poets. He wrote his
  'Eclogues'. These are pastoral poems describing
  the beauty of Italian scenes. At the suggestion
  of Maecenas he wrote a more serious work on the
  art of farming and the charms of country life
  called the 'Georgics'. This established his fame
  as the foremost poet of his age.
• The year after the 'Georgics' was published, he
  began his great epic, the 'Aeneid'. He took as
  his hero the Trojan Aeneas, supposed to be the
  founder of the Roman nation. The poem, published
  after Virgil's death, exercised a tremendous
  influence upon Latin and later Christian
  literature, prose as well as poetry. Thus his
  influence continued through the Middle Ages and
  into modern times.

This 1469 painting depicts Virgil as he drafts
the poem Georgics (36-29 bc) before a statue of
the Greek goddess Artemis.
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• DANTE (1265-1321).
• One of the greatest poets in the history of world
  literature, Italian writer Dante Alighieri
  composed poetry influenced by classical and
  Christian tradition.
• Dantes greatest work was the epic poem La divina
  commedia (1321? The Divine Comedy, 1802).
• It includes three sections
• the Inferno (Hell), in which the great classical
  poet Virgil leads Dante on a trip through hell
• the Purgatorio (Purgatory), in which Virgil leads
  Dante up the mountain of purification and
• the Paradiso (Paradise), in which Dante travels
  through heaven. This passage from the Inferno
  (recited by an actor) comes at the beginning of
  the epic, when Dante loses his way in the woods.

The illustration shows Dante standing in front of
the mountain of Purgatory, with hell on his right
and heaven on his left.
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• The Divine Comedy
• was probably begun about 1307 it was completed
  shortly before his death. The work is an
  allegorical narrative, in verse of great
  precision and dramatic force, of the poet's
  imaginary journey through hell, purgatory, and
  heaven.
• In each of the three realms the poet meets with
  mythological, historical, and contemporary
  personages. Each character is symbolic of a
  particular fault or virtue, either religious or
  political and the punishment or rewards meted
  out to the characters further illustrate the
  larger meaning of their actions in the universal
  scheme.
• Dante is guided through hell and purgatory by
  Virgil, who is, to Dante, the symbol of reason.
  The woman Dante loved, Beatrice, whom he regards
  as both a manifestation and an instrument of the
  divine will, is his guide through paradise.

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• ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC).
• One of the greatest thinkers of all time, an
  ancient Greek philosopher. His work in the
  natural and social sciences greatly influenced
  virtually every area of modern thinking.
• Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Stagira, on the
  northwest coast of the Aegean Sea. His father was
  a friend and the physician of the king of
  Macedonia, and the lad spent most of his boyhood
  at the court. At 17, he went to Athens to study.
  He enrolled at the famous Academy directed by the
  philosopher Plato.
• Aristotle threw himself wholeheartedly into
  Plato's pursuit of truth and goodness. Plato was
  soon calling him the "mind of the school." In
  later years he renounced some of Plato's theories
  and went far beyond him in breadth of knowledge.
  

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• After his death, Aristotle's writings were
  scattered or lost. In the early Middle Ages the
  only works of his known in Western Europe were
  parts of his writings on logic. They became the
  basis of one of the three subjects of the
  medieval trivium--logic, grammar, and rhetoric.
  Early in the 13th century other books reached the
  West. Some came from Constantinople others were
  brought by the Arabs to Spain. Medieval scholars
  translated them into Latin.
• The best known of Aristotle's writings that have
  been preserved are 'Organon' (treatises on
  logic) 'Rhetoric' 'Poetics' 'History of
  Animals' 'Metaphysics' 'De Anima' (on
  psychology) 'Nicomachean Ethics' 'Politics'
  and 'Constitution of Athens'.

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Geoffrey Chaucer

• Called the Father of the English Language as well
  as the Morning Star of Song, Geoffrey Chaucer,
  after six centuries, has retained his status as
  one of the three or four greatest English poets.
• He was the first to commit to lines of universal
  and enduring appeal a vivid interest in nature,
  books, and people. As many-sided as Shakespeare,
  he did for English narrative what Shakespeare did
  for drama. If he lacks the profundity of
  Shakespeare, he excels in playfulness of mood and
  simplicity of expression.
• Though his language often seems quaint, he was
  essentially modern. Familiarity with the language
  and with the literature of his contemporaries
  persuades the most skeptical that he is nearer to
  the present than many writers born long after he
  died.

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• Works
• The following list supplies approximate dates for
  when Chaucer's works were completed
• 'The Book of the Duchess' (1369)
• 'The House of Fame' (1374-84)
• 'The Parliament of Birds' (1374-81)
• 'Troilus and Criseyde' (1385)
• 'Canterbury Tales' (1387-1400).

• His last, longest, and most famous work was the
  'Canterbury Tales'. His writing dominated English
  poetry up to the time of Shakespeare.

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• The Canterbury Tales
• The Tales is a collection of stories set within a
  framing story of a pilgrimage to Canterbury
  Cathedral, the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket.
  The poet joins a band of pilgrims, vividly
  described in the General Prologue, who assemble
  at the Tabard Inn outside London for the journey
  to Canterbury. Ranging in status from a Knight to
  a humble Plowman, they are a microcosm of
  14th-century English society.
• The Canterbury Tales contains 22 verse tales and
  2 prose tales presumably told by pilgrims to pass
  the time on their way to visit a shrine in
  Canterbury, England.
• The tales represent nearly every variety of
  medieval story at its best. The special genius of
  Chaucer's work, however, lies in the dramatic
  interaction between the tales and the framing
  story.

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• LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Francois de
• (1613-80).
• Francois de La Rochefoucauld was born to one of
  the noble families of France on Sept. 15, 1613,
  in Paris. His notions of human faults and foibles
  grew out of a life immersed in the political
  crises of his time. The public life of his family
  was conditioned by the attitude of the monarchy
  toward the nobility--sometimes flattering,
  sometimes threatening. Having served in the army
  periodically from 1629 to 1646, La Rochefoucauld
  became one of the prominent leaders in the civil
  war from 1648 to 1653. Wounded in 1649 and again
  in 1652, he finally retired from the struggle
  with extensive face and throat wounds and with
  his health ruined.

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• The literary reputation of La Rochefoucauld rests
  on one book 'Reflexions ou sentences et maximes
  morales', published in 1665. Generally called the
  'Maximes', these moral reflections and maxims are
  a collection of cynical epigrams, or short
  sayings, about human nature--a nature that the
  author felt is dominated by self-interest.
  Typical of his point of view are the following
  sayings "We seldom find such sensible men as
  those who agree with us" "Virtues are lost in
  self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea"
  "The surest way to be deceived is to think
  oneself cleverer than the others" and "We always
  like those who admire us we do not always like
  those whom we admire."

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• After convalescing, he settled in Paris where he
  became involved with a circle of brilliant and
  cultivated people who debated intellectual
  subjects of all kinds. As an exercise, they
  attempted to express their thoughts with the
  greatest brevity. In so doing they made great use
  of the epigram, or maxim, which creates surprise
  through the devices of exaggeration and paradox.
  La Rochefoucauld soon gained mastery of this
  device. The first edition of his 'Maximes'
  contains, in fact, some longer selections along
  with the epigrams. Altogether he authorized five
  editions of the book in his lifetime, the last
  appearing in 1678. Two years later, on March 17,
  1680, he died in Paris.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one
of the worlds leading research universities, in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1865 the school was
opened in Boston by geologist William Barton
Rogers, who became its first president. Throughou
t its history MIT has held a worldwide reputation
for teaching and research. It was among the first
schools to use the laboratory method of
instruction, develop the modern profession of
chemical engineering, and offer courses in
aeronautical and electrical engineering and
applied physics.
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Word Study

• 1. Verbal affixies
• -ize/ise to cause to be to make to become
• modernize / stablize / realize / crystalize /
  materialize
• standardize / computerize / idealize /
  capitalize
• to put into stated place
• hospitalize / centralize / socialize
• -fy to cause to be
• purify / simplify / clarify / justify / notify
  / simplify /
• classify identify / terrify / qualify / terrify
• -en to become
• darken / weaken / blacken / sadden
• to be made of
• wooden / golden / woolen

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2. body / faculty / staff

• body
• 1. whole physical structure of a human being or
  an animal main part of a human body
• dead body a strong body
• 2. main part of sth
• the body of a ship the body of the theater
• the main body of the book
• 3. object
• heavenly bodies a foreign body
• 4. group of people working or acting as a unit
• a body of troops a body of supporters
• a legislative body a government body
• the student body the governing body
• the school body an elected body

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• Faculty
• any of the power s of the body or mind
• the faculty of the sight mental faculties
• 2. department or group of related departments in
  a university
• the Faculty of Law the Faculty of Science
• 3. the whole teaching staff in one of the
  departments or in the whole university
• The entire faculty of the university will attend
  the meeting.

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• Staff (usu. sing)
• group of assistants working together in a
  business, etc responsible to a manager or a
  person in authority
• the hotel staff the shop staff
• We need more staff in the office.
• I have a staff of ten
• 2. Those people doing administrative work
• a head teacher and her staff
• (???????)
• The school staff are expected to supervise
  school meals.

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3. testify / justify / verify / Certify

• testify declare as a witness, esp in court give
  evidence (????,??)
• Two witnesses testified against her and one in
  her favour.
• justify show that sth / sb is right, reasonable
  or just
  (??????????????,?????? ?)
• You shouldnt attempt to justify yourself
• They found it hard to justify their sons giving
  up a secure well-paid job.

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• verify to check to make sure sth is true or
  accurate (??,??)
• The computer verified the data was loaded
  correctly.
• certify to declare formally, esp in writing or on
  a printed document (??????)
• He certified it was his wifes handwriting.

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4. say / speak / talk / tell / converse

• say ?????????????,
• He hasnt said that he is leaving.
• ??????????
• He said, Good night, and went to bed.
• speak ????,??????,
• The baby is learning to speak.
• Please dont speak with your mouth full of
  food.
• ????????,?????????
• Id like to speak with you about my idea.
• We have invited her to speak on American
  politics.
• ??????????????????
• He speaks several languages.

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• Talk ????????????????,??? ???????, ????????
• We sat in the bar and talked for hours
• Tell ????????,???????
• She told him to hurry up.
• She told me nothing about herself.
• Converse ????,???
• It is a pleasure to converse with you.
• It is difficult to converse with people who do
  not speak your language.

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5. rather / fairly / quite / pretty

• ????????????,??????,????
• ?,??????????????????
• rather
• 1. ????????????????????????,?????????
• rather good play rather poor work
• 2. ???????????,??????????
• rather hot rather small
• 3. ??????too??
• The house is rather bigger than we thought.
• Those shoes are rather too small.
• 4. ?a/an adj. n.???,???a / an ???
• a rather nice day a rather pretty woman

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• fairly ????,???????
• fairly tidy / friendly
• quite ?rather??,??a/an adj. n.???,? ??a / an
  ???
• A quite nice guy a quite promising future
• pretty
• 1. ????????,??????????????
• A pretty simple question a pretty ugly man
• 2. ?rather??????????????????? ???????,?????????

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6. sensitive / sensible

• sensible reasonable having or showing good
  sense
• a sensible person a sensible suggestion
• sensitive easily hurt, damaged, affected,
  offended, upset
• a sensitive nerve heat-sensitive
• a sensitive girl sensitive to criticism

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Writing Technique

• Euphemism ???
• jump the fence
• go to the electric chair
• Euphemism, or language pollution, or double
  speak, as some call it, is often intended to
  obscure or hide the real situation.
• pass away rest in peace
• go to the bathroom ladies room
• senior citizen sanitary engineer
• correction center domestic help
• meat technologist substandard housing
• He is a bit slow for his age.

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Text Analysis

• Structure
• Part I (para.1 8)
• describes the writers encounter with one of his
  student.
• Part II (para. 9 14)
• restates what the writer still believes to be
  the purpose of a university putting its students
  in touch with the best civilizations the human
  race has created.

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• Difficult Sentences
• New as I was to the faculty, I could have told
  this specimen a number of things.
• Paraphrase Though I was a new teacher, I knew I
  could tell him what a university was for,
  but I couldnt.
• Note
• specimen a person who is unusual in some way.
  Here it refers to the student who
  challenges the teacher.

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• 2. You will see to it that the cyanide stays out
  of the aspirin, that the bull doesnt jump the
  fence, or that your client doesnt go to the
  electric chair as a result of your incompetence.
• Paraphrase You have to take responsibility for
  the work you do. If you re a pharmacist,
  you should make sure that aspirin is not
  mixed with poisonous chemicals. As an
  engineer, you shouldnt get things out of
  control. If you become a lawyer, you should
  make sure an innocent person is not sentenced
  to death because you lack adequate legal
  knowledge and skill to defend your client.

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• Note
• see to it that to make sure that
• the bull Jumps the fence to make trouble to
  make out of control.
• go to the electric chair to be sentenced to
  death

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• 3. They will be your income, and may it always
  suffice.
• Paraphrase Those professional skills will be
  rewarding for your career and we hope that
  there may always be opportunities of further
  learning.
• Note
• May in formal English, may is used to express
  a hope or wish
• May you happy new year.
• May you a happy holiday.
• May peace finally prevail.
• May our country be prosperous and our people
  happy.

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• 4. You are on your way to being that new species
  of mechanized savage, the push-button
  Neanderthal.
• Paraphrase You will soon become an uneducated,
  ignorant person who can only work
  machines and operate mechanical
  equipment.
• Note
• 1. on ones way to on the point of experiencing
  or achieving
• 2. new species of mechanized savage
• new types of humans who are intellectually
  simple and not developed and who can only work
  machines
• 3. The push-button Neanderthal
• an uneducated, ignorant person who can only use
  / operate machines by pushing the buttons.

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Discussion

• Value of College Education
• A girl is going to give up her chance of
  receiving college education in order to pursue
  her dream of becoming a performer. Her father is
  worried about her and posted a message on the
  internet, expecting advice from other internet
  surfers.

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• ???Steve Vaughn (slvaughn_at_kodak.com)
• ??Value of college education  View this article
  only
• ????rec.arts.theatre.misc
• ??1996/07/09
• I hope I am posting my question to an
  appropriate newsgroup. I apologize if not. My
  daughter is entering her senior year in high
  school and plans to pursue a career in theatre.
  She has wanted to be a performer since she was
  very little and is a hard working, focused
  person. She has received training in dance,
  voice, and acting both in and outside of high
  school. She recently informed us that a college
  education (degree) may not be of that much value
  to her career, except for the networking benefits
  from attending one of the top flight theatre
  programs. I believe her current voice and acting
  teacher has planted this seed. I would be very
  appreciative of the opinions of anyone in
  professional theatre regarding the importance of
  a college education degree for someone planning
  to work in this business. Her mother nor I have
  any experience in this field. Thanks for your
  help.

46

• The following letter is from one of the internet
  surfers who are interested in this topic.

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• ???Mary Beth (msancomb_at_execpc.com)
• ??Re Value of college education  View this
  article only
• ????rec.arts.theatre.misc
• ??1996/07/10
• While a degree won't help your daughter get
  an acting job (in that educational credentials
  aren't necessary, talent is), I firmly believe in
  the value of an education. Her schooling should
  help her to hone her craft, and therefore will be
  a plus if she is truly looking to pursue theatre
  as a career. Additionally, if she is a vocalist,
  the training she should get will be invaluable. I
  would suggest she look into colleges and
  universities with reputations for good theatre
  and/or music programs. Good luck to her!

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• Suppose you are also one of the interested
  internet surfers, what will you say to the father
  of the girl in your letter of reply?