兒童文學 Week 12

fable：Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as the ability to speak human language) and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind.

Aesop's Fables：Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.

Robert Louis Stevenson ： was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and A Child's Garden of Verses.

A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Emilio Salgari, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins".

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde：a novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.

Treasure Island：an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold". It was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881 through 1882 under the title Treasure Island, or the mutiny of the Hispaniola, credited to the pseudonym "Captain George North". It was first published as a book on 14 November 1883 by Cassell & Co.

Treasure Island is traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action. It is also noted as a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver—unusual for children's literature. It is one of the most frequently dramatized of all novels. Its influence is enormous on popular perceptions of pirates, including such elements as treasure maps marked with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen bearing parrots on their shoulders.

New Testament and Aesop's Fables are writing in Greek.

Memento mori： Memento mori("remember that you have to die")is a Latin expression, originating from a practice common in Ancient Rome; as a general came back victorious from a battle, and during his parade ("Triumph") received compliments and honors from the crowd of citizens, he ran the risk of falling victim to haughtiness and delusions of grandeur; to avoid it, a slave stationed behind him would say "Respice post te. Hominem te memento" ( "Look after you [to the time after your death] and remember you're [only] a man."). It was then reused during the medieval period, it is also related to the ars moriendi ("The Art of Dying") and related literature. Memento mori has been an important part of ascetic disciplines as a means of perfecting the character by cultivating detachment and other virtues, and by turning the attention towards the immortality of the soul and the afterlife.

John Denver----Today

Tragedy under Racial Discrimination-----The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye：The Bluest Eye was written by Toni Morrison in 1970. A single mother of two sons, Morrison wrote the novel while she was teaching at Howard University . She centers the story around a young African American girl named Pecola who grows up during the years following the Great Depression in Lorain, Ohio. Due to her dark skin color, Pecola gets taunted for her appearance as the members of her community associate beauty with "whiteness". She ultimately develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for blue eyes. The point of view switches between the perspective of Claudia MacTeer, the daughter of Pecola's foster parents, and multiple third-person limited viewpoints. Due to the controversial issues the book raises such as racism, incest, and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban it from schools and libraries.

Bildungsroman：In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman ( "novel of formation, education, culture"),novel of formation, novel of education, or coming-of-age story (though it may also be known as a subset of the coming-of-age story) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is extremely important.

Gothic fiction：Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance. Its origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled (in its second edition) "A Gothic Story." The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. It originated in England in the second half of the 18th century and had much success in the 19th, as witnessed by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Another well known novel in this genre, dating from the late Victorian era, is Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The name Gothic refers to the (pseudo)-medieval buildings, emulating Gothic architecture, in which many of these stories take place. This extreme form of romanticism was very popular in England and Germany. The English Gothic novel also led to new novel types such as the German Schauerroman and the French Georgia.

Frankenstein：Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque but sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London in 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

Dracula： an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula.
The novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel, and invasion literature. Stoker did not invent the vampire but he defined its modern form, and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film, and television interpretations.

To Kill a Mockingbird：a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.(One-book-success)

all men are created equal = 人生而平等

 mumble 咀嚼聲
bitter： Having or being a taste that is sharp, acrid, and unpleasant.
prickly：Having prickles.

metaphor：One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol

mor-：death
ex：mortuary park墓園、mortal

ad-：move forward
ex：advanced、adventure

high-profile：An intentionally conspicuous, well-publicized presence or stance

motifs：a. A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work.
              b. A dominant theme or central idea.

competence：能力

tabloid：A newspaper of small format giving the news in condensed form, usually with illustrated, often sensational material.

兒童文學 Week 11

Harper Lee ：Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Though Lee had only published this single book, in 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Additionally, Lee received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She was also known for assisting her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.



To Kill a Mockingbird (PPT)：To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.
The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explains the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."

The town Maycomb=>something may come

the novel is written in the first person narrative.

stiff collars wilted=> Maycomb is wet and hot in summer





robin知更鳥：The European robin (Erithacus rubecula), known simply as the robin or robin redbreast in the British Isles, is a small insectivorous passerine bird, specifically a chat, that was formerly classified as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae) but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher. About 12.5–14.0 cm (5.0–5.5 inch) in length, the male and female are similar in colouration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north.


Mockingbird： Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds from the Mimidae family. They are best known for the habit of some species mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of insects and amphibians, often loudly and in rapid succession. There are about 17 species in three genera. These do not appear to form a monophyletic lineage: Mimus and Nesomimus are quite closely related; their closest living relatives appear to be some thrashers, such as the sage thrasher. Melanotis is more distinct; it seems to represent a very ancient basal lineage of Mimidae.

※bumpy：Covered with or full of bumps

※benefit：an advantage
beneficiary：The recipient of funds, property, or other benefits, as from an insurance policy or trust.

※courthouse : A building housing judicial courts.
jury : A body of persons selected to decide a verdict in a legal case, based upon the evidence presented, after being given instructions on the applicable law. Also called petit jury, trial jury.


※se-：apart from
ex：segreation↔intergreation
select、seperate

※frosting：a soft icing based on sugar and egg whites

※outcast：One that has been excluded from a society or system.

※peek： to glance quickly or furtively; peep

※male-、mal-：bad
ex：malevolent、malicious

※freeze = stop moving(Death of Yoshihiro Hattori)

兒童文學 Week 10

Why mosquito buzz in people’s ear ：Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale is a picture book by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon told in the form of a cumulative tale written for young children, which tells an African legend.

Conflict：Mother owl wakes the sun, so the dawn can come or not.

⇒A night grow longer and longer.

Python：In Greek mythology, Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in Greek sculpture and vase-paintings as a serpent.

A frame story (also known as a frame tale or frame narrative) ：a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. The frame story leads readers from a first story into another, smaller one (or several ones) within it.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer：The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. It is set in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn：Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain. 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.

(這兩本都不太適合初學者，因為他們都太口語了)

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in the Gospels of Matthew (Matthew 18:12–14) and Luke (Luke 15:3–7). It is about a shepherd who leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one which is lost. It is the first member of a trilogy about redemption that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners." The two parables that follow (in Luke's Gospel) are those of the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son. The parable of the Good shepherd, a pericope found in John 10:1-21, derives from it.

Antebellum：Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American Civil War.

conscience：An awareness of morality in regard to one's behavior; a sense of right and wrong that urges one to act morally
conscious：alert and awake; not sleeping or comatose

lonesome：lonely in situation; remote, desolate, or isolated.
mournful(adj.)：Feeling or expressing sorrow or grief; sorrowful.
 mourn(v.)：To feel or express grief or sorrow.

It makes the cold shivers run over me. 這讓我全身雞皮疙瘩掉滿地。

兒童文學 Week 9

MIDTERMS！！！

兒童文學 Week 8

mother goose (whole)：The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes often published as (Old) Mother Goose's Rhymes. As a character, she appears in one nursery rhyme. A Christmas pantomime called Mother Goose is often performed in the United Kingdom. The so-called "Mother Goose" rhymes and stories have formed the basis for many classic British pantomimes. Mother Goose is generally depicted in literature and book illustration as an elderly country woman in a tall hat and shawl, a costume identical to the peasant costume worn in Wales in the early 20th century, but is sometimes depicted as a goose (usually wearing a bonnet).


nursery rhyme ：A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term only dates from the late 18th/early 19th century. In North America the term Mother Goose Rhymes, introduced in the mid-18th century, is still often used.



"London Bridge Is Falling Down" (also known as "My Fair Lady" or "London Bridge")：a traditional English nursery rhyme and singing game, which is found in different versions all over the world. It deals with the depredations of London Bridge and attempts, realistic or fanciful, to repair it. It may date back to bridge rhymes and games of the Late Middle Ages, but the earliest records of the rhyme in English are from the seventeenth century. The lyrics were first printed in close to their modern form in the mid-eighteenth century and became popular, particularly in Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century.
The modern melody was first recorded in the late nineteenth century and the game resembles arch games of the Middle Ages, but seems to have taken its modern form in the late nineteenth century.


"Little Miss Muffet"：a nursery rhyme, one of the most commonly printed in the mid-twentieth century.


 curds with whey： The first known use of the term "cottage cheese" dates back to 1831[1] and is believed to have originated because the simple cheese was usually made in cottages from any milk left over after making butter. The curds and whey from the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme is another dish made from curds with whey, but it is uncertain what their consistency was, if they were drained at all or how they were curdled (which affects the flavor). Some writers claim they are equivalent or similar.



"There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" ： a popular English language nursery rhyme, with a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19132. Debates over its meaning and origin have largely centered on attempts to match the old woman with historical female figures who have had large families, although King George II (1683–1760) has also been proposed as the rhyme's subject.(中世紀貧窮大家庭的代表)

Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.⇒cause she has too many children

"Jack and Jill" (sometimes "Jack and Gill", particularly in earlier versions)：a traditional English nursery rhyme. The Roud Folk Song Index classifies this tune and its variations as number 10266. The rhyme dates back at least to the 18th century and exists with different numbers of verses each with a number of variations. Several theories have been advanced to explain its origins and to suggest meanings for the lyrics. The original rhyme included Kye and Jill but it later changed Kye to Jack to prevent sulking in the 1700's.
     The phrase "Jack and Jill", indicating a boy and a girl, was in use in England as early as the 16th century. A comedy was performed at the Elizabethan court in 1567-8 with the title Jack and Jill and the phrase was used twice by Shakespeare: in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which contains the line: "Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill" (III:ii:460-2) and in Love's Labour's Lost, which has the lines: "Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill" (V:ii:874–5), suggesting that it was a phrase that indicated a romantically attached couple, as in the proverb "A good Jack makes a good Jill".

the film Jack and Jill(龍鳳大雙胞) may refer to the rhyme.

Jack and Jill ：a 2011 American comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Steve Koren and Adam Sandler, and starring Sandler, Katie Holmes, and Al Pacino. The film was released on November 11, 2011 by Columbia Pictures.
The film received poor reviews and has since been considered to be one of the worst films ever made. Jack and Jill won 10 Razzie Awards, breaking Battlefield Earth's record for the most Razzie wins for a single film.

矮肥代表：Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty：a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described so. Its origins are obscure and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings.
  As a character and literary allusion, he has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture, particularly Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass(the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) (1872). The rhyme is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No. 13026.


  "Little Boy Blue" ：a popular English-language nursery rhyme, often used in popular culture. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11318.
  The earliest printed version of the rhyme is in Tommy Thumb's Little Song Book (c. 1744), but the rhyme may be much older. It may be alluded to in Shakespeare's King Lear (III, vi) when Edgar, masquerading as Mad Tom, says:
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepheard?
Thy sheepe be in the corne;
And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
Thy sheepe shall take no harme.
It has been argued that Little Boy Blue was intended to represent Cardinal Wolsey, who was the son of an Ipswich butcher, who may have acted as a hayward to his father's livestock, but there is no corroborative evidence to support this assertion.



hood： A hood is a kind of headgear that covers most of the head and neck and sometimes the face. Hoods that cover mainly the sides and top of the head, and leave the face mostly or partly open may be worn for protection from the environment (typically cold weather or rain), for fashion, as a form of traditional dress or uniform, or in the case of knights, an armoured hood is used for protection against bladed weapons. In some cases, hoods are used to prevent the wearer from seeing where they are going (e.g., in cases where a prisoner is hooded). Hoods with eye holes can be used to prevent the wearer from being identified, as in the case of Ku Klux Klan members, Islamic terrorists, or criminals such as robbers.



hooding ceremony is a part of graduation ceremony.


Kermit the Frog：a Muppet character and Jim Henson's most well-known creation. Introduced in 1955, Kermit is the straight man protagonist of numerous Muppet productions, most notably Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, as well as in movies, specials, and public service announcements through the years. Henson originally performed Kermit until his death on May 16, 1990; Steve Whitmire has performed Kermit since that time. He was voiced by Frank Welker in Muppet Babies and occasionally in other animation projects.


blackbird pie：因為中世紀的國王會把反抗者的屍首掛在城牆，所以烏鴉就會聚集

cupboard is bare= there's nothing can eat in the house

you had a horn on your head=>from Loves Labours Lost by Shakespeare=你被戴綠帽

all the king's horses and all the kings mens：國王的人馬(因為馬比較貴，所以馬比人先到)

兒童文學 Week 7

Bildungsroman： In literary criticism, a novel of formation, novel of education, or coming-of-age story (though it may also be known as a subset of the coming-of-age story) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is extremely important.

protagonist：A protagonist is from Ancient Greek, meaning "player of the first part, chief actor". It is the main character in any story, such as a literary work or drama.
The protagonist is at the center of the story, should be making the difficult choices and key decisions, and should be experiencing the consequences of those decisions. The Protagonist can affect the main characters decisions. The protagonist should be propelling the story forward. If a story contains a subplot, or is a narrative that is made up of several stories, then there may be a character who is interpreted as the protagonist of each subplot or individual story.

Antagonist：a character, group of characters, institution, or concept that stands in or represents opposition against which the protagonist(s) must contend. In other words, an antagonist is a person or a group of people who opposes a protagonist.



Drama：Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action". In English, the word "play" or "game" was the standard term used to describe drama until William Shakespeare's time—just as its creator was a "play-maker" rather than a "dramatist" and the building was a "play-house" rather than a "theatre." The use of "drama" in a more narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era. "Drama" in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example, Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887).
The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception.


tomboy ：A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of a boy, including wearing masculine clothing and engaging in games and activities that are physical in nature and are considered in many cultures to be unfeminine or the domain of boys. Tomboy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "has been connected with connotations of rudeness and impropriety" throughout its use


Miss Potter： a 2006 Anglo-American biographical fiction family drama film directed by Chris Noonan. It is a biographical film of children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, and combines stories from her own life with animated sequences featuring characters from her stories, such as Peter Rabbit.


Charles Perrault ： a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known of his tales include Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots), La Belle au bois Dormant (The Sleeping Beauty), and Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard). Some of Perrault's versions of old stories have influenced the German versions published by the Brothers Grimm more than 100 years later. The stories continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet (such as Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty), theatre, and film. Perrault was an influential figure in the 17th-century French literary scene, and was the leader of the Modern faction during the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.


picture book： A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor, and pencil, among others. Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now were Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter from 1845 and Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit from 1902. Some of the best-known picture books are Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings, Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat, and Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. The Caldecott Medal (established 1938) and Kate Greenaway Medal (established 1955) are awarded annually for illustrations in children's literature. From the mid-1960s several children's literature awards include a category for picture books.


nursery rhyme ：A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term only dates from the late 18th/early 19th century. In North America the term Mother Goose Rhymes, introduced in the mid-18th century, is still often used.


Poetry (the term derives from a variant of the Greek term, poiesis, "making")：a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

15  nursery rhyme you need to know(click)


three important newspapers in the U.S.A.
1.NY time
2.US day today
3.Washington Post

逃命吧：run for life

governess VS. tutor
governess：a woman employed in a private household to take charge of a child's upbringing and                             education.
tutor：a teacher, usually instructing individual pupils and often engaged privately

field trip校外教學

frying pot炸鍋

understatement ： Restraint or lack of emphasis in expression, as for rhetorical effect.

get into mischief：胡鬧起來

radish：The pungent root of this plant, often eaten raw.
白蘿蔔radish也是的一種喔，英文就是white radish
parsely： A cultivated Eurasian herb

damp=get wet
puzzle=confused
sieve：竹篩
rake：釘耙

on one's knee：跪下

兒童文學 Week 6

the tyger(poem)："The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake published in 1794 as part of the Songs of Experience collection. Literary critic Alfred Kazin calls it "the most famous of his poems," and The Cambridge Companion to William Blake says it is "the most anthologized poem in English." It is one of Blake's most reinterpreted and arranged works.

(正面敘述老虎的威嚴，側寫上帝造物的神奇)


keep calm and stop littering：請勿亂丟垃圾

I'm up = I'm awake

i can eat a horse= i can eat a lot.


Samuel：Samuel, is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet by Christians and Muslims, and is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur'an, although not by name.


Alliteration : Alliteration is a stylistic literary device identified by the repeated sound of the first letter in a series of multiple words, or the repetition of the same letter sounds in stressed syllables of a phrase. "Alliteration" is from the Latin word littera, meaning "letter of the alphabet", and the first known use of the word to refer to a literary device occurred around 1624. Alliteration narrowly refers to the repetition of a letter in any syllables that, according to the poem's meter, are stressed,as in James Thomson's verse "Come…dragging the lazy languid Line along". Another example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers".

example of  Alliteration："To Helen" by Edgar Allan Poe
"To Helen" is the first of two poems to carry that name written by Edgar Allan Poe. The 15-line poem was written in honor of Jane Stanard, the mother of a childhood friend. It was first published in 1831 collection Poems of Edgar A. Poe. It was then reprinted in 1836 in the Southern Literary Messenger.

To Helen Revised 1845 version

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean 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!

Edgar Allan Poe：Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.


symmetry：The correspondence of the form and arrangement of elements or parts on opposite sides of a dividing line or plane or about a center or an axis.

sick：1. Suffering from or affected with a physical illness
          2.Mentally ill or disturbed.


John Donne：John Donne was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England.
He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets(形上學詩人). 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.


"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"(full poem)："A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is a metaphysical poem by John Donne. Written in 1611 or 1612 for his wife Anne before he left on a trip to Continental Europe, "A Valediction" is a 36-line love poem that was first published in the 1633 collection Songs and Sonnets, two years after Donne's death. Based on the theme of two lovers about to part for an extended time, the poem is notable for its use of conceits and ingenious analogies to describe the couple's relationship; critics have thematically linked it to several of his other works, including "A Valediction: of my Name, in the Window", Meditation III from the Holy Sonnets and "A Valediction: of Weeping".

If they be two, they are two so

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,

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

And makes me end where I begun.

The analogy here—of a compass in the process of drawing a circle—draws contrasts between the two lovers, where one is fixed and "in the centre sit[s]" while the other roams; despite this, the two remain inextricably connected and interdependent, staying inseparable despite the increasing distance between the two compass hands. Achsah Guibbory identifies a pun in "the fix'd foot... Thy firmness makes my circle just"; a circle with a dot in the middle is the alchemical symbol for gold, an element referred to in a previous stanza.

"Death Be Not Proud"(full poem)： Sonnet X, also known by part of its first line as "Death Be Not Proud", is a fourteen-line poem, or sonnet, by English poet John Donne, one of the leading figures in the metaphysical poets of sixteenth-century English literature. The poem was not published during Donne's lifetime and was first published posthumously in 1633. It is included as one of the nineteen sonnets that comprise Donne's Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations, among his most well-known works. Two editions published shortly after Donne's death include some of the sonnets in different order where this poem appears as eleventh in the Songs and Sonnets (published 1633) and sixth in Divine Meditations (published 1635).

No Man Is An Island - Poem by John Donne

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. 

Magnum opus：Masterpiece, magnum opus (Latin, great work) or chef d'œuvre (French, master of work, plural chefs d'œuvre) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, a masterpiece was a work of a very high standard produced in order to obtain membership of a Guild or Academy.



The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is an 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his "masterwork". Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.


La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy)：is the title of Honoré de Balzac's (1799–1850) multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815–1848).
The Comédie humaine consists of 91 finished works (stories, novels or analytical essays) and 46 unfinished works (some of which exist only as titles). It does not include Balzac's five theatrical plays or his collection of humorous tales, the "Contes drolatiques" (1832–37). The title of the series is usually considered an allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy; while Ferdinand Brunetière, the famous French literary critic, suggests that it may stem from poems by Alfred de Musset or Alfred de Vigny. While Balzac sought the comprehensive scope of Dante, his title indicates the worldly, human concerns of a realist novelist. The stories are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.

Theme song of Charlotte's Web----Ordinary Miracle