English Vocabulary and Etymology(Week13)

Prefix/Root/Suffix

-er, -or, -ist, -ian, -ant: suffix for people's (profession)

-er

teacher (n.) a person who teaches or instructs, especially as a profession; instructor
example: My dream is being a teacher.

catcher (n.) Baseball. the player stationed behind home plate, whose chief duty is to catch pitches not hit by the batter
example: The catcher caught the ball.

painter (n.) a person who coats walls or other surfaces with paint, especially as an occupation
example: The painter is painting the wall.

-or

doctor (n.) a person licensed to practice medicine, as a physician, surgeon, dentist, or veterinarian
example: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

-ist

artist (n.) a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria
example: My brother is an artist.

violinist (n.) a person who plays the violin
example: The violinist performed well.

psychiatrist (n.) a physician who practices psychitry
example: Tim is the best psychiatrist in there.

-ian

physician (n.) a person who is legally qualified to practice medicine
example: My sister is a physician in the hospital

comedian (n.) a professional entertainer who amuses by relating anecdotes, acting out comical situations, engaging in humorous repartee
example: The performance of this comedian is so interesting that audiences laugh loudly.

-ant

applicant (n.) a person who applies for or requests something
example: As the wage of the job was ow, there were few applicants for it.

attendant (n.) a person who attends another, as to perform a service
example: The atendant of this activity is too many to count.

March / Parade / Demonstration

March (n.)  the organized, uniformed, steady and rhythmic walking forward, usually associated with military troops


Parade (n.) a large public procession, usually including a marching band and often of a festive nature, held in honor of an anniversary, person, event, etc


Demonstration (n.) a public exhibition of the attitude of a group of persons toward a controversial issue, or other matter, made by picketing, parading, etc

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign of World War I. It is about a love affair between the expatriate American Henry and Catherine Barkley against the backdrop of the First World War, cynical soldiers, fighting and the displacement of populations.

Ernest Hemingway

 An American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929).

Eastern Orthodox Church

The second largest Christian Church in the world,with an estimated 225–300 million adherents.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, teaching that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles, and practicing what it understands to be the original faith passed down from the Apostles.

Juvenile court

A juvenile court (or young offender's court) is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgments for crimes that are committed by children or adolescents who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern legal systems, children and adolescents who commit a crime are treated differently from legal adults that have committed the same crime.

The fountain of Youth

A 1956 television pilot directed by Orson Welles for a proposed Desilu Productions anthology series that was never produced. Based on a short story by John Collier, the short film narrated onscreen by Welles stars Dan Tobin, Joi Lansing and Rick Jason.

Western Literature(Week13)

Glossary

A glossary, also known as a vocabulary, or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a book and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with non-fiction books, in some cases, fiction novels may come with a glossary for unfamiliar terms.

Lysistrata

A comedy by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BCE, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. The dramatic structure represents a shift away from the conventions of Old Comedy, a trend typical of the author's career. It was produced in the same year as the Thesmophoriazusae, another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition.

Definition

• Hubris

Hubris means, in a modern context, extreme pride or self-confidence; in its ancient Greek context, it typically describes violent and excessive behavior rather than an attitude. When it offends the gods of ancient Greece, it is usually punished. The adjectival form of the noun hubris is "hubristic".
Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer consequences from the wrongful act. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.

• Dramatic irony

This type of irony is the device of giving the spectator an item of information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of (at least consciously), thus placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters.
 The OED defines this as:the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned; the literary device so used, orig. in Greek tragedy.
# For example: In Oedipus the King, the audience knows that Oedipus himself is the murderer that he is seeking; Oedipus, Creon and Jocasta do not.

• Chorus

a. A group in a classical Greek drama whose songs and dances present an exposition of or, in later tradition, a disengaged commentary on the action.

b. The portion of a classical Greek drama consisting of choric dance and song.

• Tragedy

A form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences.

• Tragedy flaw(Hamartia)

The term hamartia derives from the Greek, which means “to miss the mark” or “to err”. It is most often associated with Greek tragedy, although it is also used in Christian theology. Hamartia as it pertains to dramatic literature was first used by Aristotle in his Poetics. In tragedy, hamartia is commonly understood to refer to the protagonist’s error or flaw that leads to a chain of plot actions culminating in a reversal from their good fortune to bad.
 

English Vocabulary and Etymology(Week12)

Ivy League

A collegiate athletic conference comprising sports teams from eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The eight institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.The term Ivy League has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism.

Seven Sisiters

The Seven Sisters is a loose association of seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges. They are Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. All were founded between 1837 and 1889. The name "Seven Sisters" was given because of their parallel to the Ivy League men's colleges in 1927.

 

 

Prefix/Root/Suffix

dia-: go through

 

diabetes (n.) any of several disorders characterized by increased urine production

example: My grandfather contracts the diabetes.

 

diagnosis (n.) the decision reached from such an examination

example: The two doctors made different dignoses of my disease.

 

dialogue (n.) the decision reached from such an examination

example: Plays are written in dialogue.

# -logue: speaking

 

peri-: around

 

periodical (adj.)  regularly recurring

example: I expect regular periodical report from you.

 

perimeter (n.) the border

example: The perimeter of my home is filled with flowers.

 

candid-: outspoken, open and sincere

 

candidate (n.) a person who is selected by others as a contestant for an office, honor, etc

example: My family are in favor of this candidate.  

 

extra-: beyond

 

extraordinary (adj.) beyond what is usual, ordinary, regular, or established

example: My brother is so extraordinary that he always does something crazy.

 

extravagant (adj.) spending much more than is necessary or wise; wasteful

example: Sara is too extravagant to save money.

 

Vocabulary

crook (v.) to bend

example: I crook the wire in circle.

 

connotation (n.) the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning

example: The connotation of this word is too deep to understand.

 

denotation (n.) the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression

example: I find the denotation of this word in the dictionary.

 

villain (n.) a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot

example: He was cast as the villain in the play.

 



Western Literature(Week12)

Theatre of Dionysus

<Structure>
- Orchestra
The "dancing area"  in central of  the theater. It lay at the lowest point of the valley; on the slopesof the hill, spectators sat  on wooden benches,surrounding the performance area on three sides.

- deus ex machina
It means"god from the machine." The term was coined from the conventions of Greek tragedy, where a machine is used to bring actors playing gods onto the stage. The machine could be either a crane (mechane) used to lower actors from above or a riser that brought actors up through a trapdoor. Preparation to pick up the actors was done behind the skene. The idea was introduced by Aeschylus and was used often to resolve the conflict and conclude the drama. Although the device is associated mostly with Greek tragedy, it also appeared in comedies.

*example:Euripides' Medea, in which the deus ex machina, a dragon-drawn chariot sent by the sun god, is used to convey his granddaughter Medea, who has just committed murder and infanticide, away from her husband Jason to the safety and civilization of Athens.

<Dialogue>
-iambic
iambic (based on fairly flexible pattern of alternating short and long syllables), which was supposed to be the verse form closest to normal speech (like the iambic pentameter used by Shakespeare).

-chorus
 A homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action. The chorus consisted of between 12 and 50 players, who variously danced, sang or spoke their lines in unison and sometimes wore masks.

Medea

An ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BCE. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a barbarian and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by killing Jason's new wife as well as her own children with him, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.

-Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea is a sorceress who was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, offers him his daughter, Glauce. The play tells of Medea avenging her husband's betrayal by killing their children.

-Jason
 An ancient Greek mythological hero who was famous for his role as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea.

-Colchis

Colchis is  an important land in Greco-Roman mythology, most notably as the kingdom of Medea and the Golden fleece, destination of the Argonauts.

-Creon
Creon, king of Corinth, is not thesame as the Kreon of Thebes in Sophocle's Theban plays.

-Glauce
Glauce, daughter of Creon. She married Jason. She was killed, along with her father, by Medea, who either sent her a peplos steeped in flammable poison or set fire to the royal palace.

Root

-fid-: trust

confidence (n.) belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities
example: His lack of confidence defeated him.

infidelity (n.)  lack of religious faith
example: Mary is an infidelity.

Fido Dido

A cartoon character created by Joanna Ferrone and Sue Rose. Rose first developed the character in 1985, on a napkin in a restaurant.

 

English Vocabulary and Etymology(Week11)

Prefix/Root/Suffix

-arch-/ -archy: rule, government

anarchist (n.) a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism
example: Mr. jin is an anarchist.

monarchy (n.) a state or nation in which the supreme power is actually or nominally lodged in a monarch
example: Britain is a constitutional monarchy.

op-:against

opponent (n.) a person who is on an opposing side in a game, contest, controversy, or the like; adversary
example: Our opponent in the game is a flawless team.

opposite (adj.) situated, placed, or lying face to face with something else or each other
example: They have opposite views on this question.

-mor-:death

mortal(adj) subject to death; having a transitory life
example: All things that live are mortal.

mortify(v.) to humiliate or shame, as by injury to one's pride or self-respect
example: I am mortified by doing a funny action in public.

patri-: father

patriarchy (n.) a social system in which power is held by men
example: This tribe is a patriarchy.

matri-: mother

matriarchy (n.)  a social system in which power is held by women
example: Women are a chief in a matriarchy.

-gamy: marriage, union, fertilization, pollination

polygamy (n.) the practice or condition of having more than one spouse, especially wife, at one time
example: Polygamy is common in Arabia.

*Big Love -  TV series is about a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family in Utah that practices polygamy

bigamy (n.) Law. the crime of marrying while one has a spouse still living, from whom no valid divorce has been effected
example: The man committed bigmay.

mal-: something bad

malicious (adj.) intentionally harmful; spiteful
example: No one likes a malicious person.

malignant (adj.) disposed to cause harm, suffering, or distress deliberately; feeling or showing ill will or hatred
example: Human have a malignant nature.

bene-: something good

benefit (n.) something that is advantageous or good; an advantage
example: This activity is a great benefit to people who need help.

benevolent (adj.) characterized by or expressing goodwill or kindly feelings
example: Nina is a benevolent girl.

-ee: someone who receive

nominee (n.) a person nominated, as to run for elective office or fill a particular post
example: This nominee won the election.

employee (n.)  a person working for another person or a business firm for pay
example: The company has over 1000 employees.

dia-: go through

dialect (n.)  a special variety of a language
example: The dialect of this coountry is too difficult for us.

diachronic (adj.) of or relating to the changes in a linguistic system between successive points in time; historical
example: A history is diachronic.

tran-: across

transmit (v.) to send or forward, as to a recipient or destination; dispatch; convey
example: I will transmit the money by special messenger.

transform (v.) to change in condition, nature, or character; convert
example: A tadpole transforms into a frog.

magni-: big

magnificent (adj.) making a splendid appearance or show; of exceptional beauty
example: The scenery there is magnificent.

magnify (v.) to increase the apparent size of, as a lens does
example: Tony wanted to magnify that picture.

 

Poem "The Tyger"

A poem by the English poet William Blake published in 1794 as part of the Songs of Experience collection.

Western Literature(Week11)

Drama

The specific mode of narrative, typically fictional, represented in performance.The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience.The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama. A modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night (1956) by Eugene O’Neill.

The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene, the Muse of comedy represented by the laughing face, and the Muse of tragedy represented by the weeping face, respectively.

• Comedy

 For ancient Greeks and Romans a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Divina Commedia.

• Tragedy

A form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences.While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

- Oedipus the King

Louis Bouwmeester as Oedipus in a Dutch production
 of Oedipus the King c. 1896.

An Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed about 429 BC. Of his three Theban Plays that deal with Oedipus, Oedipus the King was the second to be written. However, in terms of the chronology of events that the plays describe, it comes first, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone.
Oedipus the King tells the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes the king of Thebes, while unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father, Laius, and marry his mother, Jocasta.
The play is a classic Greek tragedy and regarded as a masterpiece. It is mentioned often by Aristotle in his Poetics as an exemplar of the composition of tragedy.

- Thespis
 The first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play.In other sources, he is said to have introduced the first principal actor in addition to the chorus.

 

Semele

In Greek mythology, she was the daughter of the Boeotian hero Cadmus and Harmonia, was the mortal motherof Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths.



English Vocabulary and Etymology(Week10)

Prefix/Root/Suffix

-morph-:form

metamorphosis (n.) a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft
example: She's undergone quite a metamorphosis since you last saw her.

morphology (n.) the branch of biology dealing with the form and structure of organisms
example: This professor is familiar with morphology.

-voc-/-vok-: to call

provocative(adj.) tending or serving to provoke; inciting, stimulating, irritating, or vexing
example: Each firm, moist piece packs a provocative sweet and savory punch.

provoke (v.) to anger, enrage, exasperate, or vex
example: He provokes the fight.

-bel-:war

rebellion (n.) open, organized, and armed resistance to one's government or ruler
example: People rise in rebellion against the government.

dim-: lack in brightness

diminish (v.)  to make or cause to seem smaller, less, less important
example: The medical expenses diminished his savings.

dimly (adv.) not seen clearly or in detail
example: He was only dimly aware that it was raining.

hemo-: blood

hemoglobin (n.) the oxygen-carrying pigment of red blood cells that gives them their red color and serves to convey oxygen to the tissues
example: The result of examination shows that Mary's hemoglobin isn't normal.

pre-/pri-: basic, before, first

premier (n.) the head of the cabinet in France or Italy or certain other countries
example: He was appointed the new premier.

privilege (n.) a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most
example: I enjoy entry privilege.

grot-: twist from

grotty (adj.) unpleasant, nasty, or unattractive ; poor
example: She is a grotty girl.

grotesque (adj.) odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; bizarre
example: The creature is grotesque.

 

* grotesque statue


-man-: hand

manage (v.) to take charge or care of
example: He manages this company.

manual (adj.) done by the hand
example: The gift she gives is manual.

Vocabulary

mockery (n.) ridicule, contempt, or derision
example: Their mockery of John hurt his feeling.

uproar (n.) a state of violent and noisy disturbance
example: The uproar in this area has lasted for two hours.

John Donne
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.

• 'No man is a 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 any manner of thy friends 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.

• 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning'

 

"Our two souls therefore, which are one,

   Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

   Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

   As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

   To move, but doth, if the other do."

Tennyson-'Ulysses'

James Bond and The Queen London 2012 Performance

 

 

Western Literature(Week10)

Tragedy

• Aeschylus

 An ancient Greek tragedian. He is also the first whose plays still survive.He is often described as the father of tragedy.He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.The work, The Persians is the only surviving classical Greek tragedy concerned with contemporary events, and a useful source of information about its period.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions in his lifetime, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies have survived intact: The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia, consisting of the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, together with Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed).

• Sophocles

One of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived.  Sophocles wrote 120 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.
The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and also Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.

• Euripides

A tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few whose plays have survived. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. His works: Medea, Hippolytus, Hecuba, Orestes, etc.


The identity of the threesome is neatly underscored by a patriotic account of their roles during Greece's great victory over Persia at the Battle of Salamis—Aeschylus fought there, Sophocles was just old enough to celebrate the victory in a boys' chorus and Euripides was born on the very day of the battle.

The plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides indicate a difference in outlook between the three men—a generation gap probably due to the Sophistical enlightenment in the middle decades of the 5th century: Aeschylus still looked back to the archaic period, Sophocles was in transition between periods, and Euripides was fully imbued with the new spirit of the classical age.

Dionysus

 The god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style.

Video

• Ancient Greece - A Moment of Excellence (7min, 10min, 33min, 46min)

• We must learn to read



 

The poem "Youth" by Samuel Ullman

"Youth is not a time of life ; it is a state of mind"