Monthly Archives: September 2009

Eunice for September 22

Posted on by

Walt Whitman’s works made me confused.  It does not mean I do not like his writing, but I’m frustrated and tired  with all the reading.  Everytime when I read passages, books or especially poems, I CANNOT read those without using the dictionary.  I love reading, only in my native lanugage.  Because English is not my first language, those vocabulary words gonna kill me .  I just can say ” They know I, but I dont know Them”.  Then, I hate reading a lot….

I read Whitman’s work, ” Song of Myself”, and I do some research online.   Whitman ‘s works are powerful, many people love his works.  I love reading poems and try to understand what the writters wants to tell and touch his readers. Different people read the poem, even those they are reading the same poem, they have different feeling.  I love go to class because professor will discuss Walt Whitman’s works with us, and my classmates love to share their feeling too.  During the class, I hear and learn and know more than I read by myself. 

In the new reading assignment ” Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman,

I am with you,, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;

I project myself – also I return – I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky so i felt;

Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;

Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;

Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;

Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

Whitman assumes that they feel and see things as he does, and they react in the same ways as him.  You may have the same feeling as me when we are taking subway, looking in the same sky or walking on the street…..

Eunice’s Image gloss

Posted on by

Egypt_Hieroglyphe4A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

 —-Walt Whitman

  

images
adjective
-1.Also, hi⋅er⋅o⋅glyph⋅i⋅cal. designating or pertaining to a pictographic script, particularly that of the ancient Egyptians, in which many of the symbols are conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented.
-2.inscribed with hieroglyphic symbols.
 

  

 

 

  noun 

  • a hieroglyphic symbol.
  • hieroglyphic writhing.
  •  a figure or symbol with a hidden meaning.
  • hieroglyphics, handwriting, figures, characters, code, etc…difficult to dicipher: the confusing hieroglyphics of advanced mathematics.
     
 

Hieroglyphic writing is the basis of the two other writings. It owes its name to the fact that when the Greeks arrived in Egypt, this writing was mainly used for ‘sacred (Greek hieros) inscriptions (Greek glypho)’ on temple walls or on public monuments.

Hieroglyphic writing uses clearly distinguishable pictures to express both sounds and ideas and was used from the end of the Prehistory until396 AD , when the last hieroglyphic text was written on the walls of the temple of Isis on the island of  Philae. It was used in monumental inscriptions on walls of temples and tombs, but also on furniture, sarcophagi and coffins, and even on papyrus. It could either be inscribed or drawn and often the signs would be painted in many colours. The quality of the writing would vary from highly detailed signs to mere outlines.

sources from:

 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hieroglyphic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt_Hieroglyphe4.jpg

Eunice for September 15

Posted on by

After a class on tuesday, I learn more about Whitman than before.  Whitman was born on Long Island in 1819 and he was the second of nine children.  Walt Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk and his major work, Leave of Grass, was first  published in 1855.  Although his childhood was unhappy due to his family’s issue and economic status, he had written many  influence poets.

When I read ” Song of Myself”, I was not quit understand what does it mean because there were too many vocabulary that I do not know.  After I went to the class on last thursday, this poem is meaningful but I did not think when I read it by myself at home.  When the professor discuss in class with us, I learn more about Whitman.

In the poem ” Song of Myself'”,

I celebrat myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

from I to You, he wants to touch his reader.  This “I” and ” You” in his poem has a connection.  Each people has different stories, they are unique; however, we share everything in this world.

Song of Eunice

Posted on by

There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage;

If I and you and the worlds and all beneath or upon their surfaces,

and all the palpable life, were this moment reduced back to

 a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,

We should surely bring up again where we now stand,

And as surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther

                                                                                                                        ——Whitman

             I choose these lines because “life” is no stopPage, and never can be stoppage.  Time is keep running and there are a lot of things waiting for me to do.  I’m sure that I have the ability to go farther and much farther than now in the futher.

p21