Estoy bien y tu?

Summary of Everyday Life In The Modern World

The novel is also an excellent portrait of Gold Rush San Francisco, depicting the poverty, prostitution, and racial hatred with horrible clarity. The novel details a San Francisco fraught with racial tension between the newly arriving Chinese and the Americans, often erupting into violence and murder. What is interesting is the hatred possessed by the whites of the Chinese ghettos and prostitution rings -- things which they themselves had a part in creating. Particularly horrifying is the life of the Chinese prostitute, both objectified and villified, living short lives filled with terror.

The other girls in your line of work started losing their hair at eighteen, their teeth at nineteen, and by twenty, with their vacant eyes and decrepit faces, they were as good as dead, silent as dust.(2)

The anti-Chinese attitude is further examined by the narrator's voice, which presents the story as a collection of imaginative detail gleaned from historical fact. As a fifth-generation Chinese immigrant, the narrator of the novel explores the parallels between Gold Rush era prejudice and the modern world with its neo-Nazi hatred running rampant on talk shows

Johnson's works, especially his Lives of the Poets series, describe various features of excellent writing. He believed that the best poetry relied on contemporary language, and he disliked the use of decorative or purposefully archaic language.In particular, he was suspicious of the poetic language used by Milton, whose blank verse he believed would inspire many bad imitations. Also, Johnson opposed the poetic language of his contemporary Thomas Gray.His greatest complaint was that obscure allusions found in works like Milton's Lycidas were overused; he preferred poetry that could be easily read and understood. In addition to his views on language, Johnson believed that a good poem incorporated new and unique imagery

1667        Jonathan Swift born on November 30 in Dublin, Ireland; the son of Anglo-Irish parents. His father dies a few months before Swift is born.

1673        At the age of six, Swift begins his education at Kilkenny Grammar School, which was, at the time, the best in Ireland.

1682-1686         Swift attends, and graduates from, Trinity College, Dublin

1688        William of Orange invades England, initiating the Glorious Revolution in England. With Dublin in political turmoil, Trinity College is closed, and Swift goes to England.

1689        Swift becomes secretary in the household of Sir William Temple at Moor Park in Surrey. Swift reads extensively in Temple's library, and meets Esther Johnson, who will become his "Stella." He first begins to suffer from Meniere's Disease, a disturbance of the inner ear.

1690        At the advice of his doctors, Swift returns to Ireland.

1691        Swift, back with Temple in England, visits Oxford.

1692        Temple enables Swift to receive an M. A. degree from Oxford, and Swift publishes first poem.

1694        Swift leaves Temple's household and returns to Ireland to take holy orders.

1695        Swift ordained as a priest in the Church of Ireland, the Irish branch of the Anglican Church.

1696-1699        Swift returns to Moor Park, and composes most of A Tale of a Tub, his first great work. In 1699 Temple dies, and Swift travels to Ireland as chaplain and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley.

1700        Swift instituted Vicar of Laracor, and presented to the Prebend of Dunlavin in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

1701        Swift awarded D. D. from Dublin University, and publishes his first political pamphlet, supporting the Whigs against the Tories.

1704        Anonymous publication of Swift's A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, and The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit.

1707        Swift in London as emissary of Irish clergy seeking remission of tax on Irish clerical incomes. His requests are rejected by the Whig government. He meets Esther Vanhomrigh, who will become his "Vanessa." During the next few years he is back and forth between Ireland and England, where he is involved in the highest political circles.

1708        Swift meets Addison and Steele, and publishes the Bickerstaff Papers and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity.

1710        Swift returns to England. Publication of "A Description of a City Shower." Swift falls out with Whigs, allies himself with the Tories, and becomes editor of the Tory newspaper The Examiner.

1710        Swift writes the series of letters which will be published as The Journal to Stella.

1713        Swift installed as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.

1714        Foundation of Scriblerus Club. Queen Anne dies, George I takes the throne, the Tories fall from power, and Swift's hopes for preferment in England come to an end: he returns to Ireland "to die," as he says, "like a poisoned rat in a hole."

1716        Swift marries? Stella (Esther Johnson).

1718        Swift begins to publish tracts on Irish problems.

1720        Swift begins work upon Gulliver's Travels, intended, as he says in a letter to Pope, "to vex the world, not to divert it."

1724        Publication of The Drapier Letters, which gain him enormous 1725 popularity in Ireland. Gullivers Travels completed.

1726        Visit to England, where he visits with Pope at Twickenham; publication of Gulliver's Travels.

1727        Swift's Last trip to England.

1727-1736         Publication of five volumes of Swift-Pope Miscellanies.

1728        Death of Stella.

1729        Publication of Swift's A Modest Proposal.

1731        Publication of Swift's "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed."

1735        Collected edition of Swift's Works published in Dublin; Swift is suffering from Meniere's Disease, resulting in periods of dizziness and nausea, and his memory is deteriorating.

1738        Swift slips gradually into senility, and suffers a paralytic stroke.

1742        Guardians appointed to care for Swift's affairs.

1745        Swift dies on October 19. The following is Yeats's poetic version (a very free translation) of the Latin epitaph which Swift composed for himself:

Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty

Set against the background of the Japanese occupations of China, the Communist-Nationalist struggle, the White Terror of Taiwan, and American engagement in the Vietnam War, this extraordinary novel recounts the story of two women — Mulberry and Peach — who are really one. Mulberry is a young woman who has fled the turmoil of postwar China to settle in the United States. Unable to forget the terrors she has witnessed or resolve the conflicts between her new life and her old, she develops a second personality: the fearless, tough-talking, sexually uninhibited Peach. While Mulberry clings to her cultural and ethical roots, Peach renounces her past to embrace the American way of life , with a vengeance. . These two women — both in flight — speak to their readers through an innovative narrative structure, combining journal entries, interior dialogue, letters, poetry, and myth.

Told through the eyes of a young refugee woman, Mulberry and Peach offers a rare perspective on the difficulties of immigrant experience and on the upheavals of contemporary China, where the book was banned upon its first publication in 1976. In a unique narrative that is at once humorous and fierce, highly original and deeply affecting, , Hualing Nieh presents an unforgettable portrait of the pain of cultural dislocation and the anguish of psychological disintegration

The "Two Women of China" of this novel's subtitle are one and the same: Mulberry is a Chinese woman who has witnessed the major upheavals of twentieth-century China before fleeing to the United States in the 1960s, while the defiant, "Americanized" Peach is her "liberated" alterego borne of a traumatic past.

Nieh presents Mulberry/Peach's story in four sections. In the first part, while China is suffering from the final attacks of the Japanese invaders at the end of World War II, Mulberry is a teenage runaway stranded with other refugees on a boat caught in the rapids of the Yangtse River. A few years later, she is trapped in Peking with her fiance and his dying mother as the Communists surround the city. In the late 1950s, Mulberry is imprisoned in an attic in Taiwan, hiding from the authorities who are seeking her husband on embezzlement charges. And, in the final section, she has emigrated to the United States, where she is being pursued by the INS and haunted by her other identity, Peach.

Mulberry's plight is, at best, bleak, but Nieh manages to balance an astonishing sense of humor with the description of the calamities and isolation faced by her protagonist. Hauntingly written and beautifully translated, the novel can be read on many levels: historical and cultural allegory, political satire, a treatise on the immigrant's schizophrenic experience, a commentary on Eastern and Western sexual mores and gender identity. As a bonus, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong's discerning afterword amplifies these and other themes and provides useful background for understanding the novel, but (fortunately) "Mulberry and Peach" will be immediately accessible to any reader.

Some information about The Pilgrim's Progress

Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress in two parts, the first of which was published in London in 1678 and the second in 1684. He began the work in his first period of imprisonment, and probably finished it during the second. The earliest edition in which the two parts combined in one volume came in 1728. A third part falsely attributed to Bunyan appeared in 1693, and was reprinted as late as 1852. Its full title is The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come.

The Pilgrim's Progress is arguably one of the most widely known allegories ever written, and has been extensively translated. Protestant missionaries commonly translated it as the first thing after the Bible.

 Fae Myenne Ngs' second novel 

Steer Toward Rock is a genuine narrative predominately centered on Jack Moon Szeto, a hard-working butcher living in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1960s. Jack’s personal history is saturated with depressing events: His mother sold him off at an early age and his adopted father, Yi-Tung “Gold” Szeto, snuck him into America to unlawfully establish him as his son. In return, Yi-Tung commands Jack to work off his debt and enter into a marriage to a woman he doesn’t love. Despite Jack’s grim past, he meets and soon falls deeply for Joice Qwan, a vivacious character guaranteed to win over the hearts and libidos of most male readers. Though many of Jack’s confidants try to steer him away from seeing Joice due to her unorthodox lifestyle, she eventually becomes pregnant with a daughter they name Veda. However, Joice’s sublime spontaneity and inspiring nature eventually beckons Jack to seek Joice’s hand in marriage, but she declines later on in the novel. Working through his life’s ordeals, Jack enters the Chinese Confession Program where he unleashes his true identity to the U.S. government. This leads to both his deportation and the fierce retribution sought by Yi-Tung. It’s here where the reader is taken on the proverbial rollercoaster ride which rises high and dives low, often careening left and jerking right. This novel will unquestionably satisfy the literary psyche of any enthralled reader.

We've already learned some poems of John Milton, and his poem to his dead wife is very beautiful. Although he was almost blind; his words to describe the miss to his wife is very touching to me   

The following information is timeline of John Milton's life

and I also found some websites about him, and I hope you can all enjoy it.

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/englit_1/milton.htm

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/contents/index.shtml

1608 John Milton was born and educated in London, the son of a musical composer

1629 Milton made his way to Cambridge, where he studied at Christ`s College from which he took a BA

1632 received his MA from Christ`s College

1634 A dramatic masque Comus was performed although not published

1637 masque Comus was published anonymously

1637 His great pastoral elegy, Lycidas was published. this work expresses his grief over the loss of a college friend, Edward King.

1641 Milton began publishing pamphlets against the episcopal church and what he perceived as the unfinished English Reformation.

Approx 1642 began work on what is concidered one of his greatest works, Paradise Lost.

1644 Areopagitica, his famous defense of a free press

Approx 1645 During the mid-1640s, he began to notice the deterioration of his eyesight.

1651 The deterioration of his eyesight continued until he was completely blind.

1667 Paradise Lost is published

1671 Paradise Regained, the sequal to Paradise Lost is published

1671 Samson Agonistes is published

11/12/1674 He died of gout and was buried next to his father in St. Giles Church, Cripplegate, London

This semester, we read a lot of works about immigrants, and I do love the books because I could feel the struggle in them; love, identity and contradiction between old and new are very attracive to me. The following information is summary of Bone. I hope you can all enjoy it.

The children of immigrants have often been called upon to translate for their parents. Their ability to switch from the language of their parents to the English of their birthplace makes them the bridge between the customs of the old world and the expectations and demands of the new. Not only are these children faced with a generation gap, but they must also cope with a cultural gap. This enormous responsibility can become an overwhelming burden. Fae Myenne Ng's first novel, Bone, confronts and explores this responsibility and burden. Ng, who grew up in San Francisco, is herself the daughter of Chinese immigrants and in an interview explained the title of her novel: "Bone is what lasts. And I wanted to honor the quality of endurance in the immigrant spirit."

Bone relates the story of the Leong family which has recently suffered the death by suicide of the Middle Girl, Ona. Ona committed suicide by jumping off the M floor of one of Chinatown's housing projects--she left no note; and although the police reported she was on downers, there was no apparent cause for the suicide

The novel is narrated by "The First Girl," Leila Fu Louie, Ona's half-sister and the eldest daughter in the Leong family. Lei's attempts to come to terms with her sister's death, and thereby her own life, lead her to muse about incidents from their childhood and the everyday circumstances of the present. The story unfolds in a series of stories that move from the present into the past.