Estoy bien y tu?

Poetry by Robert Herrick - To Electra

I dare not ask a kiss,              a
I dare not beg a smile,          b
Lest having that, or this,         a
I might grow proud the while.   b

No, no, the utmost share             c    
Of my desire shall be           d
Only to kiss that air                 c
That lately kissed thee.         d

I think that the author really had a crush on Electra; otherwise, he can’t write such a beautiful poetry like this. The whole poetry present that the author appreciates her very much so that author did not dare ask for a kiss or even a smile, the author might just want to look at her and stay where she was and that is enough to him.

In Bound Feet and Western Dress, what interested me was that it mentioned Chang Yu-I had done fortune-telling several times. The result revealed that marrying early was good for her. Besides, fortune teller also said that her elder sister should get married after twenty five ages. Consequently, when she was fifteen years old, her mother forced her to get married with Hsu Chih-mo even though the fortune teller said that this marriage was not appropriate. Finally, she divorced with Hsu Chih-mo at twenty one ages. Furthermore, Chang Yu-I and Hsu Chih-mo was the first divorced couple in China. She complained that why her mother did not obey the fortune-telling result. Because, her elder sister married with a pretty rich man at that time and it seemed that her sister’s marriage was fairly happiness. Her mother also regretted that.

If Chang Yu-I had not married with Hsu Chih-mo, everything would have changed utterly. In addition, the fate of everyone would be totally different, inclusive of 林徽音, 梁思成, 陸小曼, etc. Nevertheless, the fortune control human or human choose the fortune is worthy to discuss. 

There is a Garden in her face,                     a
Where Roses and white Lillies grow ;         b
A heav'nly paradise is that place,                a
Wherein all pleasant fruits doe flow.            b
There Cherries grow, which none may buy  b
Till Cherry ripe themselves doe cry.             c

Those Cherries fairly doe enclose
Of Orient Pearle a double row ;
Which when her louely laughter showes,
They look like Rose-buds fill'd with snow.
Yet them nor Peere nor Prince can buy,
Till Cherry ripe themselues doe cry.

 Her Eyes like Angels watch them still ;
Her Browes like bended bowes doe stand,
Threatning with piercing frownes to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred Cherries to come nigh,
Till Cherry ripe themselues doe cry

Reflection

The poem talks about a girl’s beauty. The poet compares the girl to a cherry, like snow, fire, lily, and pearl. It is very impressive to use simile. In addition, the repetition of “Till Cherry ripe themselves doe cry” means that not until a girl becomes to marry does she really relax, because she is ought to be a virgin till she gets marry.

The author, born in China in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, tells the story of her tumultuous life: her arranged marriage to a poet who treated her cruelly and ultimately abandoned her; her flight to Germany where she educated herself and became a teacher; and her career as the first woman vice-president of a Shanghai bank. This memoir was written for her Chinese American grandniece, a Harvard student who sought to know the background of her own conflicting identities.

"Chuang Hua finished Crossings in 1968 -- a time of rampant social and artistic experimentation. She played with style and language to tell the modernistic story of Chinese becoming Western. A fascinating read." --Maxine Hong Kingston

"Chuang Hua's themes -- crossing cultural barriers, crossing parental and conventional strictures, searching for a center within oneself from the past that is ever present--are not limited to Chinese-Americans: rather, they are universal concerns." --Amy Ling, from the Afterword

When it was first published in America in 1968, Chuang Hua's evocative novel Crossings was completely unheralded and quickly went out of print. Years later it would be widely recognized as the first modernist novel to address the Asian-American experience, its deeply imagistic prose--marked by spatial and temporal leaps, an unconventional syntax, and unanticipated shifts in plot--as haunting as the writing of Jane Bowles

 Western box office and reviews

The British reviews for Memoirs of a Geisha were generally mixed. The New Statesman criticized Memoirs of a Geisha 's plot, saying that after Hatsumomo leaves, "the plot loses what little momentum it had and breaks down into one pretty visual after another" and says that the film version "abandons the original's scholarly mien to reveal the soap opera bubbling below".The Journal praised Ziyi, saying that she "exudes a heartbreaking innocence and vulnerablity" but said "too much of the characters' yearning and despair is concealed behind the mask of white powder and rouge".London's The Evening Standard compared Memoirs of a Geisha to Cinderella and praised Gong Li, saying that "Li may be playing the loser of the piece but she saves this film" and Gong "endows Hatsumomo with genuine mystery". Eighteen days later, The Evening Standard put Memoirs of a Geisha on its Top Ten Film list. Glasgow's Daily Record praised the film, saying the "geisha world is drawn with such intimate detail that it seems timeless until the war, and with it the modern world comes crashing in".

In the United States, the film managed $57 million during its box office run. The film peaked at 1,654 screens,facing off against King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Fun with Dick and Jane. During its first week in limited release, the film screening in only eight theaters tallied up a $85,313 per theater average which made it second in highest per theater averages behind Brokeback Mountain for 2005.[International gross reached $158 million.

Overall, the American reviews were mixed. Illinois's Daily Herald said that the "[s]trong acting, meticulously created sets, beautiful visuals, and a compelling story of a celebrity who can't have the one thing she really wants make Geisha memorable". The Washington Times called the film "a sumptuously faithful and evocative adaption" while adding that "[c]ontrasting dialects may remain a minor nuisance for some spectators, but the movie can presumably count on the pictorial curiosity of readers who enjoyed Mr. Golden's sense of immersion, both harrowing and esthetic, in the culture of a geisha upbringing in the years that culminated in World War II".

The film scored a 35% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 54/100 on Metacritic, meaning "mixed or average review."

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnet 130 is the poet's pragmatic tribute to his uncomely mistress, commonly referred to as the dark lady because of her dun complexion. The dark lady, who ultimately betrays the poet, appears in sonnets 127 to 154. Sonnet 130 is clearly a parody of the conventional love sonnet, made popular by Petrarch and, in particular, made popular in England by Sidney's use of the Petrarchan form in his epic poem Astrophel and Stella.

If you compare the stanzas of Astrophel and Stella to Sonnet 130, you will see exactly what elements of the conventional love sonnet Shakespeare is light-heartedly mocking. In Sonnet 130, there is no use of grandiose metaphor or allusion; he does not compare his love to Venus, there is no evocation to Morpheus, etc. The ordinary beauty and humanity of his lover are important to Shakespeare in this sonnet, and he deliberately uses typical love poetry metaphors against themselves.

A powerful story of one woman's displacement between cultures and traditions -- a landmark in Asian-American literature.

At the center of Crossings is Fourth Jane, the fourth of seven children whose recollections of an oppressive yet loving father, Dyadya, are collaged with her constant migrations between four continents. Suffering from a domestic torpor occasionally enlivened by ritualistic preparations of food for her foreign lover, Jane's displacement only heightens the remembrance of what she has fled: a breech of the familial code; a failed romance; and further in the past, the desolation of war as "bloated corpses flowed in the current of the yellow river." Spare, lyrical, Taoist in form and elusiveness, visually cinematic, tender and sensual, Chuang Hua's powerful narrative endures as one of the most moving and original works of literature in the history of American letters.

In England, there are two main religion.

One is Catholic and the other one is Christian.

These two religion had conflict most of the time during the early seventeenth centry; eventually led to the Gunpowder.  

Moreover, the religion intefered with the government a lot, which caused a lot of damage. It was no good.

The earlier seventeenth century, and especially the period of the English Revolution (1640–60), was a time of intense ferment in all areas of life — religion, science, politics, domestic relations, culture. That ferment was reflected in the literature of the era, which also registered a heightened focus on and analysis of the self and the personal life. However, little of this seems in evidence in the elaborate frontispiece to Michael Drayton's long "chorographical" poem on the landscape, regions, and local history of Great Britain (1612), which appeared in the first years of the reign of the Stuart king James I (1603–1625). The frontispiece appears to represent a peaceful, prosperous, triumphant Britain, with Engla nd, Scotland, and Wales united, patriarchy and monarchy firmly established, and the nation serving as the great theme for lofty literary celebration. Albion (the Roman name for Britain) is a young and beautiful virgin wearing as cloak a map featuring rivers, trees, mountains, churches, towns; she carries a scepter and holds a cornucopia, symbol of plenty. Ships on the horizon signify exploration, trade, and garnering the riches of the sea. In the four corners stand four conquerors whose descendants ruled over Britain: the legendary Brutus, Julius Caesar, Hengist the Saxon, and the Norman William the Conqueror, "whose line yet rules," as Drayton's introductory poem states.