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Reading Poetry(1)
In ages long ago stories were told, not in prose but in
poetry. The words of which they were made up, besides being arranged so as to tell the story clearly and
effectively, were so put together that they themselves fell
into the sort of singing pattern which we call rhythm. In
addition, these early poems were often sung or chanted.
The people who listened to these tales of victories in war,
or of the death of heroes in battle, frequently became so
inspired that they would act out the events as they were
related, or shout and dance in time to the music. The poet
had the power to make them feel brave or gay, to move
them to frenzy or to tears.
Although poetry today is seldom chanted, the poet still
has the power of arousing he emotions. The chief means
he uses are: the appeal of the story he tells or of the
thought he sets forth; the sound of the words he selects,
the rhythmical arrangement into which he builds them;
and the imagery he employs.
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Many stories are still told in poetry. Of them, The Lady of
the Lake, Hiawatha, and Evangeline are examples which
are familiar to many of us. John Brown's Body is a more
recent popular narrative poem. In poems such as these, it
is chiefly the story element which affects our emotions.
But the very sounds of the individual words of a poem
also stir us, just as the howling of the wind, the sound of a
bugle, and the beating of a drum arouse various feelings
in us. Loud sounds, low sounds, weird sounds, shrill
sounds, annoying soundsـــall these are cleverly used by
poets to play on our emotions, Even in the kind of poetry
in which the author does not tell a story, but speaks only
about himselfــhis love, his hate, his hopes and fears, his
countryـــhe chooses words which will produce certain
effects.
Exercise: Translate into Arabic the following
words and phrases as they are used in the passage
above:
| long ago | | rhythmical | |
| effectively | | imagery | |
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| rhythm | | narrative | |
| chanted | | very sounds | |
| inspired | | stir us | |
| in time to | | howling | |
| frenzy | | bugle | |
| arousing | | weird | |
| appeal | | shrill | |
| sets forth | | play on | |
| singing pattern | | popular | |
(2) The Morning Paper
The morning paper brings us news of the world. On the
front page we read of rumours of war, changes in
governments, death of kings, new social developments,
discoveries in science, victories in football, baseball, and
other sports, of what the President is doing, of acts of
heroism, and adventures, Every morning, the world lies
before us on the front page of the newspaper, In ten or
fifteen minutes before or after breakfast, we can reap the news of the day by rapid reading. The newspaper writer tells the striking features of his story in large headlines,
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and still more fully in the first paragraph. Then he devotes
the rest of the column to a detailed account of it. Often,
we need read only the headlines and the first paragraph to
get the news. We can take in each headlines at a glance,
and get the whole story by running our eyes down the
column, catching the important phrase in each short line
of print. There could be no better practice in skimming
that this morning perusal of the newspaper.
Exercise: Translate into Arabic the following
words and phrases as they are used in the passage
above:
| | at a glance | | rumours |
| | catching | | heroism |
| | skimming | | rapid reading |
| | perusal | | devotes |
| | running our eyes down | ||
| | a detailed account | ||
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(3) Death
The whole life of some people is a kind of partial death a
long, lingeringdeath-bed so to speak, of stagnation and
nonentity on which death is but the seal, or solemn
signing, as theabnegation of all further act and deed on
the part of the signer. Death robs these people of even that
little strength which they appeared to have and gives them
nothing but repose.
On others, again, death confers a more living kind of life
than they can ever possibly have enjoyed while to those
about them they seemed to be alive. Look at Shakespeare;
can he be properly said to have lived in anything like his
real life till a hundred years or so after his death? His
physical life was but as a dawn preceding the sunrise of
that life of the world to come which he was to enjoy
hereafter. True, there was a little stir ــ a little abiding of
shepherds in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by
night ــ a little buzzing in knots of men waiting to be hired
before the daybreak ـــ a little stealthymovement as of a
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burglar or two here and there ـــ an inchoation of life. But
the true life of the man was after death and not before it.
Death is not more the end of some than it is the beginning
of others. So he that loses his soul may find it, and he that
finds it may lose it.
Exercise: Translate into Arabic the following
words and phrases as they are used in the passage
above:
| partial | | nonentity | |
| hereafter | | lingering | |
| repose | | abnegation | |
| properly | | buzzing | |
| a dawn | | knots | |
| abiding | | stealthy | |
| stagnation | | so to speak | |
| solemn signing | | inchoation | |
(4) The Burning of Moscow
On the 14th September, 1812, while the rearguard of the
Russians were in the act of evacuating Moscow,
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Napoleon reached the hill called the Mount of Salvation,
because it is there that the natives kneel and cross
themselves at first sight of the Holy City.
Moscow seemed lordly and striking as ever, with the
steeples of its thirty churches, and its copper domes
glittering in the sun, its palaces of Eastern architecture
mingled with trees, and surrounded with gardens, and its
Kremlin, a huge triangular mass of towers, something
between a palace and a castle, which rose like a citadel
out of the general mass of groves and building. But not a
chimney sent up smoke, not a man appeared on the
battlements or at the gates.
Napoleon gazed every moment, expecting to see a train of bearded men arriving to flingthemselves at his feet, and
place their wealth at his disposal. His first exclamation
was: ‘‘Behold at last that celebrated city’’. His next: ‘‘It
was full time’’. His army, less regardfulof the past or
future, fixed their eyes on the goal of their wishes, and a
shout of ‘‘Moscow – Moscow’’ passed from rank to rank.
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When he entered the gates of Moscow, Bonaparte, as if
unwilling to encounter the sight of the empty streets,
stopped immediately on entering the first suburb. His
troops were quartered in the desolate city. During the first
few hours after their arrival, an obscure rumour, which
could not be traced, but one of those which are sometimes
found to get abroad before the approach of some awful
certainty,announced that the city would be endangered by
fire in the course of the night. The report seemed to arise
from those evident circumstances which rendered the
event probable: but no one took any notice of it, until at
midnight, when the soldiers were startled from their
quarters by the report that the town was in flames.
Exercise: Translate into Arabic the following
words and phrases as they are used in the passage
above:
| | battlements | | rearguard |
| | fling | | evacuating |
| | disposal | | lordly |
| | celebrated | | striking |
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| | regardful | | steeples |
| | suburb | | groves |
| | quartered | | glittering |
| | desolate | | architecture |
| | obscure | | mingled |
| | chimney | | triangular |
| | endangered | | citadel |
| | rendered | | copper domes |
| | startled | | awful certainty |
(5) Education and Social Change -1
The purpose of a school in community is to aid in the improvement of the quality of living. The school should
work with other agencieswhich compose a community to
achieve this end.
There are three important elements in the composition of
any community. There are the natural or physical
resources which a community has. And there are those
man made resources which we know as social
organizations which all communities have. When we go
at the business of improving the quality of living in the
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community, we are attempting to improve these three
types of resources. We improve the quality of living in the
community to the extent that that we are able to improve the
resources of a community.
Turning directly then to the work of the school that would
endeavor to improve the quality of living in a
community, we see that what a school does is to formulate a program through its personneland all its
resources. When we are trying to improve the natural and
physical resources of a community we are working for the
improvement of soil, the improvement of homes, the
elimination of pollutionof our water-ways. The school
seeks as its job how it can aid in the improvement of these
kinds of things.
Exercise: Translate into Arabic the following
words and phrases as they are used in the passage
above:
| | personnel | | community |
| | elimination | | agencies |
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| | pollution | | endeavor | |
| | water-ways | | formulate | |
| | physical resources | |||
| | quality of living | |||
| | to the extent that | |||
| | natural resources | |||