Approaches to Literature (week 14)

※Dover Beach   

"Dover Beach" is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851. The title, locale and subject of the poem's descriptive opening lines is the shore of the English ferry port of Dover, Kent, facing Calais, France, at the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part (21 miles) of the English Channel, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.

※Carpe diem   

Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work Odes (23 BC).

※Hypothesis

A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the available scientific theories. Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used synonymously, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis proposed for further research.

※Brothers Grimm   

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together specialized in collecting and publishing folklore during the 19th century. They were among the best-known storytellers of folk tales, and popularized stories such as "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "The Frog Prince" ("Der Froschkönig"), "The Goose-Girl" ("Die Gänsemagd"), "Hansel and Gretel" ("Hänsel und Gretel"), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" ("Rumpelstilzchen"),"Sleeping Beauty" ("Dornröschen"), and "Snow White" ("Schneewittchen"). Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.

Cronus  In Greek mythology, Cronus, or Kronos , was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth. He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. According to Plato, Phorcys, Cronus and Rhea were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys. Cronus was usually depicted with a harpe, scythe or a sickle, which was the instrument he used to castrate and depose Uranus, his father. In Athens, on the twelfth day of the Attic month of Hekatombaion, a festival called Kronia was held in honour of Cronus to celebrate the harvest, suggesting that, as a result of his association with the virtuous Golden Age, Cronus continued to preside as a patron of harvest. Cronus was also identified in classical antiquity with the Roman deitySaturn.

※Cerberus

In Greek mythology, Cerberus , often called the "hound of Hades", is the monstrous multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. Cerberus was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and usually is described as having three heads, a serpent for a tail, and snakes protruding from parts of his body. Cerberus is primarily known for his capture by Heracles, one of Heracles' twelve labours.

※Danae

In Greek mythology, Danaë was the daughter, and only child of King Acrisius of Argos and his wife Queen Eurydice. She was the mother of the hero Perseus by Zeus. She was credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium during the Bronze Age.

※The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids

"The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats" is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 5. It is Aarne-Thompson type 123, but has a strong resemblance to The Three Little Pigs and other Aarne-Thomspson type 124 folktales, and to the variant of Little Red Riding Hood that the Grimms collected, where she is rescued.

synopsis

A mother goat leaves her seven children at home while she ventures into the forest to find food. Before she leaves, she warns her young about the Big Bad Wolf who will try to sneak into the house and gobble them up. The wolf will pretend to be their mother and convince the kids to open the door. The young children will be able to recognize their true mother by her white feet and sweet voice.

The mother goat leaves and the seven kids stay in the house. Before long, they hear a voice at the door that says "Let me in children, your mother has something for each and every one of you". His gruff voice betrays him and the kids do not let him in. The wolf goes to a market and steals some honey to soften his voice. A little while later, the kids hear another voice at the door: "Let me in children, your mother has something for each and every one of you". This time the voice is high and sweet like their mother's. They are about to let him in when the youngest kid looks under the crack in the door and notices the wolf's big, black feet. They refuse to open the door, and the wolf goes away again.

The wolf goes to the bakery and steals some flour, smearing it all over his coat, turning his black feet white. He returns to the children's house, and says "Let me in children, your mother has something for each and every one of you". The kids see his white feet and hear his sweet voice, so they open the door. The wolf jumps into the house and gobbles up six of the kids. The youngest child hides from the wolf in the grandfather clock and does not get eaten.

Later that day, the mother goat returns home from the forest. She is distraught to find the door wide open and all but one of her children missing. She looks around and sees the wolf, fast asleep under a tree. He had eaten so much, he could not move. The mother goat calls to her youngest child to quickly get her a pair of scissors, a needle and some thread. She cuts open the wolf's belly and the six children spring out miraculously unharmed. They fill the wolf's belly with rocks, and the mother sews it back up again. When the wolf wakes up, he is very thirsty. He goes to the river to drink, but falls in and drowns under the weight of the rocks. The Family lived happily ever after.

※Rapunzel

"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale Rapunzel by Friedrich Schulz published in 1790.[2] The Schulz version is based on Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698 which in turn was influenced by an even earlier tale, Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile, published in 1634. Its plot has been used and parodied in various media and its best known line ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair") is an idiom of popular culture. In volume I of the 1812 annotations (Anhang), it is listed as coming from Friedrich Schulz Kleine Romane, Book 5, pp. 269–288, published in Leipzig 1790.

plot

A lonely couple, who want a child, live next to a walled garden belonging to an evil witch named Dame Gothel. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices some rapunzel (or, in most translated-to-English versions of the story, rampion), growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death. One night, her husband breaks into the garden to get some for her. She makes a salad out of it and greedily eats it. It tastes so good that she longs for more. So her husband goes to get some more for her. As he scales the wall to return home, Dame Gothel catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and she agrees to be lenient, and allows him to take all the rapunzel he wants, on condition that the baby be given to her when it's born. Desperate, he agrees. When his wife has a baby girl, Dame Gothel takes her to raise as her own and names her Rapunzel after the plant her mother craved. She grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When she turns twelve, Dame Gothel lockes her up inside a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. When she visits her, she stands beneath the tower and calls out:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb thy golden stair.

One day, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he searches for her and discovers the tower, but is naturally unable to enter it. He returns often, listening to her beautiful singing, and one day sees Dame Gothel visit, and thus learns how to gain access to Rapunzel. When Dame Gothel leaves, he bids Rapunzel let her hair down. When she does so, he climbs up, makes her acquaintance, and eventually asks her to marry him. She agrees.

Together they plan a means of escape, wherein he will come each night (thus avoiding Dame Gothel who visits her by day), and bring Rapunzel a piece of silk, which she will gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan can come to fruition, however, she foolishly gives him away. In the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, she innocently says that her dress is getting tight around her waist (indicating pregnancy); in the second edition, she asks Dame Gothel (in a moment of forgetfulness) why it is easier for her to draw up the prince than her. In anger, she cuts off Rapunzel's hair and casts her out into the wilderness to fend for herself.

When the prince calls that night, Dame Gothel lets the severed hair down to haul him up. To his horror, he finds himself staring at her instead of Rapunzel, who is nowhere to be found. When she tells him in a jealous rage that he will never see Rapunzel again, he leaps from the tower and lands on some thorns, which blind him.

For months, he wanders through the wastelands of the country and eventually comes to the wilderness where Rapunzel now lives with the twins she has given birth to, a boy and a girl. One day, as she sings, he hears her voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other's arms, her tears immediately restore his sight. He leads her and their twins to his kingdom, where they live happily ever after.

In some versions of the story, Rapunzel's hair magically grows back after the prince touches it.

Another version of the story ends with the revelation that Dame Gothel had untied Rapunzel's hair after the prince leapt from the tower, and it slipped from her hands and landed far below, leaving her trapped in the tower.

※Tangled

Tangled is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Loosely based on the German fairy tale "Rapunzel" in the collection of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm, it is the 50th Disney animated feature film. Featuring the voices of Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, the film tells the story of a lost, young princess with long magical hair who yearns to leave her secluded tower. Against her mother's wishes, she accepts the aid of a handsome intruder to take her out into the world which she has never seen.

plot

Long ago, a drop of sunlight became a golden flower capable of healing illness, decay, and injury. Hundreds of years later, the flower is still used by Mother Gothel to retain her youth, until soldiers from nearby kingdom, Corona, steal it to heal their ailing queen. Shortly afterwards, the Queen gives birth to Princess Rapunzel. While attempting to recover the flower, Gothel discovers that Rapunzel's hair contains the flower's healing properties, and that cutting her hair destroys its power. Gothel takes the baby and raises her as her own daughter in an isolated tower. Once a year, the King and Queen release sky lanterns on Rapunzel's birthday, hoping for their daughter's return.

※To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

BY Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.

※We ain’t getting any younger

BY Jim James

You got the whole wide world

They got it from you

You can talk about it all you want

But what you gonna do

Time's your oyster

The grave is always getting closer

We ain't gettin' any younger

We ain't gettin' any younger

We ain't gettin' any younger

We ain't gettin' any younger

Looked to roam

Went too far

There at the edge of the world

Things went south

Down and out

There at the edge of the world

Seasons changed

Time got strange

There at the edge of the world

We got close to the source

For better or worse

There at the edge of the world

You got the whole wide world

Laid out in front of you

You can talk about it all you want

But what the fuck you're gonna do

Time's your oyster

The grave is always getting closer

We ain't gettin' any younger

We ain't gettin' any younger

We ain't gettin' any younger

We ain't gettin' any younger

And you take it for granted

Until its taken away

We're all pressed out the same mold

The story's already been told

This world is war and blood

When it could have been love

When it could have been love

And all you learn to forget

That this never happened

And when the new world start again

Peace ripped into pieces

Peace ripped into pieces

Peace ripped into pieces

Peace ripped into pieces

We gotta put it back together again

(Peace ripped into pieces)

Put it back together again

(Peace ripped into pieces)

We gotta put it back together again

(Peace ripped into pieces)

Put it back together again

(Peace ripped into pieces)