martes, 12 de noviembre de 2013

Book Report - part 2

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his only novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray), his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.
Wilde's parents were successful Anglo-Irish Dublin intellectuals. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university, Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day.
At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote Salome (1891) in French in Paris but it was refused a license for England due to the absolute prohibition of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), was still on stage in London, Wilde had Queensberry prosecuted for libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The charge carried a penalty of up to two years in prison. The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for indecency with other men. After two more trials he was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. In 1897, in prison, he wrote De Profundis, which was published in 1905, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol(1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.

EARLY LIFE
Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College), the second of three children born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca Wilde, two years behind William ("Willie"). Jane Wilde, under the pseudonym "Speranza"(the Italian word for 'Hope'), wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848 and was a lifelong Irish nationalist. She read the Young Irelanders' poetry to Oscar and Willie, inculcating a love of these poets in her sons. Lady Wilde's interest in the neo-classical revival showed in the paintings and busts of ancient Greece and Rome in her home. William Wilde was Ireland's leading oto-ophthalmologic (ear and eye) surgeon and was knighted in 1864 for his services as medical adviser and assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland. He also wrote books about Irish archaeology and peasant folklore. A renowned philanthropist, his dispensary for the care of the city's poor at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road. Wilde was baptized as an infant in St. Mark's Church, Dublin, the local Church of Ireland (Anglican) church. When the church was closed, the records were moved to the nearby St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street.
In addition to his children with his wife, Sir William Wilde was the father of three children born out of wedlock before his marriage: Henry Wilson, born in 1838, and Emily and Mary Wilde, born in 1847 and 1849, respectively, of different maternity to Henry. Sir William acknowledged paternity of his illegitimate children and provided for their education, but they were reared by his relatives rather than with his wife and legitimate children.
In 1855, the family moved to No. 1 Merrion Square, where Wilde's sister, Isola, was born in 1857. The Wildes' new home was larger and, with both his parents' sociality and success soon became a "unique medical and cultural milieu"; guests at their salon included Sheridan Le Fanu, Charles Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt, William Rowan Hamilton and Samuel Ferguson.[3]
Until he was nine, Oscar Wilde was educated at home, where a French bonne and a German governess taught him their languages. He then attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. Until his early twenties, Wilde summered at the villa, Moytura House, his father built in Cong County Mayo. There the young Wilde and his brother Willie played with George Moore.
Isola died aged nine of meningitis. Wilde's poem "Requiescat" is dedicated to her memory.

Death
By 25 November Wilde had developed cerebral meningitis. Robbie Ross arrived on 29 November and sent for a priest, and Wilde was conditionally into the Catholic Church by Fr Cuthbert Dunne, a Passionist priest from Dublin (the sacrament being conditional because of the doctrine that one may only be baptized once – Wilde having a recollection of Catholic baptism as a child, a fact later attested to by the minister of the sacrament, Fr Lawrence Fox). Fr Dunne recorded the baptism:
As the voiture rolled through the dark streets that wintry night, the sad story of Oscar Wilde was in part repeated to me....Robert Ross knelt by the bedside, assisting me as best he could while I administered conditional baptism, and afterwards answering the responses while I gave Extreme Unction to the prostrate man and recited the prayers for the dying. As the man was in a semi-comatose condition, I did not venture to administer the Holy Viaticum; still I must add that he could be roused and was roused from this state in my presence. When roused, he gave signs of being inwardly conscious... Indeed I was fully satisfied that he understood me when told that I was about to receive him into the Catholic Church and gave him the Last Sacraments... And when I repeated close to his ear the Holy Names, the Acts of Contrition, Faith, Hope and Charity, with acts of humble resignation to the Will of God, he tried all through to say the words after me.
Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on 30 November 1900. Different opinions are given as to the cause of the meningitis: Richard Ellmann claimed it was syphilitic; Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, thought this to be a misconception, noting that Wilde's meningitis followed a surgical intervention, perhaps a mastoidectomy; Wilde's physicians, Dr. Paul Cleiss and A'Court Tucker, reported that the condition stemmed from an old suppuration of the right ear (une ancienne suppuration de l'oreille droite d'ailleurs en traitement depuis plusieurs années) and did not allude to syphilis.

Personal thought:

I think that this book is very interesting, and fill this with values that easily can apply to him to our lives, such as the amiability, the service, the fondness, to share and the love. These are values that they distinguish from this book. For my it is a book very recommended to small and young children, since it has a very good and very entertaining history. Also it reflects and makes alike us to the Christian part, since the small child is Jesus, to whom as always they say we must receive and have always presents, as it was done by the giant, who changed his way of being on having seen Jesus, Then one invites to see Jesus, and to changing as the giant did it. Very recommended.

jueves, 17 de octubre de 2013

Book Report

Book report

Santiago Londoño Acevedo

English

Cindy Buitrago

Grade 8°

Seminary Minor of Medellin

Medellin

2013






Introduction

The aim of this work is to achieve that in the student of the minor seminar it could develop a great aptitude to understand the things and equally of developing the skills in the reading comprehension to be able to understand still mas thoroughly the dimensions of the reading, and be able like that to be every day more integrals at the moment of the learning


















The text talks about one giant and he has a big and lovely garden, full of beautiful flowers and peach trees. The children’s was so happy and feel so good when they were in the garden, playing and amusing it. After the giant return to his home when he see the children´s playing and laughing in his garden, he scream to they and immediately they start to run, the giant, furiously built a big wall and put up a notice board saying:  “Trespassers will be prosecuted”.
The poor children´s hasn´t now any place to play, they tried to play on the road but they don´t feel so good in this place. Then the spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. One day a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep.
"Spring has forgotten this garden," cried all the grass, the trees, the birds and the flowers and the Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak and he and the cold invite the wind to stay here with they and after the wind came, they invite too the hail. When the giant see every day by the window all this things it is said to if same: “I cannot understand why the spring is so late in coming"
The spring never came and the autumn gave golden fruits to every garden, except that of the giant and he say: "He is too selfish," she said. So it was always winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees. 
One day at the morning the giant heard a sweet melody, he thinks the musicians of the king was passing by here, but no, was a bird and the snow stop to fall and the wind stop to dance because the children´s made a little hole in the wall to enter in the garden and immediately a lot of birds come, the trees filled of flowers and the grass feel so good because the children´s were here

But in one corner of the garden, still snowing because a little and small children was so bad because he couldn´t reach up to the branches of the tree and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. "Climb up! Little boy," said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.
And the giant heart gets up, because he was really very sorry for what he had done, and he said: How selfish I have been!" he said; "now I know why the spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever.
so he crept the downstairs, opened the front door and take the little boy and put it on the top of the tree, and immediately stop to wind and stop to snow and the birds came, the spring came and the child was so happy because he reached up the tree, and immediately he kiss to the giant. The other kids, when see that the giant aren´t now bad they came too and the giant said: “It is your garden now, little children," and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall and when the people go to the market, he see the giant playing with the children´s in the most beautiful garden that they had ever seen.
they play all the day with the giant, but in the night when they come to say good bye the giant ask for the little children and the other kids said: we don´t meet him, he left the garden early. All the afternoons he waits in the door to the school to come to his house to play with them, but the little boy never came again. The years happened and the giant became old, he couldn´t play but he sit in a chair to see how the kids play.
One winter morning he get up and see the little boy in the same corner under a tree full of white flowers, the branches were all golden and the boy was here. He down the downstairs so fast and came to the little boy. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

And the boy answers: no, these are the wounds of love. immediately the giant down on the knees and the little children say to him: you let me play in your garden, now you shall come with me to my garden, which is my paradise and when the other children´s come to play with the giant in the afternoon he found him dead in the floor, under the tree, all covered of white flowers.


Characters:
Giant: In the beginning it was very embittered and selfish, but with the time it was changing up to becoming good and friendly
Flowers: They were very happy when the children were going and playing around it, but to the moment not to return they became sad and felt desolate                                             
Trees: They were very big and were becoming full of emotion when the children were coming, were filling with flowers were very happy, but when the winter came his beauty was ruined
Snow: It was the first climate that invaded the garden on having been desolated and boring
Children’s: They were those who from a beginning made annoy the giant. After this the giant sees that thanks to them the spring, the happiness and the pleasure was returning to his garden, they are accepted by the giant and a few big friends turn
The little boy: He was the one who to the children to enter to the garden could rise to the top of the tree. It was helped by the giant and later at the moment of the death of the giant he was the one who offered to him his garden and his paradise to enormous that one of good and great heart; And apparently it represents Jesus Christ in this work, demonstrating that who it works well will reward him of equal way











Conclusions:
·         We can conclude that the giant in spite of being a great quantity of muscular mass possessed a great heart.

·         It is an interesting history in which quantity of values is highlighted since are the companionship, the solidarity, the friendship, the service, the help and the affection.


·         We can say that we all are like a giant, are embittered, rude and selfish with all the excellent beings who surround us and who are to our scope. But with the help of a child, a small and pure child who can illuminate our mind, soul and be we can manage to change and it is the only one that can change our life, and his name is Jesus.

domingo, 6 de octubre de 2013

Vocabulary Work

Astonish: To fill with sudden wonder or amazement
Assort:  To separate into groups according to kind; classify.
Atop: To, on, or at the top.
Attitude: A position of the body or manner of carrying oneself
Atypical: Not conforming to type; unusual or irregular.
Augur: To predict, especially from signs or omens; foretell
Avert: To ward off (something about to happen); prevent
Awe: The power to inspire dread.
Backing: Support or aid
Backbone:  The vertebrate spine or spinal column.
Balcony:  A platform that projects from the wall of a building and is surrounded by a railing, balustrade, or parapet
Baptize: To admit into Christianity by means of baptism
Barrage: An artificial obstruction, such as a dam or irrigation channel, built in a watercourse to increase its depth or to divert its flow
Barricade: A structure set up across a route of access to obstruct the passage of an enemy
Basement: The substructure or foundation of a building
Bash: To strike with a heavy, crushing blow, strike hard
Basket:  A container made of interwoven material, such as rushes or twigs
Batsman: a person who bats or whose turn it is to bat
Seal: The design or emblem itself, belonging exclusively to the user,
Beard:  the hair growing on the lower parts of a man's face
Behave: To conduct oneself in a specified way
Belong: To be a part of something else
Benign: Of a kind and gentle disposition
Bet: An agreement usually between two parties that the one who has made an incorrect prediction about an uncertain outcome will forfeit something stipulated to the other; a wager
Beverage: Any one of various liquids for drinking, usually excluding water
Blind:  Without seeing; blindly
Birch: To throb aggressively
Bitter:  Causing a sharply unpleasant, painful, or stinging sensation; harsh
Blackbeetle:  dark brown cockroach originally from orient now nearly cosmopolitan in distribution
Blanket:  A large piece of woven material used as a covering for warmth, especially on a bed.
Bleb: An air bubble
Bleed: To emit or lose blood
Bless: is the infusion of something with holiness,
Bliss: a state of profound satisfaction, happiness and joy
Bloat: is a medical condition in which the stomach becomes overstretched by excessive gas content
Bony: Adjective related to bone
Bore: the diameter of a cylinder in a piston engine
Bowel: is the segment of the alimentary canal extending from the mouth via stomach to the anus
Brandy: Alcoholic beverage
Brazing: is a metal-joining process whereby a filler metal is heated above and distributed between two or more close-fitting parts by capillary action
Law: is a set of norms, which can be seen both in a sociological or in a philosophical sense
Maid: female employed in domestic service.
Malicious: characterized by malice
Mammal: are a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterized by the possession of hair, three middle ear bones, a neocortex, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young
Manacle: restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists close together
Matter:  is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist
Measure: a unit or standard of measurement
Mellow: to make or become mellow
Mealting:  is a physical process that results in the phase change of a substance from a solid to a liquid
Memoir: a biography or historical account, ESP one based on personal knowledge

Mendicant:  refers to begging or relying on charitable donations, and is most widely used for religious followers or ascetics who rely exclusively on charity to survive
Merge: union of two things
Mew: an onomatopoeia associated with cats
Miss:  is an English language honorific traditionally used only for an unmarried woman
Mist: is a phenomenon of small droplets suspended in air. It can occur as part of natural weather or volcanic activity, and is common in cold air above warmer water, in exhaled air in the cold, and in a steam room of asauna
Mitre:  is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial head-dress of bishops and certain abbots in the Roman Catholic Church
Mixed: composed of different elements, races, sexes, etc.
Moat: is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence
Mob: a lot of people or persons
Mole: are the majority of the members of the mammal family Talpidae in the order Soricomorpha
Monk: a male member of a religious community bound by vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience
Monocle: is a type of corrective lens used to correct or enhance the vision in only one eye
Moor: a tract of unenclosed ground, usually having peaty soil covered with heather, coarse grass, bracken, and moss
Mortar: fires shells at a much lower velocity and higher ballistic arc than other ordnance
Mourn:  in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone
Murder: is the unlawful killing of another human being with "malice aforethought", and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide
Muse: to reflect about something, usually in silence
Mutilate:  is an act or physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, usually without causing death
Mutt: an inept, ignorant or stupid person
Mutter: to utter (something) in a low and indistinct tone
Nap: to sleep for a short while
Nark: an informer or spy, usually work for the police in sometimes
Near: at or to a place or time not far away from
Native: relating or belonging to a person or thing by virtue of conditions existing at the time of birth
Node: is a localised swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex)

Nit: a person with severe mental retardation