Reading Poetry

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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, lingering death-bed so to speak, of stagnation and

nonentity on which death is but the seal, or solemn

signing, as the abnegation  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 stealthy movement 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 14^th 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 fling themselves 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 regardful of 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 agencies which 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 personnel and 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 pollution of 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

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