The River Merchants Wife: A Letter

By: Li Po


While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.




Li Bai Po














Li Bai (701762), also known as Li Po, was a Chinese poet acclaimed from his own day to
the present as a genius and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights.
He and his friend Du Fu (712770) were the two most prominent figures in the flourishing
of Chinese poetry in the mid-Tang Dynasty that is often called the "Golden Age of China".
Around a thousand poems attributed to him are extant, thirty-four in the canonical 18th-
century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. The poems were models for celebrating the
pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking wine. Among the
most famous are "Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day", "The Hard Road to Shu", and
"Quiet Night Thought", which appears frequently in school texts in China today. Legend holds
that Li drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moons reflection in the river.







Background and birth


The year of Li Bai's birth is generally considered to be 701. He was born somewhere in
Central Asia. Apparently, his family had originally dwelt in what is now southeastern Gansu, and
later moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu in Sichuanprovince, when he was perhaps five
years old. Two accounts given by contemporaries Li Yangbing (a family relative) and Fan
Chuanzheng stated that his family was originally from what is now southeastern Gansu. Li's
ancestry is traditionally traced back to Li Gao, the founder of the state /of Western
Liang. Evidence suggests that during the Sui Dynasty, his ancestors, then commoners, most
likely as the result of some act of crime, were forced into a form of exile from their original
home in what is now Gansu to some location further west. During their exile, the Li family lived
in Suiye (Suyab, now an archeological site in present-day Kyrgyzstan) and perhaps also in
Tiaozhi, a state centered near modern Ghazni, Afghanistan. These areas were on the
ancient Silk Road, and the Li family were likely merchants.
While Li Bai's mother was pregnant with him, she had a dream of a great white star falling from
heaven. This seems to have contributed to the idea of his being a banished immortal (one of his
nicknames). That the Great White Star was synonymous with Venus helps to explain his
courtesy name, "Tai Bai".










Unending Love
By: Rabindranath Tagore

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all mans days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours
And the songs of every poet past and forever



More images

Rabindranath Tagore







Rabindranath Tagore*+ (Bengali pronunciation: *rbindrnttr+ ( listen)), also
written RabndranthaThkura (pronounced: *rbindrnttkr]), (7 May 1861 7 August
1941),*+ sobriquet Gurudev,*+ was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and
music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive,
fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1913.
In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and
magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new prose and
verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from
traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best
of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding
creative artist of the modern Indian subcontinent, being highly commemorated in India and
Bangladesh, as well as in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan.APirali Brahmin from Calcutta with
ancestral gentry roots in Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At age sixteen, he
released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhnusiha ("Sun Lion"), which
were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. He graduated to his first short
stories and dramasand the aegis of his birth nameby 1877. As a humanist, universalist
internationalist, and strident nationalist he denounced the Raj and advocated independence
from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that
comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs;
his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.Tagore
modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His
novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali
(Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-
known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimedor pannedfor their
lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen
by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana GanaMana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar
Bangla. The original song of Sri Lankas National Anthem was also written and tuned by Tagore.

















John Nagenda

Personal information
Born 25 April 1938 (age 76)
Gahim, Ruanda-Urundi
Batting style Right-handed batsman
Bowling style Right arm fast-medium

John Nagenda (born 25 April 1938, in Gahim, Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi)) is a former
cricketer who played one One Day International in the 1975 World Cup for East Africa.[1] He
also appeared in one first-class cricket match in England in 1975, and played cricket for
Uganda.Mr. John Nagenda is also a Senior Media Advisor to President YoweriKagutaMuseveni
of Uganda.

This is the first African poem I have analyzed in years. It helped to look up John Nagenda, a
famous poet and writer of Uganda. It seems he started to write in a time when African writers
were still trying to create a body of work of the same caliber as old-school European writers,
using correct English grammar but still staying true to the essence of being African. Having that
information, I would pay particular attention to the last 4 lines of this poem: he personifies the
black lake by saying it "gurgled and whispered and snored." It gives you the feeling that there is
a hidden humanity in this geographical feature, that you have to listen to it until you hear those
gurgles, whispers, and snores. It is a subtle comment on the literary world, which was
dominated by mostly Caucasian writers. The last question in the poem seems to imply (to me)
that John is questioning something about that elemental black humanity as described in the
lines just above the question. He may be talking about something entirely different, though.
The line "In courageousness, a defiant loneliness" seems to indicate that John or the speaker of
the poem has known loneliness that comes from exhibiting courage or standing apart from the
common way of thinking. The light, perhaps representing intelligence or spirit, is overcome by
"darkness rising from the lake," suggesting to me that perhaps John thought there may be
superstition or ignorance which overwhelms some of the most inspired efforts of people.
Having read a book by a black Haitian about African voodoo, I would say perhaps John is
commenting on something about these old superstitious religious rituals which was stifling
spiritual progress. However, other "points of light" also appear (which makes me recall the
inaugural speech of our first President George Bush (Senior, not Junior), which may be just a
literal physical description of the lake and people turning on their lights at night, or it could
mean that in spite of spiritual darkness and ignorance, there is great potential for achievement
among the people of Africa/Uganda. Another instance of there being isolated instances of
inspired leadership or creativity in Uganda/Afrida seems to be indicated by "one song or two
from an invisible lonely bird." I do think the first half of the poem is a great description of the
lake, but the second half of the poem seems to hold more of Nagenda's personal views,
symbolically speaking. Hope this helps!












Gahini Lake
By John Nagenda

I stood at one end of Gahini Lakke
Years ago, one evening late,
And saw its stretch away beneath me
With re touches of the dying sun.
Here an there a ripple disturbed the surface
Where a guesting, jesting bird,
Law-flying over the serene quiet water,
Had landed and gone on again.
Beneath me, the silent lake;
Around me, the darkening gloom
Through which, occasionally, a bush stood out
In courageous, defiant loneliness.
And there might have been one strong or two
From an invincible lonely bird.
As I watched, the light was swallowed up
By a darkness rising from the lake;
And points of light across the darkness
Appeared one by one.
Beneath me the lake was black
But gurgled and whispered and snored
What was it had forever lost
In that deserted instant time?


Telephone Conversation

By: Wole Soyinka

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. "Madam" , I warned,
"I hate a wasted journey - I am African."
Silence.Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
"HOW DARK?"...I had not misheard...."ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?" Button B. Button A.
Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth.Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar.
It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-
"ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT" Revelation came
"You mean- like plain or milk chocolate?"
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted
I chose. "West African sepia"_ and as afterthought.
"Down in my passport." Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness chaged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece "WHAT'S THAT?" conceding "DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS." "Like
brunette."
"THAT'S DARK, ISN'T IT?"
"Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my
feet.
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused-
Foolishly madam- by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black- One moment madam! - sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears- "Madam," I pleaded, "wouldn't you rather
See for yourself?"

Wole Soyinka












AkinwandeOluwole "Wole" Soyinka (Yoruba: luo lyin, pronounced
"Shoyinka"
[citation needed]
; born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded
the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature,
[1]
the first African to be so honored.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study in Nigeria and the UK, he
worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced
in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history
and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria
Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western
Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal
government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.
[2]

Soyinka has strongly criticised many Nigerian military dictators, especially late General
SanniAbacha, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugaberegime in Zimbabwe.
Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the
colour of the foot that wears it".
[3]
During the regime of General SaniAbacha (199398), Soyinka
escaped from Nigeria via the "Nadeco Route" on a motorcycle. Living abroad, mainly in
the United States, he was a professor first at Cornell University and then at Emory University in
Atlanta, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Abacha
proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in
1999, Soyinka returned to his nation. He has also taught at the universities
of Oxford, Harvard and Yale.
From 1975 to 1999, he was a Professor of Comparative Literature at the ObafemiAwolowo
University, then called the University of Ife. With civilian rule restored in 1999, he was made
professor emeritus.Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas. In the fall of 2007 he was appointed Professor in Residence at Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.






















Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the seep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



















Robert Frost (1941)



























Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work
was initially published in England before it was published in America. He is highly regarded for
his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.
[2]
His work
frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century,
using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and
critically respected American poets of the twentieth century,
[3]
Frost was honored frequently
during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare
"public literary figures, almost an artistic institution."
[3]
He was awarded the Congressional
Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetical works.








Karl Shapiro


















Karl Shapiro was born in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated from the Baltimore City
College high school. He attended the University of Virginia before World War II, and
immortalized it in a scathing poem called "University," which noted that "to hate the Negro and
avoid the Jew is the curriculum." He did not return after his military service.Karl Shapiro, a
stylish writer with a commendable regard for his craft,
[1]
wrote poetry in the Pacific
Theater while he served there during World War II. His collection V-Letter and Other Poems,
written while Shapiro was stationed inNew Guinea, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
Poetry in 1945, while Shapiro was still in the military. Shapiro was American Poet Laureate in
1946 and 1947. (At the time this title was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress which
was changed by Congress in 1985 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress.)
Poems from his earlier books display a mastery of formal verse with a modern sensibility that
viewed such topics as automobiles, house flies, and drug stores as worthy of attention. In 1963,
the poet/critic Randall Jarrell praised Shapiro's work:
Karl Shapiro's poems are fresh and young and rash and live; their hard clear outlines, their flat
bold colors create a world like that of a knowing and skillful neoprimitive painting, without any
of the confusion or profundity of atmosphere, of aerial perspective, but with notable visual and
satiric force. The poet early perfected a style, derived from Auden but decidedly individual,
which he has not developed in later life but has temporarily replaced with the clear Rilke-
like rhetoric of his Adam and Eve poems, the frankly Whitmanesque convolutions of his latest
work. His best poem--poems like "The Leg," "Waitress," "Scyros," "Going to School," "Cadillac"--
have a real precision, a memorable exactness of realization, yet they plainly come out of life's
raw hubbub, out of the disgraceful foundations, the exciting and disgraceful surfaces of
existence.

THE Leg
Karl Shapiro

Among the iodoform, in twilight-sleep,
What have I lost? He first inquiries,
Peers in the middle distance where a pain
Ghost of a nurse, hastily moves, and lay,
Her blinding presence in his eyes
And now his ears, they are handling him
With rubber hands. He wants to get up.

One day besides some flowers near his nose
He will be thinking, when will I look at it?
And pain, still in the middle distance, will reply,
At what? And he ill no its gone
O where! And begin to tremble and cry.
He will begin to cry as a child cries
Whose puppy is mangled under a screaming wheel.

Later as if deliberately, his fingers
Begin to explore the stump. He learns a shape
That is comfortable and tucked in like a sock
This has a sense of humor, this can despise
The finest surgical limb, the dignity of limping,
The non-sense of wheel-chairs. Now he smiles to the wall:
The amputation becomes an acquisition.

For the leg is wondering where he is (all is not lost)
And surely he has a duty to the leg;
He is its injury, the leg is his orphan,
He must cultivate the mind of the leg,
Pray for the part that is missing, pray for peace
In the image of man, pray, pray for its safety,
And after a little, it will die quietly.

The body, what is it Father, but a sign
To love the force that grows us, to give back
What in Thy palm is senselessness and mud?
Knead, knead the substance of our understanding
Which must be beautiful in flesh to walk,
That if Thou take me angrily in hand
And hurl me to the shark, I shall not die!
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazedand gazedbut little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.










William Wordsworth

















William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 23 April 1850) was a major EnglishRomantic poet
who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch theRomantic Age in English literature with
their joint publication Lyrical Ballads(1798).
Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobiographical
poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously
titled and published, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge".
Wordsworth was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.





If
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
(Brother quare-ToesRewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
r being lied about, dont deal in lies,
r being hated, dont give ay to hating,
And yet dont loo too good, nor tal too ise:

If you can dreamand not make dreams your master;
If you can thinkand not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth youve spoen
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build em up ith orn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will hich says to them: Hold on!

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kingsnor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds orth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything thats in it,
Andwhich is moreyoull be a Man, my son!





Rudyard Kipling






Rudyard Kipling by E.O. Hopp (1912)
Born Joseph Rudyard Kipling
30 December 1865
Bombay, Bombay Presidency,British India
Died 18 Januaryw 1936 (aged 70)
Middlesex Hospital, London, England, United Kingdom
Resting place Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, London
Occupation Short story writer, novelist, poet, journalist
Nationality British
Genre Short story, novel, children's literature, poetry, travel literature, science fiction
Notable works The Jungle Book
Just So Stories
Kim
"If"
"Gunga Din"
"The White Man's Burden"
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Literature
1907
Spouse Caroline Starr Balestier (m. 1892-1936) (his death)
Children Josephine, 1892-1899
Elsie 1896-1976
John Kipling 1897-1915


A Dolls House
By: Katherine Mansfield

How It All Goes Down
At the beginning of the play, all seems well. Nora and TorvaldHelmer appear quite happy
together. Torvald speaks to his wife in a rather demeaning way, but she doesn't really seem to
mind. The Helmers are both quite excited because Torvald has gotten a new job as the manager
of a bank. The couple won't have to worry about money anymore. Nora's old school friend,
Mrs. Christine Linde, arrives. She's been recently widowed and is looking for work. Christine is
hoping that Torvald might be able to hook her up with a job. Nora tells her friend that she'll ask
him. Over the course of their conversation, Nora confesses to Christine that she has a secret
debt.
Nora refuses to tell Christine who she borrowed money from, but does explain why she had to
borrow it. Early in the Helmers' marriage, Torvald got sick from overwork. Doctors prescribed a
trip south to warmer climates as the only way to save him. At the time, the Helmers didn't have
the money for such a trip. To save Torvald's pride, Nora borrowed money without his
knowledge and funded a year in Italy. In order to pay off the debt, she's been skimming from
the allowance Torvald gives her and secretly working odd jobs. Nora is especially happy about
Torvald's new job, because now money won't be a concern.
A creepy man named Krogstad shows up. He works at the bank that Torvald is about to
manage. It seems like Nora knows him, but we aren't told why. He goes in to see Torvald.
Christine tells Nora that she once knew Krogstad. We get the idea that they once had a thing for
each other. Dr. Rank enters. He's a Helmer family friend and is dying of tuberculosis of the
spine. He talks about how corrupt and morally diseased Krogstad is, to which Christine says we
should try to help the diseased. Torvald comes out of his office and Nora asks him about a job
for Christine Linde. Torvald agrees, and everybody is happy. Torvald, Dr. Rank, and Christine all
skip away down the street together.
Nora's children rush in. She frolics with them a bit and plays hide-and-go-seek. Then creepy old
Krogstad shows up again. Nora sends the kids away. Krogstad is furious because Torvald is going
to fire him Christine Linde is getting his job. It turns out that he is the person Nora borrowed
money from. He's got a lot of power over Nora, because apparently she forged her father's
signature after he was dead in order to get the loan. Krogstad threatens to expose Nora's crime
if he loses his job. After he leaves, Nora freaks out.
When Torvald returns, Nora tries to talk him into letting Krogstad keep his job. Torvald says he
can't stand Krogstad, because he's does dishonest things like forgery. Nora's husband goes on
to say that he can't stand being around such awful people. He talks about how such people's
presence corrupts their children. Torvald goes back to work. The maid tries to bring the children
back in to play. Nora, fearing she will corrupt them, refuses to see them.
Act Two opens with Nora in a state of extreme agitation. She's hanging out with one of the
maids, Anne, who was Nora's wet-nurse when she was a child. Nora asks Anne to take care of
the kids if she ever disappears.
Christine stops by. Nora shows her a costume that Torvald picked out for her. They're planning
to go to a holiday party in couple night at the Stenborgs', their upstairs neighbors. Christine
goes off to another room to mend the costume. Torvald shows up. Nora begs him to not fire
Krogstad. Her begging only angers off Torvald, and he sends Krogstad his notice.Torvald goes to
his office.
Dr. Rank arrives. Nora does a little subtle flirting with him. She's planning to ask him for the
money to pay off the loan. Her plans are foiled though when he tells her that he'll soon be
dying. He tells her that he'll put a card in the mailbox with a black cross when it begins. He
admits that he is love with her, but Nora tells him that he's being very morbid and
inappropriate. She feels too guilty to ask him for the money. Dr. Rank goes in to see Torvald.
Krogstad busts in, super-mad about getting fired. He tells Nora that he's going to blackmail
Torvald into giving him a better job than the one he had before. Eventually, he'll be running the
bank instead of Torvald. Krogstad warns Nora to not do anything stupid like run away or
commit suicide, because he'll still have power over Torvald anyway. He leaves, dropping a
blackmail letter to Torvaldin the mailbox on his way out.
Nora spazzes out in a major way. Christine returns, and Nora tells her everything. She's afraid
that when Torvald finds out, a wonderful terrible thing will happen. Torvald will take all the
blame for her. Christine says that she used to have a relationship with Krogstad and that maybe
she can change his mind. She runs off to talk to him for Nora.
Torvald and Dr. Rank enter. In order to stop Torvald from opening the mail, Nora pretends she
needs help with her dance for the Stenborgs' party. She dances the tarantella badly. Torvald is
amazed that she forgot all he taught her. He promises to do nothing but help her practice until
the party happens. That means for a little while, the Krogstad's letter will stay where it is. Rank
and Torvald leave. Christin returns and reports that Krogstad wasn't home. She left a note for
him. After Christine leaves, Nora counts down the hours she has to live.
Act Three finds Christine alone in the Helmers' living room. The Stenborgs' party is going on
upstairs. Krogstad enters. Apparently, they used to go out, but Christine eventually ditched him
for a richer man. She had to because her mother was sick and she had two younger brothers to
care for. Christine says that she wants to be with Krogstad again and help him raise his children.
Krogstad is overjoyed. He says he'll demand his blackmail letter back unopened. Christine tells
him not to. She thinks all the lies in the Helmer household need to be revealed. Krogstad takes
off.
The Helmers come down from the party. Christine tells them she was waiting to see Nora in her
costume. Nora whispers, asking what happened with Krogstad. Her friend tells her that she has
nothing to fear anymore from Krogstad, but that she needs to tell Torvald the truth anyway.
Christine exits. Torvald is kind of drunk and tries to get Nora to sleep with him, but she's not in
the mood. Dr. Rank drops by. He's super-drunk. He makes allusions that he is going to die soon
and then exits into the night.
Torvald opens the mailbox. He finds cards that Rank left. They have black crosses on them. Nora
tells him the cards are Rank's way of announcing his death. Torvald laments his friend's
sickness. He tells Nora that sometimes he wishes she was in terrible danger so that he could
save her. Nora tells him to open his mail.
When Torvald reads Krogstad's letter he totally flips out, telling her that she is a terrible person.
He laments that they'll have to do whatever Krogstad says. He insists that Nora is not to be
allowed near the children anymore, because she may corrupt them. Just then, a letter arrives
from Krogstad. In the letter, Krogstad says that he's had a change of heart and will no longer be
blackmailing them. Torvald is really happy and forgives Nora.
Nora, however, doesn't forgive Torvald. She tells him that she was expecting a wonderful thing
to happen. She thought he would try to sacrifice himself for her, taking all the blame on
himself. Nora, of course, wouldn't allow him to do that, and would've committed suicide to stop
him. Torvald's actions made him seem cowardly in Nora's eyes. She tells him that she is leaving
him, because they've never had a real marriage. She's never been more than a doll in his eyes.
He begs her to stay, but she refuses, leaving both him and the kids, with the slamming of a
door.




Katherine Mansfield

Born
14 October 1888
Wellington, New Zealand
Died 9 January 1923 (aged 34)
Fontainebleau, France
Pen name Katherine Mansfield
Nationality New Zealand (British subject)
Literary movement Modernism
Spouse George Bowden, John Middleton Murry
Partner Ida Constance Baker
Relatives Arthur Beauchamp(grandfather)
Harold Beauchamp (father)
Elizabeth von Arnim (cousin)


Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry (14 October 1888 9 January 1923) was a
prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and
wrote under the pen name ofKatherine Mansfield. When she was 19, Mansfield left New Zealand and
settled in the United Kingdom, where she became a friend of modernist writers such as D.H.
Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. In 1917 she was diagnosed withextrapulmonary tuberculosis, which led to
her death at the age of 34.
Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 into a socially prominent family
in Wellington, New Zealand. Her father was a banker and she was a cousin of the author
Countess Elizabeth von Arnim. She had two older sisters, a younger sister and a younger brother, born in
1894.
[1]
Her father, Harold Beauchamp, became the chairman of theBank of New Zealand and was
knighted.
[2][3]
Her grandfather was Arthur Beauchamp, who briefly represented the Pictonelectorate
in Parliament.
[3][4]
In 1893 the Mansfield family moved from Thorndon to Karori, where Mansfield spent
the happiest years of her childhood. She used some of her memories of this time as an inspiration for
the "Prelude" story.
[
Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls' High
School magazine (the family returned to Wellington proper in 1898),
[2]
in 1898 and 1899.
[5]
In 1902 she
became enamoured of a cellist, Arnold Trowell, although the feelings were largely
unreciprocated.
[6]
Mansfield herself was an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell's
father.
[2]

Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling alienated in New Zealand, and of how she had become
disillusioned because of the repression of the Mori people. Mori characters are often portrayed in a
sympathetic or positive light in her later stories, such as "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped".
[1]

In 1903 she moved to London, where she attended Queen's College along with her sisters. Mansfield
recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed she would take up professionally,
[6]
but
she also began contributing to the college newspaper with such dedication that she eventually became
its editor.
[1][5]
She was particularly interested in the works of the French Symbolists and Oscar
Wilde,
[1]
and she was appreciated among her peers for her vivacious and charismatic approach to life and
work.
[5]
She met fellow writer Ida Baker (also known as Lesley Moore),
[1]
a South African, at the college,
and they became lifelong friends.
[2]
Mansfield did not become involved in much political activity when
she lived in London. For example, she did not actively support the suffragette movement in the
UK (women in New Zealand had gained the right to vote in 1893).
Summary of "Through the tunnel by Doris Lessing"

Setting
Tunnel
Time: During holidays;
Place: The shore of a foreign country (big beach and rocky bay);
Main character
Jerry is an orphan English boy that grew up with a single mother.
He cared a lot about his mother and was always a little gentleman to her.
Jerry is spoiled because his mother gives him what he wants and he likes to be the center of
attention.
He very committed to reach his goal even though he knows it is going to be hard.
Jerry is a person who likes to push himself to the limits and likes the challenge.

Plot summary
During the holidays Jerry and his mother went to the shore and stayed in a villa close to a big
and crowded beach and a rocky bay.
While going to the big beach Jerry spotted a rocky bay that caught his attention and he wanted
to investigate but he followed his mother to the big beach.
The following day Jerry went to the rocky bay and while we was swimming he saw a group of
boys standing on the small edge of a cape, he swam towards them and notice that they spoke a
language that he did not understand. The boys let him dive with them. After the boys dived and
came up on the other side of the barrier of rock jerry panic because he knew he could not do
what they did and he made a fool of himself. Jerry tried to find the tunnel in the rock but the
salty water was painful in his eyes. He went to his mother and asked her to buy him goggles,
which he needed to see where the tunnel was. After checking the hole he knew that he would
not be able to swim throughout the tunnel without controlling is breath under water, so he
worked on his breathing and concentrated on going through the tunnel.
The day before Jerry and his mother left, he decided to swim through the tunnel. He dived with
a rock. At first he felt like he could hold his breath without any problems, but as the tunnel
became darker and deeper, he started to panic. Jerry kept swimming and counting, until he
came to a dark point. He thought he was going to die. Finally, Jerry saw a light in the distance,
and he swam to the surface. Although his nose was bleeding, and he was in extreme pain, Jerry
proved himself that he could do what the big boys did.















Doris Lessing

Born Doris May Tayler
22 October 1919
Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran)
Died 17 November 2013 (aged 94)
London, England
Pen name Jane Somers
Occupation Writer
Nationality British
Citizenship United Kingdom
Period 19502013
Genre Novel, short story, biography, drama, libretto, poetry
Literary movement Modernism, postmodernism,Sufism, socialism, feminism, science fiction
May Lessing CH (ne Tayler; 22 October 1919 17 November 2013) was a British novelist, poet,
playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass is
Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952
69), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known
as Canopus in Argos: Archives (19791983).Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in
Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the
female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided
civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the eleventh woman and the oldest person ever to receive
the Nobel Prize in Literature.



The Train from Rhodesia
By:NadineGordimer

A train is heading toward a small, rural station in Southern Africa. The area around the station is
impoverished, as are the people who live there. In the station, the stationmaster, the venders,
and the children prepare for the trains arrival.
The train, from the white, considerably more wealthy area of Rhodesia, approaches the station.
A young white woman stretches out of the trains window to look at a carved lion that an old
African man has to sell. The poor villagers flock to the windows of the train, selling items or
begging for handouts from the other passengers. Children ask for pennies. Dogs and hens
surround the dining car waiting for scraps. One girl throws out chocolates the hard kind, that
no one liked but the hens get them before the dogs do.
The young woman decides the lion is too expensive: three shillings and sixpence. Her husband
thinks the price is preposterous also, but his wife urges him to stop bargaining with the old
man. She withdraws from the window to sit in the compartment across the trains corridor. She
thinks about the lion she has not purchased and all the other similar carvings she has already
bought: bucks, hippos, and elephants. She wonders how these items, which have come to
represent the unreality of her honeymoon trip, will fit in at home and what meaning they will
take on in her everyday life. She realizes that she has been subconsciously thinking that her
new husband was part of this unreality, as if he would vanish as soon as the honeymoon ends.
The bell rings in the station, and the stationmaster prepares the train to leave. As the train
starts moving on the track, the old man with the lion runs alongside it, offering the carving for
one-and-six only a fraction of what he had asked for before. The husband tosses the money
out the window and the old man throws the lion to him. As the train leaves the station, the old
man is standing, holding the shilling and sixpence he has picked up from the ground.
The young man enters the compartment where his wife sits, pleased with having obtained the
lion figure for so little, and hands it to her. Though she admires its finely crafted features and
the ruff of fur around its neck, she holds it away from her. She is dismayed at this purchase
because it represents the humiliation her husband has forced upon the old African. She
demands to know why he did not pay a fair price for it. He protests that she herself had said it
was too expensive. The young woman throws the lion onto the seat in frustration.
A sense of shame engulfs her as she thinks of the price. She feels an emptiness inside herself.
She has felt this way before but mistakenly thought it came from being alone too much; now
she knows that is not true. The empty feeling is tied up with her new husband and their
differing value systems. Her husband is sprawled out on the seat and she remains with her back
toward him. The abandoned lion has fallen into a corner.
Characters
Old man
The old man initially tries to sell his carved lion for three shillings and sixpence to the young
couple, but fails. Later, he shouts to the young man already on the train that he will sell it for
one-and-six. His acceptance of such a low price and his breath, visible between his ribs,
indicate that he is desperate and probably very poor. His polite manners, his smiling, not from
the heart, but at the customer, indicate both his dire circumstances and his dependence on
tourists like the young couple. Gordimer offers little description, but indicates that he is very
old, a man who murmurs, as old people repeat things to themselves. Gordimer refers twice to
his feet in the sand, thus showing the old mans connection with the land, which contrasts with
the young couple who are enclosed in the train.
Stationmaster
The stationmaster appears briefly in the story. As the train approaches, he comes out of his
little brick station with its pointed chalet roof, feeling the creases in his serge uniform. His
discomfort in the suit represents his attempt to fit in an unnatural role imposed on him by his
job. The presence of his barefoot children and wife emphasize the poverty of the small town.
When his children collect their mothers two loaves of bread, the stationmasters
dependence on the benevolence of the train from white, European-dominated Rhodesia is
emphasized.
Young man
The young man accompanies the young woman on the train. He is surprised when she declines
to buy the lion from the native at the train station. Despite the womans decision, he bargains
with the
old man for fun and then automatically accepts the old mans low offer of one-and-six. He
throws the money to the old man and catches the lion as it is thrown to him. Whereas the
young womans conscience is torn, the young man simply seems to be enjoying his trip.











Nadine Gordimer


Nadine Gordimer (20 November 1923 13 July 2014) was a South African writer, political
activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman
"who through her magnificent epic writing has in the words of Alfred Nobel been of very
great benefit to humanity".
[1]

Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa.
Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was
active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days
when the organization was banned. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.
Gordimer was born near Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand mining town outsideJohannesburg. Her
father, IsidoreGordimer, was a Jewish immigrant watchmaker from agar (then Russian
Empire, now Lithuania),
[2][3]
and her mother, Hannah "Nan" (Myers) Gordimer, was
from London.
[4][5]
Her mother was from an assimilated family of Jewish origins; Gordimer was
raised in asecular household.
[2



The Necklace
By:Guy de Maupassant
At the beginning of the story, we meet MathildeLoisel, a middle-class girl who desperately
wishes she were wealthy. She's got looks and charm, but had the bad luck to be born into a
family of clerks, who marry her to another clerk (M. Loisel) in the Department of Education.
Mathilde is so convinced she's meant to be rich that she detests her real life and spends all day
dreaming and despairing about the fabulous life she's not having. She envisions footmen,
feasts, fancy furniture, and strings of rich young men to seduce.

One day M. Loisel comes home with an invitation to a fancy ball thrown by his boss, the
Minister of Education. M. Loisel has gone to a lot of trouble to get the invitation, but Mathilde's
first reaction is to throw a fit. She doesn't have anything nice to wear, and can't possibly go!
How dare her husband be so insensitive? M. Loisel doesn't know what to do, and offers to buy
his wife a dress, so long as it's not too expensive. Mathilde asks for 400 francs, and he agrees.
It's not too long before Mathilde throws another fit, though, this time because she has no
jewels. So M. Loisel suggests she go see her friend Mme. Forestier, a rich woman who can
probably lend her something. Mathilde goes to see Mme. Forestier, and she is in luck. Mathilde
is able to borrow a gorgeous diamond necklace. With the necklace, she's sure to be a stunner.

The night of the ball arrives, and Mathilde has the time of her life. Everyone loves her (i.e., lusts
after her) and she is absolutely thrilled. She and her husband (who falls asleep off in a corner)
don't leave until 4am. Mathilde suddenly dashes outside to avoid being seen in her shabby
coat. She and her husband catch a cab and head home. But once back at home, Mathilde makes
a horrifying discovery: the diamond necklace is gone.

M. Loisel spends all of the next day, and even the next week, searching the city for the
necklace, but finds nothing. It's gone. So he and Mathilde decide they have no choice but to buy
Mme. Forestier a new necklace. They visit one jewelry store after another until at last they find
a necklace that looks just the same as the one they lost. Unfortunately, it's 36 thousand francs,
which is exactly twice the amount of all the money M. Loisel has to his name. So M. Loisel goes
massively into debt and buys the necklace, and Mathilde returns it to Mme. Forestier, who
doesn't notice the substitution. Buying the necklace catapults the Loisels into poverty for the
next ten years. That's right, ten years. They lose their house, their maid, their comfortable
lifestyle, and on top of it all Mathilde loses her good looks.

After ten years, all the debts are finally paid, and Mathilde is out for a jaunt on the Champs
Elyses. There she comes across Mme. Forestier, rich and beautiful as ever. Now that all the
debts are paid off, Mathilde decides she wants to finally tell Mme. Forestier the sad story of the
necklace and her ten years of poverty, and she does. At that point, Mme. Forestier, aghast,
reveals to Mathilde that the necklace she lost was just a fake. It was worth only five hundred
francs.


Guy de Maupassant


Henri Ren Albert Guy de Maupassant (French: *id() mopas +; 5 August 1850 6 July 1893)
was a popular French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one
of the form's finest exponents.
Maupassant was a protg of Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style
and efficient, effortless dnouements (dramatic structure). Many are set during the Franco-
Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught
up in events beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences. He wrote
some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. His first
published story, "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat", 1880), is often considered his masterpiece.












The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
By:Gabriel Garcia-Marquez


"The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" opens with a group of children playing on the
beach of a small fishing village. In the waves a "dark and slinky" bulge is approaching. It turns
out to be a drowned man, covered in seaweed, stones, and dead sea creatures. The men head
to neighboring villages to see if the dead man belongs to one of them, while the women clean
off the body and prepare it for a funeral.

Before we go any further, there are some things you should know about this small fishing
village. It's a coastal, cliff-side town, a "desertlike cape" "with no flowers," and so little land that
the inhabitants have to throw their dead over the cliffs and into the sea rather than bury them
in the ground. The inhabitants are a simple group of people, who believe in myths as strongly as
what they see with their eyes. It's such a small village, that the all the men combined fit into
seven boats, and there are only about twenty houses among them all.

Now back to the tale. While the women work on the drowned man's body, they quickly find
that he is the biggest, strongest-looking, most virile, and handsomest man they have ever seen
in their lives, or could ever imagine. They conclude that he is a man named Esteban, and when
the men return with the news that no neighboring towns can claim him, the women weep with
joy that he is now "theirs."

The men don't understand what all the fuss is about until the women show them the drowned
man's face. Then they, too, are in awe at his handsomeness, his masculinity, and his size. While
they admire the drowned man, they think that he must have been ashamed of his size in life,
and must have felt awkward on account of it.

Together, the villagers prepare a splendid funeral for the drowned man. When they finally let
his body go over the cliff and back to the waves below, they all know that their lives have been
permanently changed. They know that they will build their houses stronger and bigger, so as to
be big enough for a man like Esteban. They will paint their walls brighter and plant flowers, so
that some day, when the ships pass by their town, they will look at the bright, beautiful,
fragrant town and say, "that's Esteban's village."

























Gabriel Jos de la Concordia GarcaMrquez (American Spanish: *ajelarsi.a
markes+ audio (helpinfo); 6 March 1927 17 April 2014) was aColombian novelist, short-story
writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America.
Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, he was awarded the
1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.
[1]
He
pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in
journalism. From early on, he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign
politics. In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha; they had two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
[2]

GarcaMrquez started as a journalist, and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short
stories, but is best known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The
Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved
significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a
literary style labeled as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise
ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his works are set in a fictional village
called Macondo (the town mainly inspired by his birthplaceAracataca), and most of them
explore the theme of solitude.
On his death in April 2014, Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia, described him as
"the greatest Colombian who ever lived"

Gabriel GarcaMrquez