John Donne – Meditation XVII
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the
bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Ningún hombre es una isla,
entera en
sí,
Cada
hombre es pieza de continente,
parte del
total.
Si el
villano es arrastrado por el mar,
Europa se
reduce.
Cual si
fuera promontorio,
cual si
fuera coro de amigos,
o
fuera propia:
Toda
muerte me disminuye,
pues estoy
con la humanidad
Así no
pidas saber por
quién dobla la campana;
dobla por ti.
A. Answer the following questions:
1.
Could you summarize the content of
the poem in just a sentence?
Each human is a part of a whole, humanity.
2.
What does the poem make you feel?
It makes me feel a bit melancholic as well as a bit reflexive. Are we just a small piece of a huge puzzle? what happens if a piece gets lost? does it affect us?
3.
Do you consider the poem a good
description of a feeling? Why?
From my point of view, the poem cannot be considered a description of a feeling itself, because it doesn't portray or list a serie of characteristics about an especific emotion, which would be the main topic. However it produces in the reader the feeling of anguish and melancholy that the author wanted to transmitt by touching topics as dead, and lost.
Text from: For Whom the Bell Tolls?, by
Ernest Hemingway
The night was
clear and his head felt as clear and cold as the air. He smelled the odor of
the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the
sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. Pilar, he thought. Pilar
and the smell of death. This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover,
the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of
autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the
piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which
would you rather smell? Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets? Smoked
leather? The odor of the ground in the spring after rain? The smell of the sea
as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia? Or the wind from the
land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark? That was the odor of the cactus
flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying
bacon in the morning when you are hungry? Or coffee in the morning? Or a
Jonathan apple as you bit into it? Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread
fresh from the oven? You must be hungry, he thought, and he lay on his side and
watched the entrance of the cave in the light that the stars reflected from the
snow.
B. Answer the questions:
1.
Do you consider this text a
description? From your view, what is he describing?
Yes, because it lists a serie of adjetctives about certain objects or aliments which help the reader imagine them.
From my point of view he describes two things. First the scenary he is at and then the two smells he loves the most
2.
Could a description include
questions?
Yes, if it is to help the reader visualize the topic which is being defined.
3.
What is the smell for the author?
Nostalgia
4.
Could you write a topic sentence for
the excerpt?
The smell of the past.
