新视野大学英语第四册unit5new.ppt

Unit 5 Choose to Be Alone on Purpose Lead-in Activity Discuss the following questions: 1. Do you always enjoy isolation? Background information 1. Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862) was an US thinker, essayist, and naturalist. Thoreau graduated from Harvard University and taught school for several years before leaving his job to become a poet of nature. In the years 1845—1847, to demonstrate how satisfying a simple life could be, he lived in a hut beside Concords Walden Pond; essays recording his daily life were assembled for his masterwork, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854). His A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) was the only other book he published in his lifetime. In later years his interest in Transcendentalism waned, and he became a dedicated abolitionist. His many nature writings and records of his wanderings in Canada, Maine, and Cape Cod display the mind of a keen naturalist. 2. John Milton (1608—1674) was an English poet and pamphleteer. Milton attended the University of Cambridge (1625—1632), where he wrote poems in Latin, Italian, and English. In 1632—1639 he engaged in private study and toured Europe, spending most of his time in Italy. His best-known prose is in the pamphlets Areopagitica (1644) and Of Education (1644). He also wrote tracts on divorce and against the monarchy and the Church of England. His Paradise Lost (1667, 1674), considered the greatest epic poem in English, uses blank verse and reworks Classical epic conventions to recount the Fall of Man; Miltons characterization of Satan has been widely admired. Paradise Regained (1671) is a shorter epic in which Christ overcomes Satan the tempter, and Samson Agonistes (1671) is a dramatic poem in which the Old Testament figure conquers self-pity and despair to become Gods champion. Considered the greatest English poet after William Shakespeare, Milton had wide influence on later literature. 3. William Wordsworth (1770—1850) was an English poet. Wordsworths contributions include m