“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” ― George Orwell

Unknown Facts About George Orwell

George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, (born June 25, 1903, Motihari, Bengal, India—died January 21, 1950, London, England), a popular English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), the latter a profound anti-utopian novel that examines the dangers of totalitarian rule. Here are some facts that might be interesting for you:

1. His Name is Eric, He Was Born in India and His Dad Was In the Opium Biz

2. His First Word Was “Beastly”

3. He Was a Policeman in Burma

4. He Willingly Lived a Life of Poverty in Paris, and One of a Tramp in London—But Help Wasn’t Far Away

5. He Was Superstitious

6. He Fought In the Spanish Civil War

7. He Worked For the BBC

8. He Finally Met Ernest Hemmingway

9. He Loved His Tea

for further facts and more details please read:https://writingasiplease.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/facts-about-george-orwell/

source:https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Orwell

“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” ― Octavia E. Butler

                                                     https://time.com/5225461/octavia-butler-janelle-monae/

Happy Birthday to Octavia Butler.She died in 2006—much too young, at only 58—already a certified genius who had a profound impact on many readers and writers across the world. Not surprisingly, this includes many of the best writers of SF, fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror working today, and so to celebrate Butler’s birthday, Emily Temple collected a few of their thoughts on her influence.
here you can find the whole article "The Grand Cultural Influence of Octavia Butler" and some writers who are influenced by Butler's work:
https://lithub.com/the-grand-cultural-influence-of-octavia-butler/

My mouth blooms like a cut. - Anne Sexton

                                                           Kiss Alphabet, Ewa Partum' s Active Poetry

 My mouth blooms like a cut.

I've been wronged all year, tedious

nights, nothing but rough elbows in them

and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby

crybaby, you fool! 

Before today my body was useless.

Now it's tearing at its square corners.

It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot

and see - Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.

Zing! A resurrection! 

Once it was a boat, quite wooden

and with no business, no salt water under it

and in need of some paint. It was no more

than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.

She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like

musical instruments. Where there was silence

the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.

Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped

into fire. 

The Kiss

Anne Sexton

How far back in time could you go and still understand English?

The last work that we are analyzing in our lectures "Intro to Poetry", "English Poetry I" or "Introduction to English Poetry" is Beowulf. Here are the opening Lines of Beowulf In Old English. You may want to try to read them aloud before listening to the original version. Try it yourself:

Beowulf (Old English version)

BY ANONYMOUS

Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, 

þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, 

hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. 

Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, 

monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, 

egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð 

feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, 

weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, 

oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra 

ofer hronrade hyran scolde, 

gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning. 

ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, 

geong in geardum, þone god sende 

folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat 

þe hie ær drugon aldorlease 

lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea, 

wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; 

Beowulf wæs breme blæd wide sprang, 

Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. 

Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, 

fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme, 

þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen 

wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume, 

leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal 

in mægþa gehwære man geþeon. 

Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile 

felahror feran on frean wære. 

Hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe, 

swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd, 

þenden wordum weold wine Scyldinga; 

leof landfruma lange ahte. 

þær æt hyðe stod hringedstefna, 

isig ond utfus, æþelinges fær. 

Aledon þa leofne þeoden, 

beaga bryttan, on bearm scipes, 

mærne be mæste. þær wæs madma fela 

of feorwegum, frætwa, gelæded; 

ne hyrde ic cymlicor ceol gegyrwan 

hildewæpnum ond heaðowædum, 

billum ond byrnum; him on bearme læg 

madma mænigo, þa him mid scoldon 

on flodes æht feor gewitan. 

“All Stories are True.” ― John Edgar Wideman

Happy Birthday to John Edgar Wideman (born June 14, 1941, Washington, D.C., U.S.), American writer regarded for his intricate literary style in novels about the experiences of black men in contemporary urban America.
for more pls read: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Edgar-Wideman

“They killed everyone in the camps. The whole world was dying there. Not only Jews. Even a black woman. Not gypsy. Not African. American like you, Mrs. Clara.

They said she was a dancer and could play any instrument. Said she could line up shoes from many countries and hop from one pair to the next, performing the dances of the world. They said the Queen of Denmark honored her with a gold trumpet. But she was there, in hell with the rest of us.

A woman like you. Many years ago. A lifetime ago. Young then as you would have been. And beautiful. As I believe you must have been, Mrs. Clara. Yes. Before America entered the war. Already camps had begun devouring people. All kinds of people. Yet she was rare. Only woman like her I saw until I came here, to this country, this city. And she saved my life.

Poor thing.

I was just a boy. Thirteen years old. The guards were beating me. I did not know why. Why? They didn't need a why. They just beat. And sometimes the beating ended in death because there was no reason to stop, just as there was no reason to begin. A boy. But I'd seen it many times. In the camp long enough to forget why I was alive, why anyone would want to live for long. They were hurting me, beating the life out of me but I was not surprised, expected no explanation. I remember curling up as I had seen a dog once cowering from the blows of a rolled newspaper. In the old country lifetimes ago. A boy in my village staring at a dog curled and rolling on its back in the dust outside a baker's shop and our baker in his white apron and tall white hat striking this mutt again and again. I didn't know what mischief this dog had done. I didn't understand why the fat man with flour on his apron was whipping it unmercifully. I simply saw it and hated the man, felt sorry for the animal, but already the child in me understood it could be no other way so I rolled and curled myself against the blows as I'd remembered the spotted dog in the dusty village street because that's the way it had to be. 

Then a woman's voice in a language I did not comprehend reached me. A woman angry, screeching. I heard her before I saw her. She must have been screaming at them to stop. She must have decided it was better to risk dying than watch the guards pound a boy to death. First I heard her voice, then she rushed in, fell on me, wrapped herself around me. The guards shouted at her. One tried to snatch her away. She wouldn't let go of me and they began to beat her too. I heard the thud of clubs on her back, felt her shudder each time a blow was struck. 

She fought to her feet, dragging me with her. Shielding me as we stumbled and slammed into a wall.

My head was buried in her smock. In the smell of her, the smell of dust, of blood. I was surprised how tiny she was, barely my size, but strong, very strong. Her fingers dug into my shoulders, squeezing, gripping hard enough to hurt me if I hadn't been past the point of feeling pain. Her hands were strong, her legs alive and warm, churning, churning as she pressed me against herself, into her. Somehow she'd pulled me up and back to the barracks wall, propping herself, supporting me, sheltering me. Then she screamed at them in this language I use now but did not know one word of then, cursing them, I'm sure, in her mother tongue, a stream of spit and sputtering sounds as if she could build a wall of words they could not cross. 

The kapos hesitated, astounded by what she'd dared. Was this black one a madwoman, a witch? Then they tore me from her grasp, pushed me down and I crumpled there in the stinking mud of the compound. One more kick, a numbing, blinding smash that took my breath away. Blood flooded my eyes. I lost consciousness. Last I saw of her she was still fighting, slim, beautiful legs kicking at them as they dragged and punched her across the yard. 

You say she was colored?

Yes. Yes. A dark angel who fell from the sky and saved me.” 
― John Edgar Wideman, Fever

W.B YEATS DAY CHALLENGE JUNE 13th

“I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”  ― W.B. Yeats

In memory of William Butler Yeats born on this day in 1865. Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority that had controlled the economic, political, social, and cultural life of Ireland since at least the end of the 17th century. Most members of this minority considered themselves English people who  happened to have been born in Ireland, but Yeats was staunch in affirming his Irish nationality.

for more pls read: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats

"The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

https://tinselcreation.com/2015/07/07/william-butler-yeats-song-of-wandering-aengus-trina-schart-hyman-for-cricket-magazine/

“Song of Wandering Aengus” 
by William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Donovan - The Song Of Wandering Aengus

SINGLE COURSE EXAMS-GRADES ARE ANNOUNCED

Dear Students,
The single course exam will be held on 13.06.2019. Please contact the research assistant and the department for further details. Pls be aware that I do not use the uni-system. If you need guidiance you can send me an e-mail.
best
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