Sinteza Engleza Cp an III

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ENGLISH PRACTICAL COURSE(Third year, first term)

Adina TUDOSESCU

INTRODUCTION

Equally due to the general bias and specificity (as the main applied component of thecurriculum), and to the inherent interdisciplinary perspective, the course compulsorily impliesthe integration of the following coordinates of design:- various activities targeted upon actualising, refining and/or supplementing certain areas ofknowledge within the fields of (derivational) morphology, syntax and semantics by means ofrestructuring, reshaping, and resizing information in accordance to a strictly appliedorientation, and thus creating a functional interface with theoretical disciplines;- a focus upon improving and diversifying the students training in translation practice, withthe entailing beneficial effects upon the enriching of specialised language vocabulary invarious domains;

- exercising the abilities involved in the complex analysis of content and in text commentary,activating the deductive, intuitive and communicative skills, testing coherence and logicalprocesses in ideation and argumentation, stimulating the creative potential. In closerelationship with the last issue, the structure of the course will also include several topics (andguidelines) for essays and/or debates.

OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE

The characteristic of the course being the pre-eminently applied dimension, its centralgoal resides in enhancing linguistic performance at lexical-semantic, grammatical (phonetic,morphological, syntactic), and stylistic levels. In order to improve actualising abilities, boththe systematic acquisition of new information, and the sustained activation, development andintegration of already acquired knowledge are going to be envisaged. By means of the diversethematic content and the selected texts, a certain benefit in terms of students general cultural

background is also targeted.

GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE UNITS AND MODULES

The macro-structural organisation of the course consists offourbroadly encompassingunits (see Contents of the course). These units are all internally articulated in conformity toan iterative sequence of didacticmodules (the text, vocabulary, grammar, translation, essay /debate modules), the methodological characteristic of which resides in their more often thannot presupposing an integrative level in what concerns the basic skills (reading, listening,

speaking, writing). Therefore, a unit will (in general) contain:a) a text of 1-2 pages constituting the nucleus of the unit, and representing the object of acomplex analysis (lexical and grammatical aspects, relevant stylistic features, contentcommentary , which text will be preceded by introductory requirements featuring athematically orienting role, andfollowed by a set of assignments meant to facilitate and guidethe analysis;

b) vocabulary study and practice;c) the grammar section (brieftheoreticalpresentation / revision and exercises);d) 1-2 supplementary texts (of variable length), dealing with topics related to the one of themain text, and which can be used on various purposes (for translation tasks, as starting pointfor additional lexical-grammatical applications or for comments / debates, as furtherinformation and reading);e) indicated topics for essays / debates (which may be accompanied by suggested guidelines,landmarks or possibly necessary references);f) 1-2 texts for translation into English.


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CONTENTS OF THE COURSE

(First term)

UNIT I: EARLY MEMORIES. THE FIRST QUESTIONS

- A Christmas Memoryby Truman Capote- A Message from the Pig-Man by John Barrington Wain

- Grammar: Word-formation processes; Existential Sentences; Uses / levels of Negation

UNIT II: EXISTENCE AND THE SELF. THE GREAT QUESTIONS (I)

- Night-Sea Journeyby John Barth (I)- The Human Driftby Jack London

- Grammar: Free Relative Clauses; Finiteness / Non-Finiteness of Clauses

UNIT III: EXISTENCE AND THE SELF. THE GREAT QUESTIONS (II)

- Night-Sea Journeyby John Barth (II)- Before Adam by Jack London

- Grammar: Comparison of adjectives; Cleft Constructions

UNIT IV: THE ETERNAL DUALITY. THE QUESTION WITH NO ANSWER

- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson- Compensation by Ralph Waldo Emerson

- Grammar: Numerals

UNIT I

EARLY MEMORIES. THE FIRST QUESTIONS

Preliminaries

1. Enumerate and briefly comment upon some of the various possible approaches tochildhood (points of view, domains of analysis and/or study).2. What makes childhood exert a real fascination upon us, and what makes it be of scientificinterest?3. Which of the numerous literary works devoted to childhood is the first to come to yourmind, and why?

A. A Christmas Memoryby Truman Capote

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty yearsago. Imagine the kitchen of a big old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main

feature, but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs in front of it.A woman with short white hair is standing at the kitchen window, her breath steaming thewindowpane as she exclaims: Oh my, its fruitcake weather!

The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something. We aredistant cousins, and we have lived together with other relatives here as long as I canremember. We are each others best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who wasonce her best friend, and who died when she was still a child. Now she turns away from thewindow joyfully. I knew it before I got out of bed. Oh Buddy, fetch our buggy and help mefind my hat. We have thirty cakes to bake!

Its always the same: a morning arrives in November, and she announces: Its fruitcakeweather, Buddy! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.

Together, we take our buggy, an old baby carriage, out in the garden and into the grove ofpecan-nut trees. The buggy is mine; that is, it was bought for me when I was born. We use itall year round now for jobs like hauling firewood from the yard to the kitchen, or as a warm

bed for Queenie, our tough little orange-and-white terrier. Queenie is trotting beside it now.


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Three hours later we are back in the kitchen shelling a buggyload of nuts which we havepicked. The kitchen is growing dark as we work by the fireside. At last the buggy is empty,the bowl is full. We eat our supper and discuss tomorrow. Tomorrow the kind of work I like

best begins: buying.Buying? What all were going to buy? Cherries and candied lemon peel, ginger and

vanilla and canned pineapple, and raisins and walnuts and whisky and, oh, so much flour,butter, so many eggs, spices, flavorings why, well need a pony to pull the buggy home!

But before these purchases can be made, there is the question of money. Neither of us hasany, except for what we earn ourselves from various activities. Once we won the seventy-ninth prize, five dollars, in a national football contest. Not that we know anything aboutfootball. Its just that we enter any contest we hear about. So one way or another, each yearwe save up a Fruitcake Fund. This we keep hidden in an old purse under the floor under myfriends bed. This purse is seldom removed from this location except to make a deposit, or, ashappens every Saturday, when I am allowed ten cents to go to the cinema. My friend hasnever been to a cinema, nor does she want to. Id rather you tell the story, Buddy. That way Ican imagine it more. Besides, people my age shouldnt waste their eyesight. When the Lordcomes for me, let me see Him clear.

Now, with supper finished, we retire to her little bedroom in a faraway part of the house.

Silently, we take the purse from its secret place and spill its contents on the bed: dollar billsand coins. We count slowly, lose track, start again. According to her calculations we have $12.73. According to mine, exactly $ 13. Oh, I do hope youre wrong, Buddy. We cant haveanything to do with thirteen. The cakes will fall. Tell you what! To be on the safe side letstake a penny and toss it out the window!

Of the ingredients that go into our fruitcakes, whisky is the most expensive, as well as thehardest to obtain State law forbids its sale. But everybody knows you can buy a bottle fromMr. Haha Jones. And the next day, having finished our other shopping, we set out for Mr.Hahas, a caf down by the river. They call him Haha because hes so gloomy, a man whonever laughs. Footsteps, the door opens, our hearts turn over: its Mr. Haha Jones himself!And he is a giant and he doesnt smile. If you please, Mr. Haha, wed like a bottle of yourfinest whisky. And would you believe it? Haha is smiling! Laughing, too, and asking whichone of us is the drinking man. She: Its for my fruitcakes, Mr. Haha. Cooking. We pay himhis two dollars. Then suddenly his face softens. And he is pouring the money back into our

purse, with instructions to send him one of the fruitcakes instead. On the way home my friendremarks, Well, theres a lovely man! Well put an extra cup of raisins in his cake!

The black stove glows with the heat. Eggbeaters whirl, spoons spin round in bowls ofbutter and sugar, vanilla sweetens the air, ginger spices it, lovely odors fill the kitchen and thehouse, drift out to the world in chimney smoke. In four days our work is done. Thirty-onecakes, dampened with whisky, sit on window sills and shelves. Who are they for?

Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends indeed the larger share are for persons weve

met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People like the President and his wife in Washington.Like the Baptist missionary who lectured here last winter. Or the driver of the six oclock busfrom Mobile, who waves to us every day as he passes. The scrapbook we keep of thank-younotes on White House paper, and communications from places like California and Borneo,make us feel connected to the world beyond the kitchen.

Now it is December. The kitchen is empty, the cakes are gone. Yesterday we carted the lastof them to the post office, and we feel like celebrating. My friend pours the last drops of Mr.Hahas whisky into her teacup and lets me have a taste. Even Queenie gets a drop. I giggleand spit it out, and suddenly were laughing and singing songs. I try to tap dance evenQueenie has the party spirit. Enter two relatives. Very angry! Listen to what they have to say:A child of seven tasting whisky! You must be crazy! Shame! Scandal! Humiliation! Kneel,

pray, beg the Lords pardon! Queenie sneaks under the stove, my friend looks down at hershoes, her chin quivers, she lifts her skirt and blows her nose and runs to her room. Long afterthe town has gone to sleep and the house is silent, she is weeping into her pillow. Pleasedont cry please. Dont cry. Youre too old for that. Its because Im too old. Old and


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funny. Not funny fun. More fun than anybody. Listen, if you dont stop crying, youll beso tired tomorrow we cant go cut a tree. Buddy, thats right! Tomorrow we go out in thewoods and find our Christmas tree, the best weve ever had! A tree twice as big as a boy. AndI know just the one way out in the back of the forest!

And its true: the tree we cut down is indeed twice as tall as a boy, and so fine that peoplewho pass us on the way home compliment us on it, and one woman, the richest in town, stopsher car and offers us fifty cents cash for it. To which my friend says: Wouldnt take a

dollar. And when the lady says we could find another like it, my friend says: I doubt it.Theres never two of anything.After making the holly wreaths for the windows, our next project is family gifts. When it

comes to making each others gifts, my friend and I separate to work secretly. No matter whatwed like to give each other, we always end up making kites. Which is fine with me, for weare champion kite-fliers. Christmas Eve afternoon we go to the butchers to buy Queeniestraditional bone, which we wrap in funny paper and place high in the tree near the silver star.Queenie knows its there and sits at the foot of the tree staring up at it. Her excitement isequal to my own: I cannot sleep, and neither can my friend. Late that night my friend tells me,Buddy, I feel so bad. I wanted to give you a bike, but I couldnt. So I made you anotherkite. Know something? I made you a kite, too. Well now, isnt that the limit? And wont

we have fun flying them?The next morning, after a marvellous breakfast, which were too impatient to eat, we get

our presents. Well, Im disappointed, who wouldnt be? My best present is my kite, which isvery beautiful blue with gold and green stars and my name painted on it. My friend lovesher kite, too. Buddy, the wind is blowing And nothing will do till weve gone to a pasture

below the house where Queenie has already run to bury her bone, and where a winter hence,Queenie will be buried, too. There we fly our kites, like shy fish swimming into the wind.Were very happy, so happy that my friend announces: I could leave the world with today inmy eyes!

This is our last Christmas together. Im sent to a military school, and I have a new home,too. But it doesnt count. Home is where my friend is, and there I never go. And there shestays, working in the kitchen, alone with Queenie, and then alone. For one day a letter comesfrom her Buddy dear, yesterday a horse kicked Queenie bad. Be thankful she didnt feelmuch. I wrapped her in a fine linen sheet and rode her in the buggy down to the pasture whereshe can be with all her bones. Enclosed please find ten cents. See a picture show and write methe story.

For a few Novembers she continues to bake her fruitcakes, not as many, but some, alwayssending me what she likes to call The Best of the Batch!

Then one November arrives when she cannot find it to exclaim: Oh my, its fruitcakeweather! And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so only confirms what I knowalready, cutting me off from part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That

is why, walking to class on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As ifI expected to see, like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven.

Reading comprehension and comments

1. How would you explain the close friendship between the boy and the old woman? Comment alsoupon the general causes for childrens often getting along better with the elderly than with people oftheir parents generation or of their own age.

2. How do you imagine the relatives?3. Identify the given hints regarding the family and social status of the two friends, and formulate

some possible more precise accounts of their positions.4. What seems to determine their condition?5. In the eyes of the world, what do they have in common?

6. What do they really share?7. Try and characterise the old woman, highlighting the most important clues that you have.8. Why are we not told her name?9. Why does the dog fit so naturally in the picture?

10. Is there any relationship between fruitcake weather and the Christmas spirit?


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11. How do the habitual and the particular intertwine during the story, and how does this contribute toconferring an almost ritualistic significance to the two friends activities?12. Do the last three paragraphs come as a complete surprise to the reader, or were there anyforetelling elements (in terms of tone, atmosphere, and events)?13. Comment upon the old womans words: Theres never two of anything.14. Were the two friends really happy? Answer considering their lives from the following

perspectives: seven-year-old Buddy; twenty-seven-year-old Buddy; the old woman; Queenie; therelatives and the rest of the country town; yourself.

B. Vocabulary study and practice

1. Look up the meaning(s) of the following words or phrases in a dictionary:

Ns: buggy; grove; peel; ginger; spice; tap dance; humiliation; wreath; pasture; linen; batchVs: to haul; to trot; to shell; to toss; to whirl; to drift; to dampen; to giggle; to spit; to sneak; to quiver

As / Avs: gloomy; shy; loose; hence2. There are some names of fruits in the text. List them, and then try to complete this lexical

field. (Add all the English names of indigenous and exotic fruits that you know, also looking up in aRomanian-English dictionary for those the English names of which you do not know.)3. Consider the verbs: a)fetch, bring, deliverand b)toss, throw, cast.Out of each group, the firstone, and not the others, is used in the text. Can you tell why? (Take into account such distinctivefeatures as: a) [ departing from a certain location, and coming back with something], [ bringing as

part of a (catering) agreement]; b) [ in a rather careless way, lightly].) Which of the six verbs cancollocate withany of the following:look, shadow, doubt, vote, anchor? Explain the meaning of theidioms: to cast pearls before swine; the die is cast.

4. What is the meaning of the sentence Well now, isnt that the limit?? Look for some othercollocations / idioms containing limit (e.g. the sky is the limit), explain their meaning, and usethem in sentences of your own.

C. Grammar

1. Word-formation processes

1.1. a) Identify all the compounds in the text, and group them in accordance to their type in a

three-column list. (Pay attention! They are quite numerous.) b) Identify the word class of theircomponents. c) Explain and illustrate the general rules of forming the plural of compounds.

1.1. Compounding (knowledge refreshing)Compounds are combinations of at least two free morphemes, the global meaning of which is more or lesssignificantly different from the sum of the meanings of the components. The following types can bedistinguished: welded (solid) e.g.: housekeeper; hyphenated e.g.: thunder-struck; open (separate words) e.g.: vacuum cleaner. The graphical aspect also acts as an indicator of morphological behaviour. Weldedcompounds form the plural by always normally adding the nominal plural marker -s (-es) in the end, irrespectiveof the word class of the components (e.g.: pullovers, pancakes). For the other two types the plural marker isattracted to the nominal component (or to the determined noun, if there are two or three nominals), irrespectiveof its position (e.g.: passers-by, brothers-in-law, book reviews). Hyphenated compounds containing no nounsadd the plural marker in the end (e.g.: merry-go-rounds). Unlike welded compounds, hyphenated and open onesmay evince redundancy of the plural marker when containing certain nouns that have an irregular plural (e.g.:fishermen vs. women candidates but: mouse-traps).1.2. a) Identify all the cases of conversion (zero derivation) in the text. b) In each case, indicate

the initial and the resulting word class. c) Add a few examples of your own, illustrating both fulland partial conversion.1.2. Conversion (knowledge refreshing)The process consists in changing the word class of a lexeme, without any change in form (full conversion) e.g.:bottle to bottle or with minor such changes (partial, marginal conversion) e.g.: to hate hatred, abstract to abstract(stress shift). The most productive types are V N, N V, A V conversions.1.3. a) The causative verbs sweetenanddampenare formed from adjectives by adding a verb-forming suffix. Can you paraphrase them? b) Consider also the following similar examples: widen, deafen, blacken. Add three more examples, and use all six of them in sentences of your

own.

2. Existential Sentences

2.1. a) Identify the existential sentences in the text. b) Express the same meaning under the form

of equivalent sentences of the standard type.2.2. Supply your own examples of existential sentences, using various existential verbs.

2.3. Illustrate agreement by proximity in existential patterns, and cases of there undergoing

raising.


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2. Existential sentences (knowledge refreshing)Such sentences express the notion of existence, and most frequently feature unstressed there as an empty,asemantic subject, followed by a form of the verb be, by the extraposed notional subject, and by some otherconstituents (most often a Locative Adverbial) e.g.: There was a car in front of the house. Existential thereappears as a slot-filler when the deep subject is indefinite, and therefore in contradiction with the typicalthematic (i.e. conveying given information) role of subject. Sentences consisting only in the empty subject + theexistential V + the deep subject are called bare existential sentences (e.g.: There has been an accident.). Otherverbs may also occur in existential sentences (especially in formal and literary styles): exist, occur, come, lie,stand, etc (e.g.: There exist similar archaeological sites in other parts of Europe, too.). Existential there occurswidely in subordinate clauses (e.g.: I do not know whether there is any solution to this problem.), or mayundergo raising (e.g.: There appears to be a solution to this problem.)

3. Uses and levels of Negation

3.1. Analyse the following fragment in the text from the point of view of the use and the level of

Negation: Its because Im too old. Old and funny, Not funny fun.

3.2. Find in the text a case of sentential metalinguistic negation.3. Uses and levels of Negation (knowledge refreshing)There can be distinguished two main uses of negation (metalinguistic and logical), and at least two levels ofnegation (local and sentential),each level being accessible in both uses. The metalinguistic use is often based onan echoic reprise of a preceding affirmation, there being an evaluation or an analysis of the utterance itself, andnegation acting as a metalanguage (with contrastive function) able to intervene on a sentence portion or on an

entire sentence (e.g.: This is not astrology, it is astronomy! andIt is not that money doesnt bring happiness, it israther that happiness doesnt bring money!). The logical use lacks particular emphasis, and it corresponds inpropositional logic to internal, contrary negation when applying locally , and to external, contradictorynegation when applying sententially (e.g.:He was merciless. and They are not here.).

D.Supplementary text and assignments

fromA Message from the Pig-Man by John Barrington Wain

He was never called Ekky now, because he was getting to be a real boy, nearly six, withgrey flannel trousers that had a separate belt and werent kept up by elastic, and his name wasEric. But this was just one of those changes brought about naturally, by time, not a disturbingalteration; he understood that. His mother hadnt meant that kind of change when she had

promised, Nothing will be changed. It was all going to go on as before, except that Dadwouldnt be there, and Donald would be there instead. He knew Donald, of course, and felt allright about his being in the house, though it seemed, when he lay in bed and thought about it,mad and pointless that Donalds coming should mean that Dad had to go. Why should it meanthat? The house was quite big. He hadnt any brothers and sisters, and if he had had any hewouldnt have minded sharing his bedroom, even with a baby that wanted a lot of lookingafter, so long as it left the spare room free for Dad to sleep in. If he did that they wouldnthave a spare room, it was true, but, then, the spare room was nearly always empty; the lasttime anybody had used the spare room was years ago, when he had been much smaller lastwinter, in fact. And, even then, the visitor, the lady with the funny teeth, who laughed as she

breathed in, instead of as she breathed out like everyone else, had only stayed two or three

nights. Why did grown-ups do everything in such a mad, silly way? They often told him notto be silly, but they were silly themselves in a useless way, not laughing or singing oranything, just being silly and sad.

It was so hard to read the signs; that was another thing. When they did give you somethingto go on, it was impossible to know how to take it. Dad had bought him a train just a fewweeks ago, and taught him how to fit the lines together. That ought to have meant that hewould stay; what sensible person would buy a train, and fit it all upreadytorun, even as a

present for another person and then leave? Donald had been quite good about the train, Erichad to admit that; he had bought a bridge for it and a lot of rolling-stock. At first he had gotthe wrong kind of rolling-stock, with wheels too close together to fit on to the rails; butinstead of playing the usual grown-ups trick of pulling a face and then not doing anything

about it, he had gone back to the shop, straight away that same afternoon, and got the rightkind. Perhaps that meant he was going to leave. But that didnt seem likely. Not the way Mumheld on to him all the time, even holding him round the middle as if he needed keeping in one

piece.


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All the same, he was not Ekky, now, he was Eric, and he was sensible and grown-up.Probably it was his own fault that everything seemed strange. He was not living up to his greyflannel trousers and perhaps that was it; being afraid of too many things, not askingquestions that would probably turn out to have quite simple answers.1. a) Characterise Erics universe when compared to Buddys.

b) Consider their concerns, interests, way of judging things, attitudes towards the others, andcomment upon the differences between them.

c) Are they also outstandingly different from other children?d) Apart from being boys of about the same age, what do they have in common?e) Which of them appears to be the loneliest of the two?f) Read also the text in the reverse translation module of this unit, and integrate the third boy

character within the analysis.g) How does the autobiographical element (dominant in Palers text, traceable in Capotes, and

presumable in Wains) influence the verisimilitude of the characters?Additional useful information: T. Capote (1924-1984) American writer A Christmas Memory was first

published in 1966; J. B. Wain (1925-1994) English writer and literary critic A Message from the Pig-Manwas first published in 1965; O. Paler (b. 1926) Romanian journalist and writer Viaa ca o corid was first

published in 1987.2. Identify and analyse the compounds in the text.

3. Translate the first paragraph of the text into Romanian.E. Write an essay on the topic: Childhood a serene or tormented period? (2-3 pages).Suggested guidelines:- the traditional idyllic view of the grown-ups: the lost paradise of simplicity, innocence, and happiness, themythical realm of a better and purer mode of existence, a secret we all knew and forgot, a collection of blurredmemories wrapped in melancholy and regrets- many childrens view: a (too) long period of unjust and unjustified inferiority, of absurd rules and arbitraryimpositions from the part of most mature persons, a cruel competition with other children, too many unansweredquestions, an endless waiting for finally growing up- various psychologists views: a difficult process of self-defining and adaptation, of hesitating formation of theego, the most influential period in the development of the future profile, the most vulnerable stage of a stillfragile psyche, which may amplify any event up to planting the seeds of unknown later consequences

F. Translate the following text into English:

Pe la cinci ani, am descoperit eu nsumi c puteam s ignor, la nevoie, ceea ce nu-miconvenea din realitate. Tata m nvase s silabisesc slova tiprit i s numr pn ladouzeci. Ca s se asigure c-mi continuam singur instrucia n lipsa lui, mi lsa o fasciculdintr-un roman de aventuri pe care-l citea el i mi ddea n grij puii de gin. Scrupulos dinnatere, mi luam n serios datoria. Nu m micam din curte toat ziua atunci, nu m lsamispitit de ceilali copii care m chemau s cutm cuiburi pe miriti, de team s nu vin uliul,s dea iama prin puii notri. Stteam pe treptele casei, n vacarmul de lumin care sclda laamiaz curtea noastr sau la umbra porii nalte de scnduri, m luptam cu peripeiile dinfasciculi, din cnd n cnd, m ridicam s numr puii. Dup ce m liniteam, citeam mai

departe sau m jucam pe grmada de nisip de sub mrul btrn i rcoros din apropiereafntnii. ntr-o zi, ns, am avut o surpriz neplcut. Am numrat pe degete pn la douzeci,dar mai erau pui! Tata uitase s m avertizeze c puii notri sporiser peste limitacunotinelor mele aritmetice i c dup ce ajungeam la douzeci trebuia s-o iau de la nceputca s-mi in evidena. Drept care am intrat n panic. Dac nu m nel, am i plns. Disperat,am ieit n uli s-i cer ajutor sorei mele care, mai independent dect mine i mai mare cucinci ani, prefera s stea cu copiii de seama ei. Dar ulia era pustie. Am smuls cteva smocuridin iarba care cretea bezmetici tnr pe marginea anului, am dus-o puilor ca s-i strngla un loc i am numrat din nou, atent. n zadar. Erau mai muli. M ntrebam ce s fac. Numi-a dat prin cap s-i socotesc separat pe cei care depeau nvtura mea, aa c pn laurm am apelat la alt soluie pentru a iei din impas. Am numrat douzeci de pui, iar pe

ceilali i-am alungat din curte. n felul acesta, am pus realitatea de acord cu cunotinele melei m-am apucat s silabisesc mai departe fascicula din romanul de aventuri, linitit, ba chiarmndru c m descurcasem.

Octavian PalerViaa ca o corid


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UNIT II

EXISTENCE AND THE SELF. THE GREAT QUESTIONS (I)

Preliminaries

1. Do you think the human brain is the only self-conscious entity in the universe? What doyou know about animal psychology?

2. Enlarge upon the concept of cyclicity of existence. Does this infinite sequencing of cominginto being and passing into nothingness have anything to do with evolutionary processes, bethe nature of the latter either physical or biological?3. Comment upon the hypothesis of multiple and hierarchically ordered space-timecontinuums. Argue for or against the possibility of an endless row of numberless universeswithin other universes, each having its own dimensional and temporal rank.

A. Night-Sea Journey(abridged) from LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE by John Barth (I)

One way or another, no matter which theory of our journey is correct, its myself I address;to whom I rehearse as to a stranger our history and condition, and will disclose my secrethope though I sink for it.

Is the journey my invention? Do the night, the sea, exist at all, I ask myself, apart from myexperience of them? Do I myself exist, or is this a dream? Sometimes I wonder. And if I am,who am I? The Heritage I supposedly transport? But how can I be both vessel and contents?Such are the questions that beset my intervals of rest. My trouble is, I lack conviction. Manyaccounts of our situation seem plausible to me where and what we are, why we swim andwhither. But implausible ones as well, perhaps especially those, I must admit as possiblycorrect. Even likely. If at times, in certain humours stroking in unison, say, with myneighbors and chanting with them Onward! Upward! I have supposed that we have afterall a common Maker, Whose nature and motives we may not know, but Who engendered usin some mysterious wise and launched us forth toward some end known but to Him if (for amoodslength only) I have been able to entertain such notions, very popular in certain quarters,

it is because our night-sea journey partakes of their absurdity. One might even say: I canbelieve them because they are absurd. Has that been said before? []I have seen the best swimmers of my generation go under. Numberless the number of the

dead! Thousands die as I think this thought, millions as I rest before returning to the swim.And scores, hundreds of millions have expired since we surged forth, brave in our innocence,upon our dreadful way. [] Yet these same reflective intervals that keep me afloat have ledme into wonder, doubt, despair strange emotions for a swimmer! have led me, even, tosuspect that our night-sea journey is without meaning. Indeed, if I have yet to join the hostsof the suicides, it is because (fatigue apart) I find it no meaningfuller to drown myself than togo on swimming. I know that there are those who seem actually to enjoy the night-sea; whoclaim to love swimming for its own sake, or sincerely believe that reaching the Shore,

transmitting the Heritage (Whose Heritage, Id like to know? And to whom?) is worth thestaggering cost. I do not. Swimming itself I find at best not actively unpleasant, more oftentiresome, not infrequently a torment. Arguments from function and design dont impress me:granted that we can and do swim, that in a manner of speaking our long tails and streamlinedheads are meant for swimming; it by no means follows for me, at least that we shouldswim, or otherwise endeavor to fulfill our destiny. Which is to say, Someone Elses destiny,since ours, so far as I can see, is merely to perish, one way or another, soon or late. Theheartless zeal of our (departed) leaders, like the blind ambition and good cheer of my ownyouth, appalls me now; for the death of my comrades I am inconsolable. If the night-sea

journey has justification, it is not for us swimmers ever to discover it. Oh, to be sure, Love!one heard on every side: Love it is that drives and sustains us! I translate: we dont knowwhat drives and sustains us, only that we are most miserably driven and, imperfectly,sustained.Love is how we call our ignorance of what whips us. To reach the Shore, then: butwhat if the Shore exists in the fancies of us swimmers merely, who dream it to account for thedreadful fact that we swim, have always and only swum, and continue swimming without


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respite (myself excepted) until we die? Supposing even that there were a Shore that, as acynical companion of mine once imagined, we rise from the drowned to discover all thosevulgar superstitions and exalted metaphors to be literal truth: the giant Maker of us all, theShores of Light beyond our night-sea journey! whatever would a swimmer do there? Thefact is, when we imagine the Shore, what comes to mind is just the opposite of our condition:no more night, no more sea, no more journeying. In short, the blissful estate of the drowned.

Ours not to stop and think; ours but to swim and sink. Because a moments thought

reveals the pointlessness of swimming. [] The thoughtful swimmers choices, then, theysay, are two: give over thrashing and go under for good, or embrace the absurdity; affirm inand for itself the night-sea journey; swim on with neither motive nor destination, for the sakeof swimming, and compassionate moreover with your fellow swimmer, we being all at seaand equally in the dark. I find neither course acceptable. If not even the hypothetical Shorecan justify a sea-full of drowned comrades, to speak of the swim-in-itself as somehow doingso strikes me as obscene. I continue to swim but only because blind habit, blind instinct,

blind fear of drowning are still more strong than the horror of our journey. And if on occasionI have assisted a fellow-thrasher, joined in the cheers and songs, even passed along to othersstrokes of genius from the drowned great, its that I shrink by temperament from makingmyself conspicuous. To paddle off in ones own direction, assert ones independent right-of-

way, overrun ones fellows without compunction, or dedicate oneself entirely to pleasures anddiversions without regard for conscience I cant finally condemn those who journey in thiswise; in half my moods I envy them and despise the weak vitality that keeps me fromfollowing their example. But in reasonabler moments I remind myself that its their veryfreedom and self-responsibility I reject, as more dramatically absurd, in our senselesscircumstances, than tailing along in the conventional fashion. Suicides, rebels, affirmers of the

paradox nay-sayers and yea-sayers alike to our fatal journey I finally shake my head atthem. And splash sighing past their corpses, one by one, as past a hundred sorts of others;friends, enemies, brothers; fools, sages, brutes and nobodies, million upon million. I envythem all. [] You only swim once. Why bother, then? Except ye drown, ye shall not reachthe Shore of Life. Poppycock.

One of my late companions the same cynic with the curious fancy, among the first todrown entertained us with odd conjectures while we waited to begin our journey. A favoritetheory of his was that the Father does exist, and did indeed make us and the sea we swim

but not a-purpose or even consciously; He made us, as it were, despite Himself, as we makewaves with every tail-thrash, and may be unaware of our existence. Another was that Heknows were here but doesnt care what happens to us, inasmuch as He creates (voluntarily ornot) other seas and swimmers at more or less regular intervals. [] No less outrageous, andoffensive to traditional opinion, were the fellows speculations on the nature of our Maker:that He might well be no swimmer Himself at all, but some sort of monstrosity, perhaps eventailless; that He might be stupid, malicious, insensible, perverse, or asleep and dreaming; that

the end for which He created and launched us forth, and which we flagellate ourselves tofathom, was perhaps immoral, even obscene. [] In other moods, however (he was as givento moods as I), his theorizing would become half-serious, so it seemed to me, especially uponthe subjects of Fate and Immortality, to which our youthful conversations often turned. []His objection to popular opinions of the hereafter, he would declare, was their claim togeneral validity. Why need believers hold that allthe drowned rise to be judged at journeysend, and non-believers that drowning is final without exception? In his opinion (so hed vowat least), nearly everyones fate was permanent death; indeed he took a sour pleasure insupposing that every Maker made thousands of separate seas in His creative lifetime, each

populated like ours with millions of swimmers, and that in almost every instance both sea andswimmers were utterly annihilated, whether accidentally or by malevolent design. (Nothing if

not pluralistical, he imagined that there might be millions and billions of Fathers, perhaps insome night-sea of their own!) However and here he turned infidels against him with thefaithful he professed to believe that in possibly a single night-sea per thousand, say, one ofits quarter-billion swimmers (that is, one swimmer in two hundred fifty billions) achieved a


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qualified immortality. [] I could go on (he surely did) with his elaboration of these madnotions such as that swimmers in other night-seas neednt be of our kind; that Makersthemselves might belong to differentspecies, so to speak; that our particular Maker mightntHimself be immortal, or that we might be not only His emissaries but His immortality,continuing His life and our own, transmogrified, beyond our individual deaths. Even thismodified immortality (meaningless to me) he conceived as relative and contingent, subject toaccidental or deliberate termination; his pet hypothesis was that Makers and swimmers each

generate the other against all odds, their number being so great and that any givenimmortality-chain could terminate after any number of cycles, so that what was immortal(still speaking relatively) was only the cyclic process of incarnation, which itself might have a

beginning and an end. Alternatively he liked to imagine cycles within cycles, either finite orinfinite: for example, the night-sea, as it were, in which Makers swam and created night-seas and swimmers like ourselves, might be the creation of a larger Maker, Himself one ofmany, Who in turn et cetera. Time itself he regarded as relative to our experience, likemagnitude: who knew but what, with each thrash of our tails, minuscule seas and swimmers,whole eternities, came to pass as ours, perhaps, and our Makers Makers, was elapsing

between the strokes of some supertail, in a slower order of time?Naturally I hooted with the others at this nonsense. [] When he died in the initial

slaughter, no one cared. And even now I dont subscribe to all his views but I no longerscoff. The horror of our history has purged me of opinions, as of vanity, confidence, spirit,charity, hope, vitality, everything except dull dread and a kind of melancholy, stunned

persistence.


1. What makes the swimmer have doubts regarding the reality of its own existence?2. Identify and comment upon the various individual or collective attitudes towards night-sea

journeying that the swimmers adopt.3. Are these modes of journeying similar in any way to those of another kind of journey? Which

one?4. Identify and depict some profiles of swimmers.5. Which are the strange emotions for a swimmer, and which are the normal ones? Why?6. How can you explain your expertise in discussing swimmer psychology? Are you a swimmer?7. What makes the struggle of journeying so frightful and meaningless?8. What do swimmers blindly hope for? Comment upon the various possible interpretations of the

Shore.9. Is there any relationship between immortality and death? Are they really in opposition? Explain

how immortality can be regarded as a kind of death.10. Why does this not seem to imply the reverse, too? Why is it that you only swim once?11. What kind of limitation specific of individual existence determines the non-reversibility of theequation?12. Is there any ambiguity in the name and description of the Maker?

13. How do you interpret the immortality-chain, and the cynics theory about other seas?14. Comment upon the possible alternative readings of the entire fifth paragraph.



Ns: conviction, fatigue, zeal, sage, brute, poppycock, pet hypothesisVs: to disclose, to beset, to stroke, to chant, to engender, to partake, to surge, to appal, to thrash, tofathom, to transmogrify, to hoot, to scoff, to stun

As / Avs: outrageous, insensible, contingent2. Find words in the text that mean: to strive, interruption, remorse, wicked.3. Find words in the text that mean the opposite of: unwillingly, innocent, temporary, absolute.4. The noun wise (= manner, way, modality) is still occasionally used but it is by far less frequent

than its compounds. a) Supply your own examples to illustrate the meanings and uses oflikewiseand otherwise. b) What does aclockwise movement / rotationmean?


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5. a) Consider the following verbs: ask, claim, beseech, demand, require, out of which the first two

appear in the text. Supply their componential definitions in terms of the following suggested

semantic features: [ imperatively], [ humbly], [ logical necessity], [ juridical implications],[ supported by arguments], etc. b) Fill in the blanks, using these verbs:1. A transitive verb is averb that obligatorily ... a direct object. 2. His ex-fiance ... him to come back to her. 3. The students ...for further and more detailed explanations. 4. The terrorists that had hijacked the plane ... for theirimprisoned leader to be set free. 5. Chomsky ... that there are some innate principles subject to

parametric variation.

C. Grammar

1. Free (Independent) Relative Clauses

1.1. a) Transform the following strings into structures having the same meaning, and featuring

Free Relative Clauses: 1. You have enough money to buy all the supplies that you need. 2. Theperson committing these horrible murders must be caught and punished. 3. You may leave at any timethat you choose. 4. The resort is no longer the place that it used to be. b) Specify the syntacticfunction of the resulting Free Relative Clauses, and the function of the relative pronoun

introducing them.

1.2. Comment upon the structural relationship that establishes between Dependent Restrictive

and Free Relative Clauses, also using the previous sentences as illustrations. Which is the most

significant difference between the two classes?

1.3. Identify the Free Relative Clauses in the text, also specifying their syntactic function.(Optional: Identify the Free Relative Clauses and their syntactic functions in the previous unit text

A Christmas Memory.)1. Free Relative Clauses (knowledge refreshing)The main structural feature that distinguishes them from Dependent Relative Clauses is the absence of anexpressed antecedent, i.e. of the Main Clause occurrence of the co-referential element that makes subordination

by relativisation possible. There is sufficient syntactic evidence in support of the claim for the initial existence ofthe missing antecedent (e.g. the fact that the matrix verb evinces agreement with the deleted antecedent:Whatever were their discoveries are now lost for good.). Unlike Dependent Relative Clauses, which modify theantecedent, thus functioning as modifier of it, Free Relative Clauses replace this antecedent, taking over itssyntactic function. Therefore, they evince an inventory of syntactic functions quite similar to the distribution of

NPs: What killed the dinosaurs is still a mystery. Subject; This hut is where he used to hide. Predicative;Take whatever you want. Direct Object; We have to rely on whomever they send to us. Prepositional Object,etc. They are typically introduced by complex pronouns (whoever, what(so)ever, whichever, etc) or adverbs(wherever, whenever, etc). Nevertheless, simple pronouns may also introduce such clauses. Introducers performvarious syntactic functions within the clauses: Search for whatever is still intact there. Subject; Whomever Iask tells me the same thing. Direct Object, etc.2. Finiteness / Non-Finiteness of Clauses. THAT Clauses and Infinitive Clauses

2.1. Supply your own examples to illustrate the following: a Non-Finite Relative Clause; finite

and non-finite Complement Clauses.

2.2. Identify three THAT Clauses and three Infinitive Clauses in the text. Specify their syntactic

functions.

2.3. a) Turn the embedded clauses intoTHAT Clauses: 1. For the cashier to have run away with themoney was unbelievable. 2. My neighbours are so uncivilised as to throw garbage out of the window.3. That nice old lady turned out to be a spy. 4. The two young engineers seemed diligent. 5. Alldocuments were supposed to be printed, copied and registered. 6. The conductor of the philharmonicconsiders Carson an excellent musician. 7. My colleagues want me to ask the professor for a two days

postponing of the exam. 8. I saw him take the keys. b) Turn the embedded clauses into InfinitiveClauses and into THAT Clauses: 1. John mocking at her like that was extremely embarrassing foreverybody present. 2. I was delighted at their successfully passing the exam. 3. The special squad hadstrict orders of searching the entire building for a possible bomb. c) Turn the embedded clauses intoGerunds: 1. Her idea of a quiet evening at home was to sit in her favourite armchair and read. 2. Thetourists were worried that the weather was getting worse. 3. It is no use to complain to the manager.d) Turn the embedded clauses into Indirect Questions: 1. It is amazing that this old engine worksso smoothly. 2. Nobody specified that the ideal candidate for this position should be male or female.3. The problem of getting a new job or not is his main concern these days.2. Finiteness / Non-Finiteness of Clauses (knowledge refreshing)The distinction between finite and non-finite clauses is mainly based on morphological criteria: any clause whichdoes or can contain an inflected verb or auxiliary is a finite clause, the converse not being necessarily true (i.e., aclause containing an apparently uninflected or invariable verb is not necessarily non-finite). The reason for this is


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that some verb-forms generally treated as finite (e.g. the Subjunctive) lack the typical morphologicalcharacteristics of finite verbs. Nevertheless, the Indicative and Subjunctive forms share certain mopho-syntactic

properties which differentiate them from non-finite forms (the tenseless / agreementless Infinitive, Gerund orPerfective Participle). These properties are: impossibility of subjectlessness for Indicative and Subjunctiveclauses (e.g.: *I demand that leave. vs.I intend to leave / leaving.); the different case-marking of an overt subject

Nominative for the two finite forms vs. Accusative (for the Infinitive) or, respectively, Accusative / Genitive(for the Gerund).


fromThe Human Driftby Jack London

After he is gone? Will he then some day be gone, and this planet know him no more? Is itthither that the human drift in all its totality is trending? God Himself is silent on this point,though some of His prophets have given us vivid representations of that last day when theearth shall pass into nothingness. Nor does science, despite its radium speculations and itsattempted analyses of the ultimate nature of matter, give us any other word than that man will

pass. So far as mans knowledge goes, law is universal. Elements react under certainunchangeable conditions. One of these conditions is temperature. Whether it be in the testtube of the laboratory or the workshop of nature, all organic chemical reactions take placeonly within a restricted range of heat. Man, the latest of the ephemera, is pitifully a creature of

temperature, strutting his brief day on the thermometer. Behind him is a past wherein it wastoo warm for him to exist. Ahead of him is a future wherein it will be too cold for him toexist. He cannot adjust himself to that future, because he cannot alter universal law, becausehe cannot alter his own construction nor the molecules that compose him.

It would be well to ponder these lines of Herbert Spencers which follow, and whichembody, possibly, the wildest vision the scientific mind has ever achieved: Motion as well asMatter being fixed in quantity, it would seem that the change in the distribution of Matterwhich Motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried, the indestructibleMotion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally-co-existentforces of attraction and repulsion, which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minorchanges throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes

produce now an immeasurable period during which the attractive forces predominating, causeuniversal concentration, and then an immeasurable period during which the repulsive forces

predominating, cause universal diffusion alternate eras of Evolution and Dissolution. Andthus there is suggested the conception of a past during which there have been successiveevolutions analogous to that which is now going on; a future during which successive otherevolutions may go on ever the same in principle but never the same in concrete result.

That is it the most we know alternate eras of evolution and dissolution. In the past therehave been other evolutions similar to that one in which we live, and in the future there may beother similar evolutions that is all. The principle of all these evolutions remains, but theconcrete results are never twice alike. Man was not; he was; and again he will not be. Ineternity which is beyond our comprehension, the particular evolution of that solar satellite we

call the Earth occupied but a slight fraction of time. And of that fraction of time manoccupies but a small portion. All the whole human drift, from the first ape-man to the lastsavant, is but a phantom, a flash of light and a flutter of movement across the infinite face ofthe starry night. When the thermometer drops, man ceases with all his lusts and wrestlingsand achievements; with all his race-adventures and race-tragedies; and with all his redkillings, billions upon billions of human lives multiplied by as many billions more. This is thelast word of Science, unless there be some further, unguessed word which Science will someday find and utter. In the meantime it sees no farther than the starry void, where the fleetingsystems lapse like foam. Of what ledger-account is the tiny life of man in a vastness wherestars snuff out like candles and great suns blaze for a time-tick of eternity and are gone?

And for us who live, no worse can happen than has happened to the earliest drifts of man,marked to-day by ruined cities of forgotten civilisation ruined cities, which, on excavation,are found to rest on ruins of earlier cities, city upon city, and fourteen cities, down to astratum where, still earlier, wandering herdsmen drove their flocks, and where, even

preceding them, wild hunters chased their prey long after the cave-man and the man of the


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squatting-place cracked the knuckle-bones of wild animals and vanished from the earth. Thereis nothing terrible about it. With Richard Hovey, when he faced his death, we can say:Behold! I have lived! And with another and greater one, we can lay ourselves down with awill. The one drop of living, the one taste of being, has been good; and perhaps our greatestachievement will be that we dreamed immortality, even though we failed to realise it.1. a) Besides the thought of ones own death, which idea is equally (or even more difficult) to acceptas an immutable truth?

b) Does self-consciousness play any role in this? If yes, how? How does individual conscience turninto collective (self-) consciousness?c) Why do prophets and scientists try to reveal the future of our race?d) Analyse Spencers theory of Motion and Matter, and Londons comments about successive

evolutionary cycles from the points of view of the more recent theories of the Big Bang and ofrelativity.

e) Does the human race have its own evolutionary cycles? Which are they? Enlarge upon this issue.f) Comment upon the last sentence in the text.g) Which appear to be the commonly shared characteristics of physical, biological, and social

cycles? Consider Barth, London and Boghians ideas for the last one, see the reverse translationmodule of this unit , as well as your own opinion. 2. Translate the last two paragraphs of the text into Romanian.

E. Write an essay on the topic:A possible scenario of human race extinction (2-3 pages).Suggested guidelines:- If possible, try to avoid the already banal and eroded idea of a devastating nuclear war.- If you still want to stick to the idea of World War III, either employ other non-nuclear (e.g. biological,informatic, mind-controlling, etc) weapons, or focus upon the decay and extinction of the survivors.- If you have watched the Animal Planet series Future Is Wild, exploit the idea of evolutionary changes inother species, which may finally lead to the extinction ofallmammals.- Various extraterrestrial interventions or cosmic Armageddons are not excluded.- Try and focus also upon a(n) (immediate) post-human picture of the Earth.


Fr nceput i fr sfrit [] Asta e, murmura gndul fluid, dac ajungi s acoperi

genunea dintre aceste dou presupuse capete, mai poi spera s nelegi cte ceva din aceastaventur a simurilor care este viaa Dar cine are rgaz pentru a cugeta smerit la nesfrireacare ne nconjoar? Uneori filosofii o fac pe apucate, de dragul ideilor repede convertibile ncri, care de fapt spun cu mult mai puin dect ale celor ce plantau mai nti seminelefaptelori pe urm descopereau dreapta cretere i nflorire a cugetului Ei nu ineau s fieinfailibili, o luau ncet, pe jos, pe crare, dnd adevrurilor mireasma celor ce sunt, nu a celorce poate vor fi Cugetau despre lume ca i cum lumea nsi se hrnea din cea ce eideslueau i scoteau la lumina cuvntului, a nelegerii ncepeau, de bun seam, tot cudescifrarea acestuifr nceputi fr sfrit, ce poate fi asemnat cu o curgere, cu o micare

perpetu. Poate c, lsndu-te purtat de fascinaia micrii, n adnca ei necuprindere, reuetia-i limpezi ct de ct ideea duratei eterne []

Ai spune c filosofia din asta s-a nscut, gndi mai departe Paul Damian. Din ncercarea dea explica micarea, adic devenirea Naterea i moartea ca procese ciclice i infinitul carecurge naintea lor i dup ele Devenirea este primul gnd concret i, prin aceasta, primulconcept Devenirea include apariia i trecerea. Sunt momentele ei. Devenirea estenelinitea fr oprire, care se stinge ntr-un rezultat linitit Deci, fr oprire, fr nceput ifr sfrit Cci dac lipeti nceputul i sfritul, separndu-le ca momente n sine, obiinimicul

Nicolae BoghianStare de ecou


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UNIT III

EXISTENCE AND THE SELF. THE GREAT QUESTIONS (II)

Preliminaries

1. Comment upon the competition between the self-preservation instinct and the preservation-of-the-species one.

2. Is what we call Love imprinted in us as a genetically-predetermined instinct or have we,humans, developed a completely different, exclusively psychological and socialisedinstinct? What about self-destruction for reproduction / out of love in animals, and inhumans?3. What do you know about animal and human collective memory / memory of the species?

A. Night-Sea Journey(abridged) from LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE by John Barth (II)

Perhaps, even, I am drowned already. Surely I was never meant for the rough-and-tumbleof the swim; not impossibly I perished at the outset and have only imagined the night-sea

journey from some final deep. In any case, Im no longer young, and it is we spent oldswimmers, disabused of every illusion, who are most vulnerable to dreams. Sometimes I think

I am my drowned friend. Out with it: Ive begun to believe, not only that She exists, but thatShe lies not far ahead, and stills the sea, and draws me Herward! [] I shake my head; thething is too preposterous; it is myself I talk to, to keep my reason in this awful darkness.There is no She! There is no You! I rave to myself; its Death alone that hears and summons.To the drowned, all seas are calm []

Our moment came, we hurtled forth, pretending to glory in the adventure, thrashing,singing, cursing, strangling, rationalizing, rescuing, killing, inventing rules and stories andrelationships, giving up, struggling on, but dying all, and still in darkness, until only a batteredremnant was left to croak Onward! Upward! like a bitter echo. Then they too fell silent victims, I can only presume, of the last frightful wave and the moment came when I also,utterly desolate and spent, thrashed my last and gave myself over to the current, to sink or

float as might be, but swim no more. Whereupon, marvelous to tell, in an instant the sea grewstill! []I am not deceived. This new emotion is Her doing; the desire that possesses me is Her

bewitchment. Lucidity passes from me; in a moment Ill cry Love!, bury myself in Her side,and be transfigured. Which is to say, I die already; this fellow transported by passion is notI; I am he who abjures and rejects the night-sea journey! I I am all love. Come! Shewhispers, and I have no will.

You who I may be about to become, whatever You are: with the last twitch of my real selfI beg You to listen. It is notlove that sustains me! No; though Her magic makes me burn tosing the contrary, and though I drown even now for the blasphemy, I will say truth. What hasfetched me across this dreadful sea is a single hope, gift of my poor dead comrade: that You

may be stronger-willed than I, and that by sheer force of concentration I may transmit to You,along with Your official Heritage, a private legacy of awful recollection and negative resolve.Mad as it may be, my dream is that some unimaginable embodiment of myself (or myself plusHer is thats how it must be) will come to find itself expressing, in however garbled or radicala translation, some reflection of these reflections. If against all odds this comes to pass, mayYou to whom, through whom I speak, do what I cannot: terminate this aimless, brutal

business! Stop Your hearing against her song! Hate love!Still alive, afloat, afire. Farewell, then, my penultimate hope: that one may be sunk for

direst blasphemy on the very shore of the Shore. Can it be (my old friend would smile) thatonly utterest nay-sayers survive the night? But even that were Sense and there is no sense,only senseless love, senseless death. Whoever echoes these reflections: be more courageous

than their author! An end to night-sea journeys! Make no more! And forswear me when Ishall forswear myself, deny myself, plunge into Her who summons, singing Love! Love!Love!


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1. What are the metamorphoses that swimmers undergo during journeying? Do they seem familiarto us?

2. What is the significance of the swimmers repeated and ever more rapid changes of attitudes andconvictions towards the journeys end?

3. Why and how is love related to death?4. What kind of immortality is the thoughtful swimmer seeking for?5. What are swimmers in fact? Identify the allegory and its overt and covert elements.6. Can the concept of immortality be a solution to the burden of self-consciousness?7. Which appears to be the greatest danger in an already doomed to death existence, and why?



Ns: rough-and-tumble, bewitchment, twitchVs: to rave, to hurtle, to forswear

As / Avs: preposterous, utterly, garbled2. Find words in the text that mean: disappointed, to call, to deny, volition.

3. Find words in the text that mean the opposite of: to shout, indecision, to start, cowardly.4. a) List all the a- adjectives / adverbs in both parts of the text, and explain their meaning.

b) State the peculiarity of a-when compared to the majority of English prefixes. Mention theother two prefixes sharing the same property, and add some examples of them. c) List and

illustrate other than those in the text -aderived lexemes.5. Explain and illustrate in sentences of your own the difference between heritage and legacy.

6. a) Consider the following verbs: perish, destroy, ruin, smash, annihilate, disintegrate, out of

which two appear in the first or the second part of the text. Supply their componential

definitions in terms of the following suggested semantic features: [ tearing into small pieces],

[ health], [ reputation, career, etc], [ ceasing to exist], [ molecular decomposition], [ also used

figuratively], etc. b) Fill in the blanks, using these verbs: 1. Numerous species have during theIce Age. 2. The corrupted clerk tried to ... any evidence of his illegal activities. 3. The Nazis could byno means succeed in ... the underground resistance in the occupied countries. 4. Last Sunday theguests were ... by our team. 5. This bomb can ... everything ten miles round. 6. His applying for that

position has ... my only chance to get a decent job.C. Grammar

1. Comparison of adjectives

1.1. a) Do you notice any oddity in what concerns the formation of degrees of comparison in both

parts of the text? b) What are the general rules for comparison of adjectives? Add illustrations.

1.2. a) How do -aadjectives form degrees of comparison (if they accept gradability)? b) What isthe peculiarity of their syntactic behaviour? Add illustrations.

2. Cleft Constructions

2.1. Identify all the Cleft Constructions in the text, and explain their general mechanism of

formation. (Pay attention! They are quite numerous.)2.2. a) Enumerate and illustrate the types of cleaving that you know. b) What is the relationship

between Dependent and/or Free Relative Clauses and the various types of Cleft Constructions?2.3. Apply cleaving upon the following sentences in order to bring various elements under focal

prominence: 1. Our cousin lacks any sense of decency. 2. His behaviour horrified his neighbours.2. Cleft Constructions (knowledge refreshing)They are special constructions featuring either Restrictive or Free Relative Clauses, and they can be used on

purpose of bringing under (thematic) focal prominence various sentential constituents, thus having importantpragmatic values. The main types of patterns that can be distinguished are:1. the Wh-Cleft Construction (thefocused element can be right to copularBE e.g.: What offended us was his extreme rudeness. or left to it e.g.: His extreme rudeness was what / the thing that offended us. ); 2. the IT-Cleft Construction (in case ofwhich the focus is right to copular BE e.g.: It was his extreme rudeness (the thing) that offended us. ).Practically (almost) every element of the sentence can be brought under focal prominence by means of suchconstructions.


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fromBefore Adam by Jack London

These are our ancestors, and their history is our history. Remember that as surely as weone day swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just as surely, on a far earlier day,did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first adventure on land.

[] It was not till I was a young man, at college, that I got any clew to the significance of

my dreams, and to the cause of them. Up to that time they had been meaningless and withoutapparent causation. But at college I discovered evolution and psychology, and learned theexplanation of various strange mental states and experiences. For instance, there was thefalling-through-space dream the commonest dream experience, one practically known, byfirst-hand experience, to all men.

This, my professor told me, was a racial memory. It dated back to our remote ancestorswho lived in trees. With them, being tree-dwellers, the liability of falling was an ever-presentmenace. Many lost their lives that way; all of them experienced terrible falls, savingthemselves by clutching branches as they fell toward the ground. Now a terrible fall, avertedin such fashion, was productive of shock. Such shock was productive of molecular changes inthe cerebral cells. These molecular changes were transmitted to the cerebral cells of progeny,

became, in short, racial memories.Thus, when you and I, asleep or dozing off to sleep, fall through space and awake tosickening consciousness just before we strike, we are merely remembering what happened toour arboreal ancestors, and which has been stamped by cerebral changes into the heredity ofthe race.

There is nothing strange in this, any more than there is anything strange in an instinct. Aninstinct is merely a habit that is stamped into the stuff of our heredity, that is all. It will benoted, in passing, that in this falling dream which is so familiar to you and me and all of us,we never strike bottom. To strike bottom would be destruction. Those of our arborealancestors who struck bottom died forthwith. True, the shock of their fall was communicatedto the cerebral cells, but they died immediately, before they could have progeny. You and I

are descended from those that did not strike bottom; that is why you and I, in our dreams,never strike bottom.

And now we come to disassociation of personality. We never have this sense of fallingwhen we are wide awake. Our wake-a-day personality has no experience of it. Then andhere the argument is irresistible it must be another and distinct personality that falls whenwe are asleep, and that has had experience of such falling that has, in short, a memory of

past-day race experiences, just as our wake-a-day personality has a memory of our wake-a-day experiences.

It was at this stage in my reasoning that I began to see the light. And quickly the light burstupon me with dazzling brightness, illuminating and explaining all that had been weird anduncanny and unnaturally impossible in my dream experiences. In my sleep it was not my

wake-a-day personality that took charge of me; it was another and distinct personality,possessing a new and totally different fund of experiences, and, to the point of my dreaming,possessing memories of those totally different experiences.

What was this personality? When had it itself lived a wake-a-day life on this planet inorder to collect this fund of strange experiences? These were questions that my dreamsthemselves answered. He lived in the long ago, when the world was young, in that period thatwe call the Mid-Pleistocene. He fell from the trees but did not strike bottom. He gibbered withfear at the roaring of the lions. He was pursued by beasts of prey, struck at by deadly snakes.He chattered with his kind in council, and he received rough usage at the hands of the FirePeople in the day that he fled before them.

But, I hear you objecting, why is it that these racial memories are not ours as well, seeingthat we have a vague other-personality that falls through space while we sleep? And I mayanswer with another question. Why is a two-headed calf? And my own answer to this is that it


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is a freak. And so I answer your question. I have this other-personality and these completeracial memories because I am a freak. But let me be more explicit. The commonest racememory we have is the falling-through-space dream. This other-personality is very vague.About the only memory it has is that of falling. But many of us have sharper, more distinctother-personalities. Many of us have the flying dream, the pursuing-monster dream, colordreams, suffocation dreams, and the reptile and vermin dreams. In short, while this other-

personality is vestigial in all of us, in some of us it is almost obliterated, while in others of us

it is more pronounced. Some of us have stronger and completer race memories than others. Itis all a question of varying degree of possession of the other-personality. In myself, the degreeof possession is enormous. My other-personality is almost equal in power with my own

personality. And in this matter I am, as I said, a freak a freak of heredity.I do believe that it is the possession of this other-personality but not so strong a one as

mine that has in some few others given rise to belief in personal reincarnation experiences.It is very plausible to such people, a most convincing hypothesis. When they have visions ofscenes they have never seen in the flesh, memories of acts and events dating back in time, thesimplest explanation is that they have lived before. But they make the mistake of ignoringtheir own duality. They do not recognize their other-personality. They think it is their own

personality, that they have only one personality; and from such a premise they can conclude

only that they have lived previous lives.But they are wrong. It is not reincarnation. I have visions of myself roaming through the

forests of the Younger World; and yet it is not myself that I see but one that is only remotely apart of me, as my father and my grandfather are parts of me less remote. This other-self ofmine is an ancestor, a progenitor of my progenitors in the early line of my race, himself the

progeny of a line that long before his time developed fingers and toes and climbed up into thetrees. []

For in this past I know of, man, as we to-day know him, did not exist. It was in the periodof his becoming that I must have lived and had my being.1. a) Comment upon the plausibility of the explanation given for the falling-through-space dream. Inthe light of more recent theories, which appear to be the weak, and which the strong points of theargumentation? (Consider the fact thatBefore Adam was first published in 1906.)

b) Comment upon the habit instinct link in accordance with the racial memory theory.c) Besides of being grounded on rather materialistic than metaphysical arguments, what else can

distinguish between racial memory and reincarnation?d) What do the motifs of the other widely spread dreams suggest?e) Make the necessary connections to integrate these views within the previous discussions about

existence and evolutionary cycles. Is racial memory a sort of immortality? Is the Self really a uniqueand genuine, independent and unrepeatable entity, at the same time with which the world starts, andceases to exist?

f) Read also the text in the reverse translation module of this unit, and comment upon whether therecan still be another kind of immortality.

g) Can a self-conscious entity outstrip natures laws of creation? Is nature perfect? Why are we sosure that there must be a spring, and that it must burst out?2. Identify the existential sentences and the THAT Clauses in the text. For the latter, also specify theirsyntactic function.3. Translate the first six paragraphs of the text into Romanian.

E. Write a short essay (1-2 pages) about what you consider as a possible proof of

natures imperfectness.


Orvas i observase nelinitea i Emil Sandra s-a convins atunci de-a binelea c frmntrilese aud, uneori fac chiar zgomot ca de cascad, vuiesc. i plcea acest meter pietrar, mai alesc i povestise cum lucrase el cu un btrn sculptor care, i la vrsta lui naintat, i punea totfelul de ntrebri unele chiar cu glas tare, atunci cnd l vedea intrnd n atelier Ce spui,Orvas? Dar nu ddea jos husa de pe piatr, dimpotriv, o acoperea i mai bine, s nu se vadnimic, cu toate c Orvas o vzuse n attea rnduri ceva nc nedefinit la care el tot lustruia.Sculptorul de care-i vorbea era adeptul lui Brncui, socotind c printr-o continu finisare se


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va ajunge nendoielnic la perfeciune. ntr-o diminea a avut loc drama pe care Orvas n-ar fiputut s-o uite niciodat: pasrea cu gtul lung mai lung dect ntregul ei corp fiindcsculptura imagina o pasre cu ciocul n vzduh, ntins n aa fel de parc ar fi voit nu s-i iazborul, ci s ciuguleasc stelele, s-a spart. Adic i s-a frnt gtul. Gtul acela att de alungit iatt de subire aproape ca un ac! i ct muncise! Se lsase pe podea i se uita pierdut la capulczut. Din ciocul psrii prea s se fi prelins atunci sngele. Niciodat Orvas, meterul

pietrar, nu vzuse ntiprit pe faa vreunui om att de crunt durerea. S-a gndit la o soluie: e

imposibil s nu se fi putut repara. Nu numai c exist attea materiale cu care se poate lipipiatra frnt sau sfrmat chiar n nenumrate buci, dar s-ar fi putut folosi pni un fel deurub de oel! Sculptorul s-a uitat la el cu privirea aproape stins. Apoi a ipat: Nu nelegi,omule, c sculptura asta era vie? Atunci chiar c a neles meterul pietrar c artistul trise cuadevrat tot acel proces de creaie. S-a dus cu gndul la un om din satul su, nvtorul, acrui nevast nu fcea copii. A fost cu ea pe la toi doctorii i cnd i luase adio de la dorinalui cum se ntmpl n basme soia i-a nscut un bieel. Pentru el, de atunci, toate clipeleau fost fericite. Pn cnd, dup civa ani, exact cnd copilul devenise de-a drepulfermector, s-a mbolnvit i a murit. O crim a naturii, bolborosea Orvas. Ce vrei sfaci? l-a ntrebat pe Emil Sandra. La ce te gndeti? Emil Sandra i-a povestit ce-i trecealui prin cap: ncepnd cu izvorul i ncheind tot cu izvorul, fiindc tocmai ameninarea aceea i-

a declanat lui hotrrea de a fixa ntmplarea ntr-o piatr, precum pe vremuri marile btliin columne. Meterul pietrar l-a ascultat cu o atenie mrit din ce n ce, pn la ncordare, peurm l-a luat pe dup umr avea minile puternice, muschiuloase i au ieit afar sub lunade toamn. I-a povestit ntmplarea de la Rotunda. O ntmplare care se petrecuse la Argeicare se asemna ntocmai cu aceasta de aici. Oamenii de la puul Rotunda ateptau clip declip izbucnirea izvorului. Izvorul nu se arta, dar ei, spnd mai departe cu mainile lor

pmntul de la rdcinile munilor, apropiau tot mai mult n contiina lor secunda aceea, ca osgeat neagr despicnd rocile i prvlindu-le, mpinse de ape peste munca lor. ntr-odiminea povestea Orvas care lucra atunci chiar n subteran la zidirea canalului deaduciune cu piatr de pavaj galeria pruse s trosneasc din toate ncheieturile, ca de uncutremur. Din strfunduri se auzeau sunete nbuite, asemntoare zgomotului pe care-l facnite cai n galop. Fonetul cretea aducnd cu el pe mii de frunze o adiere rece, din ce n cemai rece tii cum e n galerie cnd ncepe curentul subteran! i oamenii i cutau privirile,dar nici unul nu-i mrturisea frica lsat, deodat, ca un nghe, i-n respiraie.

Vasile BranRania grea a iubirii


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UNIT IV

THE ETERNAL DUALITY. THE QUESTION WITH NO ANSWER

Preliminaries

1. How would you interpret the title of this unit? Is there a certain (kind of) duality, which iseternal, or (the concept of) duality in itself and in general is eternal, and thus universal?

Which could be the question with no answer?2. Discuss the possibility of perfect internal homogeneity and non-further-sub-divisibility.Can there be a true monist entity? In other words, can something not be constructed out ofsome other, incorporated and interacting constitutive parts? (Before thinking of elementary

particles, remember what happened to the concept of atom.)3. Can the universal network of multi-branching hierarchies be ultimately interpreted as (ifnot reduced to) interacting systems of oppositions? Are all oppositions binary and polar?

A. from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Chapter 10. Henry Jekylls Full Statement of the CaseI was born in the year 18 to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts,

inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen,and thus, as might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable anddistinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety ofdisposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcilewith my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly gravecountenance before the public. Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and thatwhen I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progressand position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me. Many aman would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high viewsthat I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. Itwas thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my

faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men,severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound mans dual nature.In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which liesat the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profounda double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was nomore myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in theeye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And itchanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic andthe transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial waramong my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral andthe intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have

been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two,because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow,others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimatelyknown for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my

part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only.It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and

primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of myconsciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically

both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun tosuggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a

beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself,

could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; theunjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin;and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in


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which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands ofthis extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus

bound together that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should becontinuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?

I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side light began to shine upon thesubject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet beenstated, the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in

which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and pluck back thatfleshly vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion. []I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked

death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might,by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition,utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptationof a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of alarm. I had longsince prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a largequantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredientrequired; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil andsmoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of

courage, drank off the potion.The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of

the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies beganswiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was somethingstrange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incrediblysweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness,a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the

bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked,

sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me likewine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, Iwas suddenly aware that I had lost in stature. []

I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that which I supposeto be most probable. The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stampingefficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed. Again, inthe course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control,it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came aboutthat Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even asgood shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the faceof the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left onthat body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the

glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. Itseemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed moreexpress and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hithertoaccustomed to call mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I have observed that when Iwore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without a visiblemisgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, arecommingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pureevil.

I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had yet to beattempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and mustflee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I

once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and cameto myself once more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.


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That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. [] At that time my virtue slumbered; myevil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was

projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as twoappearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, thatincongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned todespair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.

Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the dryness of a life of study. I

would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least)undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing towards theelderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on thisside that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff atonce the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde.[] Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person andreputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first thatcould plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like aschoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, inmy impenetrable mantle, the safely was complete. Think of it I did not even exist! Let me

but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the

draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde wouldpass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home,trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would

be Henry Jekyll.The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified;

I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turntoward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plungedinto a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my ownsoul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign andvillainous; his every act and thought centred on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidityfrom any degree of torture to another

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