TEACHING READING
To The Queen
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
This poem is
the
epilogue of Tennyson´s most notable work “Idylls
of the King”, a series of twelve poems retelling part of the story of Arthur
and his knights. It is
addressed to Queen
Victoria, encouraging her in her grief over the death of her beloved Prince Albert
not to allow Britain to lose strength in
carrying out her destiny.
The work is, he says,
''an old imperfect tale,
New-old, and shadowing sense at war with soul.''
By ''new-old" he means that he will re-tell these old stories as a nineteenth-century poet, and with the best ideals of his own age in full view ; that, while retaining the mediaeval imagery, he will adapt the legends to the feelings and sentiments of his own generation.
The work is, he says,
''an old imperfect tale,
New-old, and shadowing sense at war with soul.''
By ''new-old" he means that he will re-tell these old stories as a nineteenth-century poet, and with the best ideals of his own age in full view ; that, while retaining the mediaeval imagery, he will adapt the legends to the feelings and sentiments of his own generation.
Summary
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
The
body of a dead soldier is brought home to his wife and she cannot show her
sorrow because she is in shock. The maid believes that her mistress should cry
out her pain, otherwise the grief will kill her. She tries to make her weep by
praising the dead husband but the wife stills without showing any reaction.
Then the maid removes the cloth that covers the face hoping the grief to flow
out, but it does not. A ninety year old nurse puts their child upon her knee,
suddenly tears roll down and she can finally show her pain.
Summary
An ecology of houses
by Kevin Burke
by Kevin Burke
The article “An Ecology of Houses” by
Kevin Burke brings us face to face with the relationship between nature and
human beings, the process of changing the environment and altering it by
natural selection.
As human beings we have made up a romantic
picture of nature in our minds during the time. Sceneries which don’t include
people and idealistic landscapes show up in our imagination.
But currently we are far away from such an
idyllic set and are in constant conflict with our environment. The modifying of
the methods of natural selection has consequences for human evolution, as
nature is in part created by humans.
The process is the transforming of the
environment by the subjects themselves being an essential part of it and the
fact of the capability of changing it. We call this ecological niche construction.
In the United States the suburban sprawl
has been the main cause of modification of environment. Natural selection in
this case is strongly related with profit and economic growth. But can we talk
about natural selection then? It seems that the terms ecology and economy
actually don’t fit together in sense of sprawl and construction, even if they
have the same root.
In the 1950s in USA, people in many cities
tended to move their residences to the countryside. The land that was used for
farming before was now converted into residential neighborhoods and that fact
had bigger consequences for local and global environment.
In global terms sprawl has caused global
warming because of higher emissions from cars that are necessary to move to
outside the cities.
But the most serious problem due to the
sprawl is water contamination and consequently water depletion which has been a
great concern in modern US cities.
In conclusion we have to reconsider the
meaning of natural selection. We must be aware in what way we are altering
evolution by creating our urban living spaces. That doesn't
instantly mean that we have to put behind our romantic picture of nature
and how we should include it in our city planning. We have to be conscious that
we are part of nature and nature is part of us and that we depend each from
another.
Summary
The Velociraptor-Like Robot That Could Save Your Life
by Valerie Ross
In this article
we learn about biologist Robert Full’s design of search and rescue robots by
studying the behavior of lizards.
Especially
African agama lizards have an enormous capacity to make a perfect landing after
a flight by moving their tails up and down. Full wants apply the technique to
the robot that must persist upright when climbing difficult landscape.
Full has built
a four-wheeled vehicle with a tail, which he and his team call Tailbot. By
lifting its tail before jumping from a ramp it is able to land even more
perfectly than the lizards.
That invents
led Full to another area, paleontology. He discovered that the dinosaur
velociraptor used much the same skill. He made a model that shows that the
raptors were apparently even better at staying upright by using their tails.
Despite of not being able to confirm his theory he could show his knowledge in
the movie Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs jump and move in a perfect way.
