1. 英语文学欣赏 Unit One Identity Lecture One I’m Nobody! Who are you? 精品课 程

2. Introductory Questions  Have you ever felt yourself lost among your classmates? Have you ever tried to stand out?  Have you ever felt lost among study? There are so many things to learn, what is the purpose of all that?  Have you ever been puzzled by life? Why should I go to university, try to be the top student, try to find a good job? What is the point?  If you have, you are thinking about some big problems: who am I? what is unique about me? What is the purpose of life? Does life need a purpose?

3. A General Introduction to Unit One  Works in this unit are refections of the problem of identity.  Works like “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” “Song of Myself” “Theme for English B” are reflections on “who am I”, works like “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” “To Be or Not to Be” “A Hunger Artist” are about “what is the meaning of life”, works like “Rice” and “ 饺子 ” are about how some minorities assert themselves.

4. I ’ m Nobody! Who are You?  I’m Nobody! Who are you?  Are you– Nobody- Too?  Then there’s a pair of us!  Don’t tell! They’d banish us (advertise)– you know!  How dreary– to be– Somebody!  How public– like a Frog—  To tell one’s name– the livelong June—  To an admiring Bog!

5. Questions for Discussion  What is “nobody” like?  What is “somebody” like?  Would you like to be “somebody” or “nobody”? Why?

6. Difficult Points Difficult Points  What does “banish” in line 4 mean? (they will make us public so we lose ourselves. In this sense we are banished )  What does “the livelong June” in line 7 mean?  Why does the poet compare “somebody” to the frog? What is the similarity?  What does “an admiring Bog” refer to?

7. Introduction to the life of the Poet Emily Dickinson  Emily lived a reclusive life for most part of her life and never married. She has written more than one thousand poems but published one a few.

8. Is the Poem a Reflection of the Poet ’ s Life?  This poem may be an expression of the poetess’s life. But a poem is not necessarily personal. Some poems try to hide the poet, the “I” may be the opposite of the writer.  Introduce the idea of speaker or persona( the speaker or persona is the mask the writer wears in his writing, maybe for the sake of creativity, you write better when you are imagining somebody else is writing, maybe you don’t want other people to know you too well).  So, “I” in the poem is not necessarily the writer!

9. Further Discussion  What is the real self? Is the “I” in private (nobody) the real self or the “I” in public (somebody) the real self?