Citation

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Hypothesis

A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon.

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Dover Beach - by Matthew Arnold

 

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

 

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

 

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Questions from the quiz:

ⓐ In the second stanza, what does the allusion to Sophocles convey?

▶  the universality of human suffering

 

ⓑ What does the Sea of Faith, mentioned in the third stanza, have in common with the sea the speaker describes in the first stanza?

▶  The Sea of Faith has become more distant, as the actual sea does at low tide.

 

ⓒ How does the speaker’s tone change through the first stanza?

▶  At first he seems peaceful and happy, but the sound of the waves saddens him.

Matthew Arnold (←click)

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Heroic Couplet

→  a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter

Carpe Diem

a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day"

唐詩《金縷衣》

勸君莫惜金縷衣，勸君惜取少年時。

花開堪折直須折，莫待無花空折枝。

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 Prime time (←click)

Prime time or peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television programming.