Inglés para viajeros II: 21/01/2019

British History

History of the US

Literature in English

Some terminology

Countries
Periods
Authors and Works

Philosphy
Science
Music
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Comparison between English Wikipedia and Simple English Wikipedia

Alguna referencia bibliográfica:

José Luis Borges y María Esther Vázquez: Introducción a la literatura inglesa, Alianza.
Jorge Luis Borges: Introducción a la literatura norteamericana, varias ediciones aunque creo que difícil de encontrar.

Para la filosofía inglesa, lo emjor es acudir a los capítulos correspondientes de las historias de la filosofgía habituales, Abbagnano, Copleston, Hirschberger, etc.

Dos textos de Edgar Allan Poe:

Sonnet - To Science

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! 

   Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. 

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, 

   Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? 

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, 

   Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering 

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, 

   Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? 

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car, 

   And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 

To seek a shelter in some happier star? 

   Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, 

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me 

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? 

The pure Imagination chooses, from either beauty or deformity, only the most combinable things hitherto uncombined; — the compound, as a general rule, partaking (in character) of sublimity or beauty, in the ratio of the respective sublimity or beauty of the things combined — which are themselves still to be considered as atomic — that is to say, as previous combinations. But, as often analogously happens in physical chemistry, so nol unfrequently does it occur in this chemistry of the intellect, that the admixture of two elements will result in a something that shall have nothing of the quality of one of them — or even nothing of the qualities of either. The range of Imagination is [[,]] therefore, unlimited. Its materials extend throughout the Universe. Even out of deformities it fabricates that Beauty which is at once its sole object and its inevitable test. But, in general, the richness or force of the matters combined — the facility of discovering combinable novelties worth combining — and the absolute "chemical combination" and proportion of the completed mass — are the particulars to be regarded in our estimate of Imagination. It is this thorough harmony of an imaginative work which so often causes it to be under-valued by the undiscriminating, through the character of obviousness which is superinduced. We are apt to find ourselves asking "why is it that these combinations have never been imagined before ?"

    Now, when this question does not occur — when the harmony of the combination is comparatively neglected, and when in addition to the element of novelty, there is introduced the sub-element of unexpectedness — when, for example, matters are brought into combination which not only have never been combined but whose combination strikes us as a difficulty happily overcome — the result then appertains to the FANCY — and is, to the majority of mankind more grateful than the purely harmonious one — although, absolutely, it is less beautiful (or grand) for the reason that it is less harmonious.

Complete text here