Please write a short essay comparing Jhumpa Lahiri's story "The Third and Final Continent" and the film adaptation of her novel The Namesake. Your essay should take the following form.Please read the following sonnets, three by William Wordsworth and one by Boey Kim Cheng and write the following short essay. (Note that Boey's family name comes first as is the convention in much of east Asia, so we may refer to "Boey" as we would to "Wordsworth".)
Paragraph 1
Summary of what you believe "London 1802" is about.
Paragraph 2
Summary of what you believe "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" is about.
Paragraph 3
Summary of what you believe "The world is too much with us" is about.
Paragraph 4
Discussion of similarities between "Report to Wordsworth" and the Wordsworth sonnets.
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1.
"London 1802" by William Wordsworth
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
2.
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge" by William Wordsworth
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
3.
"The world is too much with us" by William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
4.
"Report to Wordsworth" by Boey Kim Cheng
You should be here, Nature has need of you.
she has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog.
the flowers are mute, and the birds are few
in a sky like a dying clock.
All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea
have sunk; he is entombed in the waste
we dump. Triton's notes struggle to be free,
his famous horns are choked, his eyes are dazed,
and Neptune lies helpless as a beached whale,
while insatiate man moves in for the kill.
Poetry and piety have begun to fail,
as Natures mighty heart is lying still.
O see the wound widening in the sky,
God is labouring to utter his last cry.
