Scientists find giant 600-mile wide 'megastructures' buried deep below Earth's surface

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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The mysterious 'ultra-low velocity zones' were detected by researchers looking at data from earthquakes, and date back to the period before the Earth had a Moon.


Geologists have discovered mysterious giant structures hidden deep within the Earth.

We know less about the interior of the Earth than we do about the surface of the Moon.

No-one, not even a robot probe, has ventured deeper than a few miles into the Earth's crust.

Now data from hundreds of major earthquakes has helped a team led by Doyeon Kim at the University of Maryland in the US discover a strange new structure beneath the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific Ocean.

The structure, known as an ultra-low velocity zone (ULVZ), is about 620 miles in diameter and just under 16 kilometres thick, says Kim.

A similar, even larger structure exists beneath Hawaii.

While we know that motion at the core of the Earth generates the magnetic field that protects us from deadly solar radiation, the science behind how this field is generated is not fully understood.

Even the theory of plate tectonics – the mechanism behind continental drift that causes earthquakes and volcanoes – was not generally accepted until after the First World War.

These gigantic and mysterious structures are especially interesting because they date back to the period before Earth had a Moon.

These chunks of exotic material could even be the scars dating back to the titanic collision between the Earth and an unknown object the size of Mars that gave birth to the Moon over four billion years ago.

The intriguing anomalies deep within the Earth are revealed by the progress of seismic waves caused by earthquakes.

Kim’s team analysed seismograms produced by slow-moving shear (S) waves that follow earthquakes’ primary tremors (P-waves) along the boundary between the Earth’s mantle and its core.

These S-waves produce clearer signals for analysis.

Kim’s team used an algorithm called Sequencer to process the data from hundreds of earthquakes that occurred between 1990 to 2018.

The data offers unique insights into the deepest and oldest parts of our planet.

Ozymandias

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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 Critical Appreciation

by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

The poem Ozymandias is a satiric poem intended to convey the message that power and pride are vain and temporary possessions that make human beings arrogant and egotistical but time will treat everything and everyone equally. The situation of the poem is one in which the speaker is narrating to us what a "traveler from an antique land" had told him.

 

The traveler had described a broken statue of an ancient tyrant to this speaker. The present speaker retells us the story in the exact words of the original reporter: the whole poem is in the form of a single stretch of direct speech. The story quietly satirizes the so-called great ruler as nothing great in front of the "level sands" of time.

The poem develops only logically as the writer turns and twists the narration, satirizing the tyrant, specifically, and also suggesting the general theme of the vanity of power and pride. As the traveler had told this speaker, there were two "vast and trunkless legs of stone" in the midst of a desert. As the other details clearly reveal, the legs belonged to a statue of some ancient tyrant who had an empire with its capital at this place. Here was one of his enormous statues under which he had ordered the artist to write the words: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings… Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair". This suggests that the tyrant used to take it for granted that his name would be immortal in an everlasting empire of his, and therefore, the people would look at the statue and his "works" - whatever it means - and 'despair' out of awe, amazement and fear. In the letters carved on the pedestal, he has also addressed to "ye Mighty", meaning 'powerful' kings of the future; all of whom he had supposed would be much inferior to him. But the traveler looked around and saw nothing other than an endless stretch of sand, nothing of the "my works" at which even the mighty was supposed to look and despair!

In the course of the development of the narration of the strange story, the traveler's speech is handled in such a way as to suggest many other points of satire and other messages. The way the traveler has described the shattered statue and the surrounding must be discussed in some detail in order to unravel some of the major thematic ideas in the poem. Near the trunkless pair of legs, there was a broken face with a frown on it. This and the wrinkled lip showed the "sneer of cold command" to the traveler. It seems that the sculptor knowingly represented these features on the face to tell the future generations how cruel and inhuman this tyrant was. These indicators have survived longer than the empire and even the whole form of the stone statue. Evil name does outlive one's life or kingdom. The maker of the statue understood the meaning of the artificial facial expression that the tyrant puts on in order to arouse fear in the people. He must have also read the wickedness and cruelty on his face. The (hand of the) artist mocked the egomania of the conceited tyrant, because he understood the reality of life, being not blinded by power and possession. He put his heart to make the statue, representing perfectly not only what the tyrant must have told him to but also a truth that fooled the arrogant ruler.

The choice of words has played almost all the tricks discussed above. The traveler being from an "antique" or the ancient land suggests that the empire was an old one. In fact, we do not know the name Ozymandias as a popular one - we don't really care, if it is not the name of a "human" and 'proper' human being! The word vast suggests that the statue was really big, because even the legs without the main trunk are vast. They are being made of stone tells us that even a stone is perishable, not to mention fragile human beings, be they 'great' barbaric tyrants or small common people. The remaining are just a shattered 'visage' (or face) and the "passions" (or feelings) that can be interpreted even now. It is ironical that the signs of inhumanity survive when almost everything else for which he expressed his pride are gone. The traveler is like Eiron in Greek dramas in the way he uses tearing understatement. After reading the words on the pedestal, he looks around as if he believed the tyrant's words that presume the continuity of his empire, his name, his deeds and misdeeds, and his status. But nothing is seen, besides the wreckage of the statue. The "level sands" is a symbol of equality of treatment of everything and everyone by time, and the laws of nature. Nothing is immortal, not the least corporeal possessions and power. If at all, bad name and loathing remains if one has given pain and injustice to others.

The order of words in this poem suggests that the poem is fairly old. The poet has also changed the order of words for the sake of rhyming. Besides, he has changed word order for putting certain words at the end for throwing them into prominence, as in: "frown and… tell that its sculptor well those passions read", instead of the normal order as: "tell that its sculptor read well those passions". There is the usual iambic meter suitable for narration, but with a lot of variations and irregularities that match the turns and twists the course of the narration. The rhyming scheme is: ababb cdced cfef. But the imperfect or feminine rhyming as is sand/command, stone/frown, appear/despair are clear indications of the irony in the poem. Moreover, these misrhymngs come at the right times when the vanity of the tyrant is to be exposed

One of the unique techniques employed by this poem is its "not quite telling the attitude" but projecting the meanings in the images and other details selected to the intended defect. The present reporter never explicitly tells us what he means, but he makes it clear from the images. The humility with which the objective details are presented also satirizes the tyrant even more. This is a sonnet because there are fourteen lines and a certain pattern of rhyme. But the rhyming scheme is original, neither like in Shakespearean sonnet nor like in the original Italian sonnet. Like in a sonnet the first part consisting of eight lines (octave) presents the description and the next six lines present the thematic satiric materials.

The poem is a P.B. Shelley’s famous sonnet, one in which the revolutionary Romantic poet has expressed his hatred of tyranny, and this is related to the humanistic revolutionary theory of Shelley. But the poem is understandable and 'great' enough in its expression, theme and artistry.

The structureless structure of the poem - narration followed by direct report containing a description and neutral comment which is again followed by a report of the inscription on the pedestal and ending with a bitterly satiric but cunningly cold comment on the situation - such a structure of the poem, which parallels the destruction and absurd end of the power and empire of the now nameless tyrant, is something I am always struck by, whenever I read this poem. The fact that the poet has chosen an obscure and infamous tyrant is a significant irony that the tyrant's presumption of immortal fame was a petty illusion!

The humility of the traveler who quietly makes a piercing satire on the so-called “great" emperor is memorable in the poem. This is really good poem because it has a concrete surface and also a depth of symbolic meaning. Symbolically, it represents the vanity of human pride of possession and power, like the poem “On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness". The economy of its wording and the aptness of the images are as striking as the lesson this poem teaches. I feel like mocking the existing tyrants and had rulers of the world who rule the people with force and fear rather than love and compassion.

The real Ozymandias     by P.B.SHELLEY

King of Kings

The enthusiasms, rivalries, fads and fashions that lie behind Shelley’s best-known poem

JUST after Christmas in 1817 Percy Bysshe Shelley, then 25, sat down to write a poem. This was not, of course, unusual. He had spent most of the year doing the same, often floating round in a small skiff on the Thames or perched in Bisham wood, near Marlow, to bring to birth his enormous mythical-French-revolution poem, “The Revolt of Islam”. By contrast, this one was a doddle. It took up one page of the same notebook: a page previously, or subsequently, covered with elementary sums and blots. Across the top of the page run the words:

My name is Ozymandias—King of Kings

This has become, perhaps, the most famous line in Shelley, though it was not his own; the one everyone knows and bursts into unprompted, though they may barely have heard of the poet himself. The sonnet that grew out of it was included in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury in 1861 and, since then, has made most anthologies of English verse. It is, by general consent, a great poem. Shelley would probably have been mildly miffed by its success; he was much more keen to fire up the public with his longer works. He would also, perhaps, have been surprised.

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert…near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”—

The origins of “Ozymandias” were humble: a playful contest with a friend, Horace Smith, a jolly London poet-stockbroker, who was staying with Shelley at Marlow. A mutual friend, Leigh Hunt, the young editor of the radical Examiner magazine, liked to organise sonnet competitions; 15 minutes was the standard time allowed. (The next February Hunt set one up between Shelley, John Keats and himself. The topic was “The Nile”; the two poets dashed off theirs in style, while Hunt laboured on his until two in the morning.) Shelley’s poem and Smith’s were published in short succession in the Examiner the next year, Smith modestly regretting their proximity. Indeed, though his effort got better towards the end, it was hard to get straight-faced past the first two lines:

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,

Stands a gigantic Leg…

The Muse had plainly dawdled. Shelley’s start was rocky, too. He got hung up first on “pedestal”, a tricky word to fit into a metre (“There stands by Nile a lone single pedestal”). Then he was bothered by the material the trunkless legs were made of (“marble/grey/brown”). A “sultry mist” crept in, distracting him for a while. Then he attributed a “gathered frown” to one of the legs. But oddly, on the recto of the page (Shelley having typically started off on the verso), the whole thing is written out in fair copy, as if it has effortlessly formed in his head.

Probably it had. Much ink has been spilled discussing exactly where Shelley’s image, and the vaunting proclamation, came from, but possible sources were not far to seek. The most likely was Diodorus Siculus in his “Library of History”, which Shelley was reading around that time. Diodorus, writing in the first century BC, relayed Hecataeus’s description of the black-stone statue when it was standing complete in its temple in Thebes 300 years before. It was, said Hecataeus, the largest statue in Egypt; its foot alone was “more than seven cubits”, or ten and a half feet long. Diodorus, who had never seen it, straightforwardly called it “Ozymandias”, recorded the proclamation on the pedestal and said that this funerary temple “seems to exceed all others not only in the vast scale of its expense, but also in the genius of its builders.” It was not, however, ruined: the black stone contained “not a crack, not a flaw” in his day.

Shelley was probably also influenced, therefore, by an account of Thomas Legh’s “Narrative of a Journey in Egypt and the Country beyond the Cataracts” in the Quarterly Review for October 1816. This related that despite the proud words (which it repeated) on the colossal statue, no trace, save perhaps one “prostrate fragment”, now remained. Some pages on, however, and much deeper into Egypt, a Mr Banks had discovered an even bigger statue buried up to its shoulders in sand. Standing upon the tip of its ear, he could just reach to the middle of its forehead, from which he calculated that the length of the head was 12 feet (3.7 metres), and the height of the whole thing probably 84 feet, “far exceeding that of the supposed statue of the ‘King of Kings’.”

The King of Kings, though, was the one visitors wanted to see, when they had braved the broiling heat and terrifying emptiness of the desert to get so far. Several 18th-century travel books, such as Pococke’s “Description of the East” (1743) and Vivant Denon’s “Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte” (1802), contained engravings of a toppled and scattered colossus in Thebes that might have been Ozymandias. Denon, with his French sniffiness, pronounced the style of the statue “mediocre” but the execution perfect. He also noted that because the coiffure was broken, it was impossible to tell whether the subject was a king or a god. But he had measured it: 25 feet across the shoulders, and 75 feet in height. The wonderful name had caught on; tourists from all over Europe, he noted, had carved their own names and remarks, in many languages, on what they supposed was left of him.

Shelley’s fallen tyrant departed from any of these. His legs stood upright, whereas the original statue was sitting, and the ruin was lying down. The ruin lay on its face, so there was no possibility of seeing those “wrinkled lips” and that “sneer of cold command”. Fallen buildings lay all round it, too, where Shelley’s poem had “nothing beside” the boundless desert sands.

But poets had their privilege, he once said coyly; they could imagine whatever they liked. This seems to be what he had done, from an imagination peopled with sneering tyrants ever since he was a boy. The “vast and trunkless legs” could as well belong to the famously corpulent Prince Regent, holding lavish banquets in Carlton House while the poor scraped and starved; the “sneer of cold command” would suit any of the raging, gorging, hell-hound-loosing rulers depicted in “Queen Mab”, Shelley’s radical and youthful outpouring of 1813. Shelley had sculpted Ozymandias’s face himself, shattered it with whoops of glee, rubbed it in its own pride (“king” always being an obscenity as far as he was concerned) and placed it in the wilderness, both moral and physical, in which such men belonged.

In any case, the “real” Ozymandias too was a stock tyrant; or so it seemed. No other writer of antiquity mentioned him. The stone reliefs Diodorus associated with him, and the buildings around him, appeared to be the mortuary-temple complex of Ramesses II, otherwise known as the Younger Memnon. “Ozymandias” may have been a corruption of part of his royal name. It was Ramesses II, ruler of Upper Egypt for 67 years in the 13th century BC, who had defeated the Hittites, the Nubians and the Canaanites, hugely expanded the bounds of Egypt, and built Thebes into a city of 100 gates, many covered in gold and silver. He revelled in colossal statues, erecting more than any other Egyptian king, and it was he who had declared, in words less rhythmical than Shelley made them, “Should any man seek to know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.”

As it happened, as Shelley and Smith were scribbling their competing sonnets, Ramesses II was on his way to London. The top half of one of the statues of him at Thebes (though not the one described by Diodorus, which still lies in situ toppled and mutilated) had been dragged, on trolleys and with palm-fibre ropes, as far as the bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, and now waited only for a boat to transport it the rest of the way. The boat would need to be substantial: the pharaoh’s head and shoulders weighed seven tonnes. The French army, passing nearby, had tried to shift the colossus by drilling a three-inch hole in his shoulder and stuffing it with dynamite, but the soldiers had chickened out at the last moment and left him behind.

The British, as they drove the French out of Egypt, also picked up their antiquarian loot. No consciences pricked about taking it. Glorious Thebes was now a “village”, populated by wretched lentil-eating peasants and “a dark and woolly-haired under-race” who had no notion what the statues meant. It fell to Giovanni Belzoni, a former circus strongman, weightlifter and engineer, to find a way to lever the colossal hulk out of the sand with a workforce of “complete savages…entirely unacquainted with any kind of labour and ignorant of the value of money.”

In 1818 the Younger Memnon was enthroned in a newly built Egyptian Room at the British Museum, where he remains, magnificent in grey and pale brown granite, the French sappers’ hole still in his shoulder. The keeper of the Egyptian Room explained that he was not going to put him under Fine Art, because he did not think he was. But he was certainly impressive. The statue’s arrival sparked an explosion of interest in all things Egyptian—but Shelley, who had flung himself into exile in Italy in March 1818, never actually saw him.

If he had, he might have been disappointed. The Younger Memnon has no despot’s scowl. He is clear-eyed and somehow innocent, though the hissing cobra of sovereignty sits coiled on his brow. Even when viewed from below, he is smiling. (Belzoni, on first sighting him, thought he smiled “at the thought of being taken to England.”) Someone has battered him, perhaps maliciously rather than accidentally; his left arm is severed at the shoulder, and the top right side of his head is sheared off. To someone, therefore, he was a tyrant, and his toppling into the sand was not the slow work of Nature and of time. But quick or slow, in Shelley’s world, that was how all tyrants ended. Even in the 21st century their overthrow, as in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, is most vividly proclaimed when their statues fall.

Good and bad ruins

Shelley’s brush with Egypt was brief. In the short term Italy took him over; in the long term, no other ancient civilisation could displace his beloved Greeks. For him, “Ozymandias” could have been set anywhere—and, in a way, it was. It was a poem inspired less by a particular pharaoh with a mellifluous name, than by ruins, and the lessons they could teach mankind. For the Romantic fashion that preceded Egypt was the craze for the picturesque decay of ancient places, either painted, or reconstructed in aristocrats’ gardens (the Prince Regent, now George IV, erected some “new” ones in 1827 at Virginia Water), or wandered through by poets in a melancholy frame of mind. “A ruin—yet what a ruin!” cried Byron, as his feet echoed “strangely loud” in the “enormous skeleton” of the Roman Coliseum.

For Shelley, as for many of his contemporaries, there were good ruins and bad ones. Good ruins, though they might also induce sadness, were the result of the eternal cycles of Nature and Necessity, the endless flux described by Lucretius in his “De Rerum Natura” (devoured by Shelley at school). Human settlements sprang up, and fell into decay; human blood and bones were atomised into earth; from earth—even from endless desert sands—would come, in time, new civilisations. So spoke the Fairy in “Queen Mab”:

There’s not one atom of yon earth

But once was living man;

Not the minutest drop of rain

That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,

But flowed in human veins…

Thou canst not find one spot

Whereon no city stood.

Ruins of this sort were everywhere in Shelley. In a short, unfinished story of 1814 called “The Assassins”, he lovingly described “piles of monumental marble and fragments of columns that in their integrity almost seemed the work of some intelligence more sportive and fantastic than the gross conceptions of mortality”. Ancient signs and inscriptions were still carved inside them, “mystic characters” redolent with wisdom if you knew how to read them. For the present Nature had taken such ruins over with ivy, bryony, myrtle and green lawns, a tapestry of loveliness, thereby “making them immortal”—and providing, not incidentally, great places to make love.

For Shelley the best ruins of all were Greek ones, lying beneath the sea or under rivers (flowing water representing the pulse of human thought), their elegant columns and white pediments decked with azure underwater weeds. These ruins would never fade from human memory, for they spoke of liberty and the rule of reason, and every revolution in his tumultuous age—the “war of the oppressed against the oppressors” in France, America, Genoa, Naples, Mexico, Spain, Greece—was modelled, however imperfectly, on the now-shattered forms of the Athenian republic.

Bad ruins were the “Ozymandias” kind. These too might have been, in their time, artistic and impressive; the sculptor of Ozymandias, Shelley implied, did a fine job of representing him. But these were relics of overweening hubris, where every stone spoke of a tyrant’s bloody oppression of his people. In “Queen Mab” he imagined a “sterile spot” in Salem where a temple of a thousand golden domes had once “exposed its shameful glory”:

Many a widow, many an orphan cursed

The building of that fane; and many a father,

Worn out with toil and slavery, implored

The poor man’s God to sweep it from the earth,

And spare his children the detested task

Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning

The choicest days of life

To soothe a dotard’s vanity.

The book that most clearly lay behind “Ozymandias” was “The Ruins: or, a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires”, by the Comte de Volney, a much-read French treatise of 1791 on why civilisations fell and what men should do to find happiness. Volney, travelling in Egypt and Syria, took a detour to visit the ruins of Palmyra, wandering for several days through the dilapidated streets, home now to no one but jackals and himself. Falling into a melancholy waking dream, he encountered the Genius of the place, who whirled him into space to view the ruins of the Earth: temples, funerary monuments, the pyramids, the Sphinx. Humans crept like ants among them. It was not Fate or Necessity that had done this, the Genius told him. It was not God, because these people had worshipped him, after their own weird fashion. No, it was man himself. Civilisation after civilisation had been brought down by the cupidity and ignorance of kings.

It could happen again, too (though Volney, a good revolutionary, thought a General Assembly of the People might forestall or delay it). If Egypt, why not Paris? Why not London? There was a certain delicious shiver in imagining London, as Shelley did in his dedication to “Peter Bell the Third” in 1819, as “an habitation of bitterns”, “when St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream”. In the last lines of his Ozymandias attempt, Horace Smith did the same:

…some Hunter may express

Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness

Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,

He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess

What powerful but unrecorded race

Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Where, though, was the contemporary Ozymandias, that shattered monster in the sand, that man of overweening pride and ruler of the world? He had only recently been toppled: defeated at Waterloo in 1815, he had been sent to exile on St Helena, furiously brooding on his lost power. “I hated thee, fallen tyrant!” cried Shelley in his sonnet of 1816, “Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte”. Now “thou and France are in the dust”:

…Thou didst prefer

A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept

In fragments towards Oblivion.

Twenty years or so before, Napoleon had been in Egypt, warring against the Marmeluks but also, as he went, employing archaeologists and artists to examine and record the remains of pharaonic civilisations. One of his artists was Denon, whose book may have helped inspire Shelley, and whose time was spent hectically galloping from monument to monument to record what he could before the army moved on. (On his first visit to Thebes, the unseen enemy pelted him with stones; on a second he sketched the colossuses at Thebes with the dawn behind them, and was rather pleased with the result.)

Denon worshipped Napoleon, and was among the party who accompanied him secretly back to France to set up the Consulate on 18 Brumaire 1799. His “Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte” was dedicated to him not merely as a hero, but a god: “To join your name to the splendour of the monuments of Egypt is to link the sacred rites of our century to the fabled times of history.”

Napoleon briefly visited some of the fallen monuments himself. He contemplated the Sphinx at Giza, and went into one of the Pyramids while Denon, outside, mused that “the heap of pride that built them must have been even bigger than they are.” Napoleon asked to be left alone in the King’s Chamber; there, something happened that terrified him. He refused ever to speak of it because, he told a friend, “You’d never believe me.” His enemies presumed it must have been some premonition of his fall.

In 1867-68 Jean-Léon Gérôme produced his painting, “Bonaparte before the Sphinx” (below), heavy with historical echoes of hubris and its end. The picture hangs today in the extravagant, empty, unfinished castle built by William Randolph Hearst before his press empire imploded, in San Simeon, California.

The 18th century English Novel

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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Rise of #English #Novel in #18th Century--

*Rise of English Novel 

There are #two main classes of fictional prose:

#Tale or #Romance: 

It depends on incident and adventure for its chief interest.

#Novel: It depends more on the display of character and motive. The novel is more complicated than the tale.

The English novel took birth in the 16th and 17th centuries and reached a great height in the #Age #of #Pope and #Dr #Johnson. The group of the first four novelists of the #Augustan Age or #Neo-#classical age: #Richardson, #Smollett, #Fielding and #Sterne, in whose hands Novel blossomed, are called the #four wheels of the novel. 

Following are the main reasons for the rise of English Novel in the 18th century:

a)     #Rise of #Middle #Class

The literature of the 17th century flourished under the patronage of the upper classes. The 18th century in England social history is characterised by the rise of the middle class. Because of tremendous growth in trade and commerce, the England merchant class was becoming wealthy and this newly rich class wanted to excel in the field of literature also. This class was neglected by the high-born writers and their tastes and aspirations were expressed by the novelists of the time. The Novel was, in fact, the product of middle class. With the rise of middle class, hence, the rise of the novel was quite natural.

b)    #Growth of #Newspapers and #Magazines

In the 18th century, the appearance of newspapers and magazines attracted a large number of readers from the middle class. These new readers had little interest in the romances and the tragedies which had interested the upper class. Thus need for new type of literature rose that would express the new ideas of the 18th century and this new type of literature was none but novel.

c)     #Rise of #Realism

The 18th-century literature was characterised by the spirit of realism and romantic features like enthusiasm, passion, imaginations etc. declined in this period. Reason, intellect, correctness, satirical spirit etc. were the main characteristics of 18th-century literature. The English novel had all these characteristics.

d)    #Role of #Women

In the 18th century, women of upper classes and the middle classes could partake in a few activities of men. Although they could not engage themselves in administration, politics, hunting, drinking etc. hence, in their leisure time, they used to read novels.

e)     #Decline of #Drama

The decline of drama also contributed to the rise of the novel in the 18th century. In the 18th century, drama lost its fame that it had in the Elizabethan Age. It did not remain an influential literary form. Hence some other had to take its place and its place was filled by the English novel after 1740 A.D. Thus the decline of drama led to the rise of the English novel.

More tips about IELTS

prof.Abdelhamid 

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#IELTS_Reading_Questions

👉👉Question type 1 : 

👉Fill in the blank 

 

''Fill in the blank''  'Always goes in order ' easier & faster to do first

Answering this question depends on certain things :

*** your ability to understand the meaning of the sentence ,I mean the context 'سياق الكلام  ",because if you understood it ,you will be able to find the missing word(s) in the given passages.

·

***Grammatical understanding of sentences is very important to handle this question type  ; as the missing word will normally connect to the words before or after the blank line .These before and after words will give you an idea of the probable type of word which can come in the blanks ( nouns, verbs ,adjectives ,so on)

 

How to answer fill in the blank  question  👌💪

 

1-Read the questions first and underline the keywords( proper nouns, adjectives, verbs)

 

2-Think of the synonyms for these keywords

 

3-start with any question you find much easier where is a date, a name of a scientist ,etc ; as you know this question type goes in order ,so if you know ,for example, where the answers for question ,11 & 15  are ,it will be so easy for you to find the answers for questions ,12,13 &14 as they will be in  between paragraphs .So easy !

#IELTS_Tips_Tricks_with_Gehad

 

To be continued isA

Negative Capability V/S Egotistical Sublime

prof.Abdelhamid 

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Keats coined the term Negative Capability in 1817 in a letter addressed to his brothers George and Tom Keats.

Keats coined the term Egotistical Sublime in 1818 in a letter addressed to his friend Richard Woodhouse.

 Negative Capability refers to the ability of the great artists to pursue artistic/poetic beauty even at the cost of throwing themselves to the chaos of uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, confusion and paradox as opposed to philosophical/ intellectual/moral and aesthetic certainty.

Negative Capability, which Keats believes Shakespeare possessed in abundance,  allows great writers to find as much pleasure in creating characters like Iago (evil) as in creating characters like Imogen (virtuous) as it allows the great writers to temporarily suspend their moral concerns and live in each characters body and feel it standing in their shoes.

 These poets find joy in poetic creativity itself and they elevate poetry above the earthly moral concerns. They do not allow the world to be presented through their moral frameworks; instead they present the world as such as they are not bounded by their own moral concerns in the process of poetic creation. (Seems I hear postmodern bell)

 Those writers who lack Negative Capability seem to suffer from Egotistical Sublime. Keats accuses Wordsworth of presenting the world through his subjective perspective and not possessing the Negative Capa that Shakespeare possessed.  

(Now you see why still many walk around hailing an imaginary friend called God? They just don’t posess negative capabilty and they are uncomfortable with uncerainities!!!)  

 

NEGATIVEC: ”…what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason..”

 

“A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity – he is continually in for – and filling some other Body – The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute – the poet has none; no identity – he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God’s Creatures……. When I am in a room with People if I ever am free from speculating on creations of my own brain, then not myself goes home to myself: but the identity of every one in the room begins so to press upon me that I am in a very little time annihilated – not only among Men; it would be the same in a Nursery of children: I know not whether I make myself wholly understood: I hope enough so to let you see that no despondence is to be placed on what I said that day.”

Fancy reading the two letters in which Keats introduced the twin ideas?

Well, read it here:

[On Negative Capability: Letter to George and Tom Keats, 21, ?27 December 1817] 

Hampstead Sunday

22 December 1818

My dear Brothers

I must crave your pardon for not having written ere this [ . . . ] [T]he excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth—Examine King Lear & you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited, in which to bury its repulsiveness—The picture is larger than Christ rejected—I dined with Haydon the sunday after you left, & had a very pleasant day, I dined too (for I have been out too much lately) with Horace Smith & met his two brothers with Hill & Kingston & one Du Bois, they only served to convince me, how superior humour is to wit in respect to enjoyment—These men say things which make one start, without making one feel, they are all alike; their manners are alike; they all know fashionables; they have a mannerism in their very eating & drinking, in their mere handling a Decanter—They talked of Kean & his low company—Would I were with that company instead of yours said I to myself! I know such like acquaintance will never do for me & yet I am going to Reynolds, on wednesday—Brown & Dilke walked with me & back from the Christmas pantomime.  I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

———————————————————————

[On Negative Capability and Egotistical Sublime: Letter to Wodhouse ]

October 27th, 1818

My dear Woodhouse,

Your Letter gave me a great satisfaction; more on account of its friendliness, than any relish of that matter in it which is accounted so acceptable in the ‘genus irritabile’. The best answer I can give you is in a clerk-like manner to make some observations on two princple points, which seem to point like indices into the midst of the whole pro and con, about genius, and views and achievements and ambition and cetera. 1st. As to the poetical Character itself (I mean that sort of which, if I am any thing, I am a Member; that sort distinguished from the wordsworthian or egotistical sublime; which is a thing per se and stands alone) it is not itself – it has no self – it is every thing and nothing – It has no character – it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated – It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the camelion Poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation. A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity – he is continually in for – and filling some other Body – The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute – the poet has none; no identity – he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God’s Creatures. If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet, where is the Wonder that I should say I would write no more? Might I not at that very instant have been cogitating on the Characters of Saturn and Ops? It is a wretched thing to confess; but is a very fact that not one word I ever utter can be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature – how can it, when I have no nature? When I am in a room with People if I ever am free from speculating on creations of my own brain, then not myself goes home to myself: but the identity of every one in the room begins so to press upon me that I am in a very little time annihilated – not only among Men; it would be the same in a Nursery of children: I know not whether I make myself wholly understood: I hope enough so to let you see that no despondence is to be placed on what I said that day.

In the second place I will speak of my views, and of the life I purpose to myself. I am ambitious of doing the world some good: if I should be spared that may be the work of maturer years – in the interval I will assay to reach to as high a summit in Poetry as the nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The faint conceptions I have of Poems to come brings the blood frequently into my forehead. All I hope is that I may not lose all interest in human affairs – that the solitary indifference I feel for applause even from the finest Spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not think it will – I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the Beautiful even if my night’s labours should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them. But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself: but from some character in whose soul I now live. I am sure however that this next sentence is from myself. I feel your anxiety, good opinion and friendliness in the highest degree, and am

Your’s most sincerely

John Keats

Idioms and translation

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

#أكبر_تجميعة_للidioms_وترجمته....

1- If it weren't for you لولاك أو لولا تدخلك .

Ex: If it weren't for, he'd be still alive.

2- know for certain .      يعلم علم اليقين

Ex: Until we know for certain,I suspect everyone.

3- As a matter of fact .    في حقيقة الأمر

Ex: Well,as a matter of fact,I am a little tired.

4- Get word to .             يرسل خبرا الى

Ex: We had no way to get word to you.

5)- without a second thought

                دون ادني تفكير

Ex : He could kill you without a second thought.

6)- What of it ?                 وماذا في ذلك ؟

Ex: A) I hear you've been having a little trouble at the office .--What of it ?

7)- Stay out of this         يبقي خارج الموضوع

Ex : I'd rather stay out of this.

8)- If that's what it took    إذا تطلب الأمر ذلك

Ex:I swore that I would stop if that's what it took.

9)- Let you down.              أخذلك أو أخيب ظنك

.Ex: I just couldn't let you down .

10)- Call upon                         يناشد

Ex: We call upon all states to respect their commitments.

11)- Hand it                            يعترف أو يقر

Ex: Well,I have to hand it to you.

12)- That's it .              هذا كل ما في الأمر

Ex: A) He wants to stay here . B) That's it ?

13)- For good .                          نهائيا

Ex:  We would have to close shop for good.

14)- What's the point ?                   ما الفائدة

Ex: What's the point if you don't trust me ?

15)- On behalf of .                       نيابة عن

Ex: He spoke on behalf of his colleagues.

16)- Nothing like .            لا شيء يضاهي

Ex: Nothing like a scary movie in the wilderness.

17)- That's not me .   هذه ليست شخصيتي 

Ex: You know well that's not me .

18)- Not counting .        ناهيك عن أو باستثناء

Ex: Who was your first kill, not counting old men?

19)- Spit it out   أفصح عما بداخلك أو قل ما عندك

Ex: Come on, spit it out , who told you about this ?

20)- No matter the odds .              

    مهما كانت الظروف أو الاحتمالات

Ex: I will never stop fighting for my home,no matter the odds .

21)- Set you up .            أرتب لك لقاء

Ex: I could set you up with someone nice from my work.

22)- Out of nowhere    فجأة أو من حيث لا ادري

Ex: It hit me out of nowhere.

23)- Get along .                  يتفق أو ينسجم

Ex: He doesn't get along with his sister .

24)- In advance                       مقدماً او مسبقاً

Ex: please inform us in advance. * Thanks 😊 in advance.

25)- I see your point.            أتفهم وجهة نظرك

=====================================

Ex:I see your point. I'm all right with it .

26)- To each his own               

     لكل ما يحبه أو لكل طريقته الخاصة

Ex:I'd never pick that color,but to each his own.

27)- Call in sick .     

  يأخذ أجازة مرضية أو يتصل بحجة المرض

Ex:I have to call in sick today.

28)- I'm sick of .              لقد سئمت من

Ex: I'm sick of lying and covering .

29)- For God's sake              بالله عليك

Ex:For God's sake,do as we say.

30)- Big deal             أمر جلل أو أمر مهم

Ex:I had no idea it was a big deal to you .

31)- Put yourself in my shoes

  ضع نفسك مكاني

Ex: I didn't intend to hurt you,but put yourself in my shoes.

32)- living beyond your means. 

تعيش فوق إمكانياتك المتاحة

Ex: Why are you living beyond your means ?

33)- Pick your brain                  أستشيرك

Ex: Can I pick your brain about something ?

34)- Keep me posted.       أعلمني بالمستجدات

Ex:  Keep me posted if anything changes, alright?

35)- I can't keep up .         لا أستطيع الاستمرار

Ex: I can't keep up with her . - Stop! I can't keep up .

36)- Stay in touch .      يبقى على اتصال

Ex: I'm sorry I didn't stay in touch after the trial.

37)- Put on the spot.        يضع في موقف حرج

Ex: Don't Put me on the spot like that.

38)- It's out of my hands  

الأمر خارج عن سيطرتي

Ex: I'd like to help you,but it's out of my hands.

39)- play dumb

   يلعب دور المغفل أو يتظاهر بالجهل

Ex: Don't play dumb with me.

40)- You have my word               أوعدك

Ex: You have my word, I'll take care of him.

41)- Kill the mood .       يعكر صفوك أو مزاجك

Ex: I don't want to kill the mood,but you should know.

42)- Play both sides.          يخدع الطرفين

Ex: You can't play both sides forever .

43)- Let's get down to business  لنركز في العمل

Ex: Enough small talk . Let's get down to business.

44)- In the heat of the moment

      في لحظة غضب

Ex: Those words were spoken in the heat of the moment.

45)- Out of line               تجاوز الحدود

Ex: Forgive me if I was out of line, I was upset .

46)- Let the cat out of the bag   

  يفشي سرا بدون قصد أو يزل لسانه

Ex: We'd planned a surprise party for my mother,but some guy let the.....

47)- Keep them on their toes .     

   اجعلهم على استعداد دائم

Ex: With a test every week,she keeps her students on their toes.

48)- Out of question.             

     أمر مرفوض أو غير قابل للنقاش

Ex: I don't have enough money,buying a new car is out of question.

49)- Like pulling teeth     شديد الصعوبة

Ex: Getting the facts can be like pulling teeth .

50)- Push back the (appointment, surgery, meeting) يؤجل

=====================================

Ex: Is there any way to push back the surgery a few hours ?

51)- Let bygones be bygones    

  دعنا ننسى الماضي أو اترك الماضي للماضي

Ex: Can't we let begones be bygones and finally work together ?

52)- If worst comes to worst .                             حينما تسوء الأمور

Ex: If worst comes to worst,you can come and live with me .

53)- Give or take  قد يزيد أو ينقص

Ex: There are 25 students in my class,give or take .

54)- Easy come,easy go

     ما يأتي بسهولة يذهب بسهولة

Ex: My attitude to money easy come, easy go .

55)- Named after             سمي تيمناً

Ex: I was named after my grandfather.

56)- Up for grabs .   لقمة سائغة أو متاحة للجميع

Ex: Did you hear that the position of the manager is up for grabs ?

57)-Beat around the bush

     يحوم حول الموضوع

Ex: Don't beat around the bush,get right to it .

58)-  Serve you right      تنال ما تستحق

Ex: It would serve you right if you lost your money .

59)- It goes without saying  غني عن البيان

Ex: It goes without saying that she is in love with Joan.

60)- Every now and then بين حين وآخر

Ex: Every now and then, I like to expand my horizons .

61)- Go dutch      يدفع كل واحد منا حسابه

Ex: You don't have to treat me to dinner , let's go dutch .

62)- Behind my back 

 من وراء ظهري أو بدون علمي

Ex: You went behind my back to spite me .

63)- make yourself at home.

 البيت بيتك أو خذ راحتك

Ex: Please sit down and make yourself at home.

64)- A little bird told me .

 سمعت أو عصفور أخبرني

Ex: A little bird told me about the other business you're into.

65)- In the same boat في نفس الموقف السيء

Ex: We're all in the same boat today.

66)- Kill two birds with one stone  

   يحقق شيئين في وقت واحد 

Ex: Kill two.....that way and take advantage in the end .

67)- None of your business 

  ليس من شأنك أن تعرف  

My texts are none of your business. 😒

68)- Keep in mind.              ضع في اعتبارك

Ex: As you read,keep in mind that texts have been edited.

69)-Wash my hands                أخلي مسئوليتي

Ex: I'm washing my hands of the whole matter .

70)- Stab me in the back . 

يطعن من الخلف أو يخون

Ex: And now when I need you, you stab me in the back"

71)- Keep an eye on  اجعل عينك على أو راقب

Ex: Call for help, I'll keep an eye on things here .

72)- Give him a taste of his own medicine 

أذيقه شر أعماله

He's always late so this time I'm going to give him a taste of his own medicine.

73)- Give the benefit of the doubt 

     يحسن الظن

Ex: He said he was late because his train was cancelled,and we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

74)- Stick to your guns تمسك برأيك أو بموقفك

Ex:You have to stick your guns no matter what anyone else says .

74)- Steal my thunder    يسرق الاضواء

Ex: She stole my thunder when she announced her pregnancy at my wedding.

75)-To show his true colors    

    يظهر معدنه الحقيق

===================================

Ex: It's only in times of crisis that your friends will really show their true colors.

76)- Hit the nail on the head  

  أصبت كبد الحقيقة

Ex:You've hit the nail on the head,that's the route we should have taken!

78)- Hold your horses  

 اكبح جماح نفسك أو تريث

Ex: Hold your horses when you're coming to judge people.

79)- Sit on the fence.         متردد أو محايد

Ex:You always sit on the fence, that's why nobody asks your opinion anymore.

80)- Actions speak louder than words 

 العبرة بالأعمال أو الأعمال أبلغ من الأقوال

Ex:The president made a lot of promises today,but actions speak louder than words.

81)- A blessing in disguise                  

    نعمة متخفية أو رب ضارة نافعة

Ex: losing that job was a blessing in disguise .

82)- Get a life .                 عش حياتك

Ex: You need to get some friends,get a life.

83)- You're about to  انت على وشك

Ex: You're about to lose something very precious.

84)-  Against the clock      

      في صراع مع الوقت أو بأسرع ما يمكن

The team was working against the clock to finish the project on time.

85)- Clean your act up         

                   يحسن من سلوكه

We were told to clean our act up or move out .

86)- It rings a bell 

      هذا يذكرني بشيء أو يبدو مألوفاً

That name rings a bell,but I cannot recall where I have heard it before .

87)- Up and about             

             (معافى( بعد مرض

It's good to see you up and about.

88)- Read between the lines   

          يفهم المعنى الحقيقي أو الخفي

Don't believe everything you read literally. Learn to read between the lines.

89)- It never crossed my mind      

         لم يخطر ببالي ذلك ابدا

It had never crossed my mind that there might be a problem.

90)- It's written all over your face 

   الأمر ظاهر في ملامح وجهك

You're feeling guilty, aren't you? It's written all over your face.

91)-  Caught my eye لفت انتباهي أو نال اعجابي

One of the books on the top shelf cought my eye .

92)- The lion's share نصيب الأسد أو الجزء الأكبر

The elder son took the lion's share of the family wealth.

93)- A dime A dozen      

         وفير و رخيص أو سهل الحصول عليه

People who can write good books aren't a dime a dozen.Romantic movies are .....

94)- From all walks of life     

              من جميع مناحي الحياة

People from all walks of life are studying English nowadays.

95)- In the long run             على المدى البعيد

I know all this is hard work now,but in the long run it will save us time and money.

96)- Wolf in sheep's clothing     

 عدو متنكر كصديق أو يتظاهر بالمساعدة

Don't trust him,he's a wolf in sheep's clothing who will try to steal your position.

97)- Put your cards on the table 

 يلعب على المكشوف أو يتحدث بصدق

It's time I put my cards on the table, I can't afford the price you're asking.

98)- Needle in a haystack

  إبرة في كوم قش أو شيء يستحيل اكتشافه

You'd like to find evidence in this case? it's like to find a needle in a haystack.

99)- Jump the gun   

    يفعل الشيء قبل أوانه أو يسبق الاحداث

We must be very careful not to jump the gun here.

100)- At long last.               بعد طول انتظار

At long last, I've found something I'm willing to die for.

     ==================================

101)- Like a broken record     

     يعيد ما يقوله مرارا مثل أسطوانة مكسورة

He's always complaining about the way she treats him, he sounds like a broken record .

102)- The in thing                أحدث الصيحات

Wearing knee-high socks is the in thing now.

103)- All bark and no bite .      

       يتكلم  أو يهدد كثيرا ولا يفعل شيئا

He talks big about how much money he'll make someday,but he's all bark and no bite.

104)- Build castles in the air 

  خطط لا يمكن أن تحقق (احلام يقظة)

Don't build castles in the air and find  work to earn money.

105)- Curiousity killed the cat الفضول قد يقود للضرر

I think you'll offend her by asking such personal questions, curiousity killed the cat .

106)- Bark up the wrong tree    

      يختار المسار أو الشخص الخاطيء

She thinks it'll solve the problem,but I think she's barking up the wrong tree

107) Weigh your options.                                     فكر مليا في خياراتك

I think you need to weigh all your options and let your conscience decide

108)- Like two peas in a pod.           

    شخصين متشابهين في الشخصية والمظهر

Those kids have the same sense of humor, they're truly like two.......

109) Add insult to injury           يزيد الطين بلة

I was already late for work and to add insult to injury, I spilt coffee all over myself.

110) Let sleeping dogs lie                       

        لا تثر المشاكل الخاملة

We decided to let sleeping dogs lie and not take them to court

111)-  A matter of life and death.                             مسألة حياة أو موت

The issue we are discussing today is a matter of life and death.

112)- Never in a million years        

        (وبعد مليون سنة (مستحيل

Never in a million years did I think that I would actually win the lottery!

113)- Go (or do) by the book     

 يسير وفق القوانين أو حسب ما خطط له

This is a private deal . We don't have to do everything by the book.

114)- Jump at the opportunity   يغتنم الفرصة

When our manager said he was leaving the company, I jumped at the opportunity to fill the job

115)- Save for a rainy day     يدخر لأيام الحاجة

I save a portion of my wages each month for a rainy day.

 116)- Money burns a hole in his pocket 

         حريص على إنفاق المال المتاح

If Money burns a hole in your pocket,you never have any for emergencies.

117)- Have someone's blood on your hands      مسؤول عن وفاة شخص

I want him to know he has my son's blood on his hands and I'll revenge.

118)- Big fish in a small pond

     شخص مهم في مكان محدود

He has the talent to be in upper management,but he prefers to be a big .....

119)- Full of himself.     مزهو  أو فخور بنفسه

He's unpopular because he's full of himself,he doesn't care about other people's feelings.

120)- As time goes by.           مع مرور الوقت

As time goes by, you get more and more beautiful.

121)- Or so                 أو نحو ذلك

How many people came to the party ?_Thirty or so.

122) A penny for your thoughts

     ماذا يدور ببالك

A penny for your thoughts,Marry! you haven't said anything all evening!

123)- Long time no see  لم أرك منذ فترة طويلة

Long time no see, have you been well ?

124)- Lighten up                      هون عليك

Lighten up. you didn't do anything wrong .

125)- A leopard can't change its spots   

   المرء لا يستطيع أن يغير طبيعته أو شخصيته

After our breakup, he came crawling back, trying to convince me that he'd changed, but I know that a leopard can't change its spots.

  ===================================

126)- Swallow his pride      يتخلى عن كرامته

I had to swallow my pride and admit that I was wrong .

127)- Bury your head in the sand     

  يتجاهل المشكلة أو يتجنب مواجهة الحقائق

Stop burying your head in the sand. Look at the statistics on cancer.

128)- Don't cry over spilt milk      

        لا تندم على شيء حدث لا يمكن إصلاحه

I failed the exam,but it's no use crying over spilt milk . I'll try it again .

129)- Sooner or later               عاجلاً أم آجلاً

I guess she'll figure it out sooner or later.

130)- From now on                 من الآن فصاعداً

From now on every student must switch off their phones before coming to my class

131)- No more,no less        لا أكثر ولا أقل

Sir, I did what you asked no more,no less.

 132) Make sense                منطقي أو معقول

It makes sense to buy a house now because prices will certainly go up soon .

133)- I owe you one             أدين لك بمعروف

I owe you one cause you saved my life tonight.

134)- Pick up the pieces                      

    يعود لطبيعته بعد صدمة

When her parents died,she had to pick up the pieces and care for the children.

135)- I'm not at liberty to           

    لا يخول لي أو ليس لي الحرية

I know you're curious about the case,but I'm not at liberty to talk about it.

136)- Clear the air          

      يوضح الأمور أو يزيل الشك و سوء الفهم

Let's discuss this frankly . It'll be better if we clear the air.

137)- Don't count chickens before they hatch 

  لا تبن خططا مستقبلية لأشياء لم تحدث

Before committing to make the payment,wait till you receive the money.Don't count..

138)- Get off your high horse                                  توقف عن الغرور

Get off your high horse and stop acting like you know more than all of us.

139)- Be born yesterday  ساذج أو عديم الخبرة

Do you think I was born yesterday?This car isn't worth half what you're asking.

140)- Who do you think you are? من تظن نفسك؟

Just a minute!who do you think you are? You can't talk to me that way!

2)- I've lost my touch        

          فقد قدرته على فعل الشيء بمهارة

He was once a great player,but with age,he lost his touch.

3)-  I Wear my heart on my sleeve   

      يعلن صراحة عن مشاعره

I wear...and I make no apologies for that.I loved her more than anything else.

141)- What goes around,comes around      

       كما تدين تدان

Treat others as you wish to be treated.What goes around,cames around.

142)- Meet someone halfway                             يصل لحل وسط

I'll agree to some of your requests if you'll meet me halfway.

143)- Make it up to you                 أعوضك

I'm so sorry,I will do what I can to make it up to you .

145)- Open a can of worms    

       فعل سيتسبب في العديد من المشاكل

I didn't want to open a can of worms at the bar that's why I didn't fight.

146)- Don't look a gift horse in the mouth  

  لا تنتقد الهدية أو لا تنكر الجميل بعد قبولها

He gave his old car as a gift,I know it's not a great one,but I wouldn't look....

147) It takes two to tango      

   الأمر يتطلب اثنان يستحيل واحد بمفرده

I cannot do this all alone, neither can you. It takes two to tango.

148)- Yes man                        

         شخص يؤيد الشريك أو الرئيس بلا نقد

He is just a yes man ,he will only say what the boss wants to hear.

149)- Glad to see the back of him 

     سعيد لمغادرته أو إنهاء التعامل معه

After my boss made my life difficult for ten years,he left the company,I was glad...

150) Split hairs              

        (مماحكة) يجادل في تفاصيل وفروق تافهة

Don't waste time splitting hairs , accept it the way it is.

   ====================================

151)- Play it by ear             

            يرتجل أو يتصرف بدون تخطيط

If we go into the meeting unprepared, we'll have to play everything by ear.

152)- Back to square one   

    يعيد الكرة أو يرجع إلى نقطة البداية

If this project doesn't get approved this time, It's back to square one.

153)- Behind the times           

         (دقة قديمة) من الطراز القديم

My mom refuses to email me,she still mails me letters, she's so.....

154)- On me this time                                  على حسابي هذه المرة

Let's split the check. --No, It's on me this time.

155)- Finger lickin' good              

        (ستأكل أصابعك)  لذيذ جداً

Mom's pasta was so finger lickin' good that I had three bowls of it.

156)- I have a lot on my plate                              لدي الكثير من الاعمال

Sorry,I can't go with you. I have a lot on my plate

157)- Fight fire with fire       

          استخدم نفس أساليب خصمك

It's time to fight....and start a nasty rumor about her,like she did to you.

158)- Speak your mind         

   يعبر عن آرائه ومشاعره بشكل صريح

People don't always like when you speak your mind.

159)- Eager beaver         شخص شديد الاجتهاد

Don't worry about all of the extra work ,June is such an eager beaver.

160)- Eat your words              يتراجع عما قاله

Be careful what you say. You may have to eat your words.

161)- Eye candy                           جذاب

Jenny is eye candy to the boys. They all love her.

162)- Young at heart.        

     (شاب القلب (يتصرف ويفكر كالشباب

Grandpa is 70,but he's still young at heart, he thirsts for adventure.

163)- Cut corners   يقتصد المال أو يقلل النفقات

I lost my job, I need to cut corners,

164)- By the day     يوما بعد يوم أو بمرور الوقت

The enemy's army grows larger by the day.

165)- I have faith in you                   أثق بك

I have faith in you. I know you will try your best.

166)- Count me in       احسبني أو أشركني معك

We're all going for coffee on Thursday.Do you want to come?_Count me in.

167)- Hang in there             اصبر ولا تستسلم

I know you have gone through a lot of difficulties,but hang in there.

168)- So far so good      حتى الآن الأمور جيدة

How's the project going ?_So far so good.

169)- Ins and outs.               التفاصيل الدقيقة

He made a stupid mistake because he doesn't know the ins and outs of this business.

170)every cloud has a silver lining 

     مع العسر يسرا

   ==================================

I know that your job is not going well and you're stressed out,but every......

171)- Here today,gone tomorrow            

     لاشيء يدوم فما وجد الآن لن تجده غدا

Faith,sir,we are here today, and gone tomorrow.

172)- A storm in a teacup       

          رد فعل شديد بشأن مسألة تافهة

They had a huge fight over the broken glass,it was a storm in a teacup.

173)-Between the devil and the deep blue sea             بين خيارين كلاهما مر

I'm caught between...,if I support my daughter,my partner will be hurt.

174)- Every cloud has a silver lining           

    إن مع العسر يسرا

I know that your job is not going well and you're stressed out,but every......

175)- Once in a blue moon                         

      نادراً أو مرة كل حين

I think my grandson doesn't love me anymore,he comes to see me once......

176)- Give him the cold shoulder   

   يتجاهل شخص أو لا يعير انتباه

She thinks you started that rumor about her that's why she's giving you.....

177)- The middle of nowhere                              مكان بعيد للغاية

His car broke down in the middle of nowhere.

178)- There's no point in         لا فائدة من

we have lost the championship, but there's no point in crying over spilt milk,we have to train harder.

179)- You brought this on yourself  

   هذا ما جنيته لنفسك

I'm not sympathetic because he brought this on himself by mismanaging his money.

180)- Miss the boat يفوته الاستفادة من فرصة

He missed the boat when he didn't apply for the job in time.

181)- Don't get me wrong      لا تسيء فهمي

Don't get me wrong, I'm here to help.

182)- Leave no stone unturned

 يبذل كل جهد أو يبحث في كل مكان

The doctor said he will leave no stone unturned to find a cure for his illness.

 184)- Time will tell            سنعرف مع الوقت

Only time will tell how much I love you.

185)- Face the music      

      واجه عواقب أفعالك السيئة

Afer failing his test,he had to face the music and tell his mother the truth.

186)-  See eye to eye     يتفق في الرأي

Though they work as a team,they often don't see eye to eye on most issues.

187)- A far cry from           

                   يختلف كثيرا أو يبعيد كل البعد

Living in New York city is certainly a far cry from living in the countryside.

188)- Hear through the grapevine    

 إشاعة)  يسمع أخبار من شخص سمعها من شخص آخر)

I heard through the grapevine that she's pregnant,but I don't know anything more.

189)- Method in the madness 

           هدف وراء السلوك الغريب لشخص 

I know you don't understand my motivation for this decision، but later you'll see that There is a ....

190)- Not a spark of decency 

شخص ليس لديه اخلاق

Her brother has not a spark...I don't like the way he acts in public.

191)- Reap the harvest               

        يعاني أو يستفيد نتيجة الأفعال الماضية

Whatever decisions you'll make be ready to reap the harvest.

192)- Skating on thin ice                 

       القيام بفعل محفوف بالمخاطر 

Going into a business without carrying out proper studies ends up skating.....

193)- Take with a grain of salt      

لا يأخد الشيء بمحمل من الجد أو يقبله مع بعض التحفظات

Before elections,all parties make a lot of promises . They are best taken with a grain of salt

194)- Don't take it to heart          

   لا تنزعج لا تاخذ الأمر بجدية

Don't take it to heart . He was only joking about your hair

195)- No room for doubt      لا مجال للشك

The study is conclusive and leaves no room for doubt.

196)- It's a no-brainer     الأمر لا يحتاج إلى تفكير

Did you accept the job offer from ABC? Yes, they offered me a high salary so It was a ..

197)- Save your breath    

 لا فائدة من التحدث إلى شخص (وفر كلامك)

There's no point arguing with him as he wouldn't accept his mistake. It's better to..

198)- Break the ice            

                     يمهد الحديث لتخفيف التوتر

It's hard to break the ice at formal events* A nice smile does a lot to....

199)- On the tip of my tongue 

 على وشك أن أتذكر(على طرف لساني)

Her name is on the tip of my tongue.Just give me a minute, I'll remember it.

200)- Now or never         

           الآن وإلا فلن تكون هناك فرصة أخرى

This is your only chance to do it . It's now or never 

      ==================================

201)- Spill the beans              يفشي سرا

Don't spill the beans. It's supposed to be a secret .

202)- Wish me well         

   اتمن لي التوفيق والنجاح

On behalf of everyone🙏 here , I wish you well.

====================================

203)- Bend the truth      يحرف أو يزور الحقائق

 Politicians often bend the truth to make themselves look better .

 204)- Line your pockets        

   يكسب المال بطريقة غير مشروعة

 He used his position of power to line his pockets.

  205)- For the time being     في الوقت الحالي

 We plan to buy a house,but for the time being we're living with my parents.

  206)-Jump to conclusions

       يتخد قرار أو حكم دون وجود أدلة كافية

 Will you stop jumping...?You should get all the facts before you make any decisions.

  207)- Know inside out          

          على دراية تامة بشئ أو بشخص ما

 If you got the answer from Jon,I would trust it.He knows that stuff inside out.

  208)- Out of luck   

      لم يحالفه الحظ أو سيء الحظ في موقف معين

 Sally liked the dress,but she was out of luck.They didn't have her size.

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda

Anglo Norman Period

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

                This period begins with the invasion of Normans in 1060 and ended in 1400. They came from scandinavian countries. they were French speaking.when they invaded Ireland of England, they imposed French as an official language but the common people continued  speaking English. Before it English was called old eng, it was just a dialect as we know that chaucers dialect was midland. These two languages went side by side. Upper class was speaking French whereas common people were speaking English they realized there power so English started competing with French and finally overpowered French language. English became the official language in the middle of 14th century and became the language of the rulers, before it has no status. People took pride by being their language official, it developed and became  sophisticated. It absorbed French language and became a language, before it English has no contents, no meter and no feet. It had only alliterative verses. These meters came from French as we know two syllables, one stressed the other un stressed become 1foot and five such feets in a line are called pentameter. Chaucers poetry was also written in pentameter, even later Shakespeare used this meter in his writings.                                                  Many types of literature was produced in this age. First, short tales in verse, series of poems by chaucer were composed, for example prologue to the Canterbury tales.                            Second type of poetry  was romances, long stories based on adventures of elite class. Romances were confined to upper class because common people have no means to adopt fashion which is necerrasy for romance. King aurther and nights of his court is an example of romance poetry. Third type of writing was history which were called rhymed chronicals. These are now sunk. Robert of gluster wrote rhymed chronical. Robert manning of brunne wrote story of England, handyling synne (handling sin), the contents of this book were religious as title is showing. Fourth type of poetry was religious, as orm wrote ormulum in 2200 AD which was a divine book. The owl and the nightingale (anonymous) a didectic poem is based on animals stories, actually these stories are instructions for kings to rule well. We find Prose writings also. Ancrene reivel, of this period became the early version king James Bible who was a writer of 17th century because this king came after queen Elizabeth. An American writer of 20th century Hemingway say 'I learnt my style from king James Bible.                                                      Variety of literature was produced in this period as short tales, romances, adventure stories and divine poems. Poems like pearl, sergoin and green knight were in alliterative verses. King Horm, lay of havelock, the dame and Mordeaurther are examples of romances. Mordeaurther is even read today. This poem is about the exploits and adventures of King Aurther. Short lyrics like cucko song were also written. these were not like a sonnets. These lyrics were influenced by both French and English. Religious poetry was also addressed to Virgin Marry who was the mother of the Christ as we know the christ was born without marriage according to Christian religion.                The age of chaucer will be discussed in detail in my next post.