1. Explain your understanding of the connection between imagination and memory as discussed in Abads essay.

How is this connection related to how people imagine their country? Comment on the following lines: Those who write create a people's sense of their country. In their writing is a people's memory, and a people is only as strong as its memory. In Abads essay, we can say that imagination is the result of the experiences that are implanted in ones memory. Whenever a person experiences a something, that particular experience becomes part of our memory, then, sometime later, we remember these memories; being able to reminisce such memories makes us imagine what other possible scenarios could have taken place in that experience that we had. So, the basis by which a person imagines roots from that persons experiences which is undoubtedly part of his memory. A persons imagination skills are subjective which means that a persons imagination is unique and different from another. There are factors that may trigger one person to imagine things differently from that of the other such as the experiences that he has and the place where he resides. In a scenario wherein a Filipino experienced theft and he, therefore, reports it to the authorities; he may imagine that when the thief is caught, he will be put into prison. But if ever the person who was a victim of theft resides in Middle East, lets say, in Qatar, he may imagine the thief loosing some of his fingers as punishment. It may also be because of the language of the particular country. We all know that a countrys language plays a significant role in a persons identity, thus, this certainly affects his imagination of various things or scenarios. It may also be affected by the translation of a certain literary piece from one language to another. An example of this is the first poem that we tackled entitled On Hearing Her Play the Harp: the poem is originally Chinese and was later on translated into English. I remember having a classmate read the original text in Mandarin and said that it was translated literally in English. In this situation, we can assume that there may be some part of the interpretation created by the author that may have been lost in the process of translation.

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The lines: Those who write create a people's sense of their country. In their writing is a people's memory, and a people is only as strong as its memory simply means that the kind of literary work that a people authors or writes define the country in which he belongs. The subject of his literary work may have been affected by his countrys cultures, traditions and even experiences. And in doing so, the writer is able to share particular information or feelings to other people about his country. In their writing, peoples memory takes a large impact especially since a persons knowledge about history may help him consider various stuffs that he may expressly or impliedly include in his literary piece. That is why, a persons writings define the country he is from and gives a certain part of his identity (particularly his memory) in sharing his works. 2. What is the difference between meaning and meaningfulness in Abads essay? Why is this difference important in understanding what poetry is and what it does?

Meaning is actually another term for the word definition. As for meaningfulness, on the other hand, it means having significance to a particular something. By

differentiating the two, we can say that Abad used the term meaningfulness to describe or rather emphasize the feeling or the thought that one may read in the different literary works. The difference between the two terms is really very important because one of the two terms which is meaning, defines the experience that a particular writer had; But the other term, meaningfulness seems to partake or share the feelings, thoughts or emotions of the writer of a particular literary piece. 3. From the Hirshfield interview text, we learn that hiddenness and uncertainty are qualities of a good poem. Explain how you understand these concepts as presented.

In the Hirshfield interview, it is stated that hiddenness and uncertainty are definitely qualities of a good poem. For me, these two terms are related to each other. Hiddenness brings about uncertainty and uncertainty also results in hiddenness. In some instances, although the poet was able to put into words what he feels, we can not say that we know the reason behind it. In other times, we know that the subject matter is an
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experience that may have been the poets experience or may be imagination but still we do not know what to feel about it. It seems like even if writing is personal and the poet is writing about something that is part of his identity, there is still something that he would not want to share with who would read his poems. There are also cases wherein a poem contains various scenarios that the reader could not actually come up with what the poem is trying to convey. It feels like a single poem contains various scenarios and one scenario just try to mask something in the other scenarios. Having hidden a part of the author arouses the interest of the readers and thus, they come up with imaginations that are possibly what is behind the poem but since they do not really have the full grasp of it, they can never be sure whether it is what really the poem is all about. We can not deny that whenever we read a poem, we do not fully grasp the meanings behind it. We make assumptions and have a story behind the poem that we ourselves create. We make our own conclusions simply because the poet did not present his own conclusion to us. The poet merely put into words a particular scene that he wants to share or the feeling that he wants to convey, but that does not necessarily mean that we get the whole thing; in fact, even though we know that we feel sad when reading a sad poem, we could never say that the degree of sadness that we felt is of the same degree that the poet felt. We are also not sure whether the poet wrote the poem because that is what he felt; it may be because he found sadness as an interesting subject in the poem or it may also be because he got bored and decided to write something which actually led to the sad poem that he never intended to be sad. It may be because it was the spur of the moment that he was able to write such poem. Thus, we are uncertain of what to make out from the poem. It is a mystery that becomes intriguing to us and thus, catching our interest.

4. Compare and contrast the views on translation expressed by the two poets, focusing on the question What should any translation accomplish? The views of translation expressed by the two poets may be categorized as either fidelity of surface or fidelity of sense. The fidelity of surface, according to Walter Benjamin, should be able to preserve the originals sounds, rhymes, idiosyncrasies in grammar, wordings and many others. On the other hand, Octavio Paz describes fidelity of
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sense as a view that aims to have the same effects by different means. Both approaches in translation aims to preservation of the original it just so happens that the aspect that each view wants to preserve; fidelity of surface wants to preserve the original wordings, rhymes and sounds etc. of the original. Meanwhile, fidelity of surface do not care if the original wordings, rhymes and sounds etc. are changed but would rather preserve the meaning. For fidelity of surface, what is given importance is the presentation while fidelity of sense gives significance to the substance. Both approaches aims to preserve, it just not give the same importance to the same aspect that affects it.

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