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Expressing Your Love (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Lowther and.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I'm Alice Irasari. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It is easier for people to understand no matter where
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: in the world they live.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It is nineteen sixty nine and a young Stephen Stills
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: has a broken heart. The woman that he loves is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: leaving him for someone else. He feels hopeless trying to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: understand how the person he wants so much could be
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: gone from his life. He is just a poor musician.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: He has little to offer her, nothing to bring her back,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: so he does the only thing he knows how to do.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Stephen Still's writes a song.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: The song Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, did not bring back
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the woman that he loved. Stills was not the first
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: person to write a love song. Love songs like his
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: have been sung for thousands of years, expressing everything from
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the sadness of a lost love to the joy of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: new desire. These songs show that this longing for another
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: is not new. Today's Spotlight is on the world history
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: of love songs and poetry.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: People have created love songs since before the invention of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: writing songs. Words and stories were very important to ancient cultures.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: These cultures expressed themselves freely and openly. Some experts argue
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that these songs did not qualify as love songs. C. F.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Lewis was an English writer. He once wrote that love
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: poetry was less than a thousand years old. He suspected
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that love as we know it was invented by French
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: poets in the eleventh century BCEE.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: But love was still an emotion that ancient humans felt.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: They may not have expressed their words in the same
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: way that we do today, the feelings that brought them
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to sing would have been the same. Tim Hancock is
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: a literature expert. In his story called The Chemistry of
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Love Poetry, he argues that this is because love is
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: a physical experience ingrained in human nature.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Poets recognize that love is a physical as well as
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: a mental experience. This agrees with our growing on understanding
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: of love as a universal drive. Hunger hurts the stomach,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: the need for warmth causes us to shiver. Love shakes
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: the heart.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: The oldest love poetry in the world seems to agree
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: with Hancock's ideas. This poem, the Love Song of Shoe Sween,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: was written in two thousand Bce in Sumeria. This ancient
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: kingdom existed three thousand years ago in present day Iraq.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: But the things the love song's writer speaks about are
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: just like those a woman might feel today. She compares
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the one she desires to a lion, a large, strong cat.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: She sings, you.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: Have captivated me of my own free will. I will
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: come to you, man. Let let me flee with you
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: into the bedroom.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: The love song of Shoe Swen's author is very explicit
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: about her physical desire for the one she loves. The
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: words she uses are very simple. She does not have
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: the art of a modern poet, but her openness shows
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: that love of this kind existed long before the eleventh century.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: The emotions behind all love poetry and songs may be
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the same, but the way that people write depends highly
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: on the place and time. Ancient Chinese love poetry has
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a different quality than the ancient Sumerian variety. Shu Swen's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: speaker tells her lover exactly what she wants from him,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but Chinese poetry is not so direct. Dou Fu was
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: one of the greatest Chinese poets. His poem at the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: World's End is an amazing example.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: Cold is the wind that rises over this remote place,
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  Speaker 5: old friend, tell me, when will a wild bird goose
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: reach me here? From the rivers and lakes where the
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: autumn waters are overflowing.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: At first glance, Dofu's poem does not seem to be
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: about love at all, but do Fu was writing about
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: love indirectly. In Chinese love poetry, some animals or events
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: are symbolic. They have two or more meanings that the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: reader must understand. A wild goose is a kind of
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: large bird. These birds mate for life, just like many
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: humans do. So geese are symbolic of marriage, of long
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: life together. When Dofu asks if a wild goose will
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: reach him, he is asking about companionship. He is in
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: a place that is cold and lonely. He wishes for
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: love to fly to him like a bird.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Many love poems are meant to be read, but most
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: throughout history was spoken or sung. William Shakespeare was one
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of the greatest poets in the history of the English language.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: His poems were written to be spoken.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: One of Shakespeare's most famous poems is Sonnet eighteen. In
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: this poem, Shakespeare compares his love to a day in summer.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: He decides that while he likes summer. He likes the
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: person he loves better. She is just as beautiful and
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  Speaker 2: just as pleasant. But unlike a summer day, she does
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: not change to him. She will never fade.
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  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's son it has a different quality to it than
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  Speaker 1: do Fu or Shoe sweens. Shakespeare's poem is very technical.
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  Speaker 1: It does not express the same desire as the ancient
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Sumerian poet. It does not have the same longing expressed
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in At the World's End. But Shakespeare's goal is the same.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: There is a person that he loves so much that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: he feels the need to speak to her. But this
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: feeling is so big that he cannot speak to her
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  Speaker 1: in normal language. He must make her a thing of
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: beauty that shows her own.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Today. Love poetry is as different as the people on earth.
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  Speaker 2: Some people write using traditional forms. Some people write clearly
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: what they feel and what they think. Others feel that
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  Speaker 2: words are not enough, They make music that expresses their desire.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Experts do not always agree what purpose love poetry serves.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Why have people developed this form of expression? What advantages
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: does poetry give? These are all fair questions, But for
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: those of us in the thick of love, this does
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: not seem to matter. Love poetry exists because there are
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: some feelings that are too big to leave hidden. But
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  Speaker 1: these feelings are also so overwhelming that one word does
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  Speaker 1: not do them justice. It has been that way longer
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  Speaker 1: than we can understand. Love is one experience that unites
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: us from now to the beginning of time.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Have you ever been in love? Did you feel the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: need to write about it? How did you express yourself?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: You can leave a comment on our website at www
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: dot Spotlight English dot com. You can also find us
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Blue Sky, and x. You can
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: was Michyo Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: called Expressing Your Love.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye, h