The Gay Genius-C1

1.Chapter 1 aims to answer why Su Tungpo is the author's favorite poet and Su Tungpo's great personality today stands out more sharply and fully etched against his life and writings than that of  any Chinese writer and why he had a peculiar position in China's history.

2.Interesting Sentences

1. One knows only those whom one really understands, and one completely understands only those whom one really likes. This sentence shows the reason why Ling Yutang knows Su Tungpo. Because he really likes Su and understands Su and then knows Su very well. 

2. What separates literature from ordinary writing is the charm of sound and sense and manner which pleases the spirit. 

3. "Roughly, (good writing)is like the sailing of clouds or flowing of water, moving forward where it is natural to move forward, and stopping where it must stop. " 

3. 好词好句

1.Such brief notes were carefully preserved and handed down to the friend's grandchildren, or, in some cases, parted with for a very handsome sum of money. 

 If you hand down something such as knowledge, a possession, or a skill, you give or leave it to people who belong to a younger generation. e.g. My clothes were handed down to my little brother and he got fed up with having to wear my hand-me-downs.  Part with: to give something to someone else when you do not want to. e.g. I was going to give away my old baby cothes, but I couldn't bring myself to part with them. 这里的handsome不是指“帅气”， 而是large in amount or quantity。

2. It was Su's popularity that started the fashion of collecting the postscripts and casual notes of his famous autograph notes of other scholars after him. 如果我们想说明星代言某些品牌的产品，而导致许多粉丝疯狂抢购所引起的明星效应，我们就可以这样说 It is sb's popilarity that started the fashion of doing sth. 

3. Innocent and honest, such poems of protest against the government's doing, at a time when all good scholars were hounded out of the capital. If someone is hounded out of a job or place, they are forced to leave it, often because other people are constantly criticizing them.  e.g. There is a general view around that he has been hounded out of office by the press.