The gay of genius-chapter 16

1.Central Question

Q: What central question is the author answering in this chapter?

A: Perhaps Huangchow was a sordid little town, but infinite leisure, the landscape, a poet's sensitive imagination, and devotion to the moonlight and to wine produced a powerful combination to make the poet's life what it was. Under this circumstances, Su Tungpo wrote the poet of The Red Cliff. The bitterness of his satire, the sharpness of his pen, the tension and the anger were gone, and in their place we find a glowing, warm, intimate, and tolerant humor, thoroughly mellow and mature. All these, we can see that to write in perfect peace and simple contentment, depended on his mental poise and self-possession.

2.Sentences

（1）Thanks to his devotion to the moonlight and to drink it was also this kind of life that produced some of the very best of Su Tungpo's writings, both in poetry and in prose.

林语堂认为，也正是由于苏东坡喜饮酒夜游这样的生活才使他写出了不朽的杰作。

（2）Happiness under any circumstance is a secret.

不管在什么样的情况下，幸福都是一种秘密。

（3）Here, even without rhyme and with only the dexterous use of language, the poet establishes a prevailing mood that cast a hypnotic effect on the reader, no matter how many times he was read them before.

dexterous    adj.灵巧的，敏捷的，圆熟的，                            利落的。

林语堂认为，苏东坡的赋即使不押韵，只凭文字的巧妙运用，诗人已确立了一种情调。尽管以前已读过，对读者还会产生催眠作用。