because of my mother's recommendation, i watched this film. incredible performance and production: Wit by emma thompson

as professor vivian bearing was diagnosed with and hospitalised for stage 4 ovary cancer, she was caught in the overwhelming battery of tests and treatments, taking tremendous pressure both psychologically and physically. as she makes her way through the daily pain and humiliation, she started to reflect on her fascination with english words, her life as an "uncompromising scholar", her cool and strict teaching, and the meaning of life and death in a concrete way.

the subtlty of the emotions depicted in the film was extraordinary. emma thompson, as usual, was more than apt to act as an intellectual with incredible depth of thinking. moreover, her gradual revealing of the vulnerability of professor bearing and change of her mindset, or even world view from the earlier part of the film to approaching the end was just done to perfection.

wonder why this film was only screen on TV and why it didn't win many awards. anyway, very thought-provoking. worth watching.


"The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life.

In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:
And Death-capital D-shall be no more—semicolon!
Death—capital D—comma—thou shalt die— exclamation point!

If you go for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare.

Gardner’s edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript source of 1610, not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads:
And death shall be no more, comma,
Death thou shalt die.

Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from everlasting life. It is simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause.

This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something about this poem, wouldn’t you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barricades, not semicolons, just a comma."-professor e.m. ashford

religious content aside, this is still true. nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from, well, i would say, death. lol. but yah, this paragraph here was excellently analysed.