You have an elegy here, a beautiful and plangent lament for something or someone lost. And we have to ask ourselves, "Could this be a paradise lost?"

它变成了挽歌，一首优美的如泣如诉的挽歌,因为某些东西或某些人消失了，我们不得不问自己，这就是失乐园吗“

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

In comes the prehensile thumb, and the next thing you know you get a colossal earthquake, and the possessor of the prehensile thumb disappears from the earth -which is to say, very possibly the human species will never develop.

就像对人类进化至关重要的大拇指，经历了一场大地震后，如果所有有这种拇指的人都消失了,那么人类就很可能永远不能进化。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选

And then perhaps the right thing to say is the person no longer exists, so they no longer exist as a person, even if the body is still alive.

也许正确的说法应该是,这个人已经不存在了，他们作为人的身份已经消失，即便肉体还是活着的。

耶鲁公开课 - 死亡课程节选