第6章　惠特曼?狄金森

6.1　復習筆記

I. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)（沃爾特·惠特曼）

1．Life（生平）

Whitman was brought up in a working-class background, on Long Island, New York. He had five years schooling and a good deal of “loafing” and reading. Thirsting for experience and gregarious in habit, Whitman tried at a variety of jobs and picked up a first hand knowledge of life and people in the new world. The experience with the people and the country furnished both the material and the guiding spirit for his epic, Leaves of Grass. When the Civil War began, he worked as a “wound dresser” in a military hospital. In 1873, he suffered a paralytic stroke and moved to New Jersey where he was taken good care of by his friends and where he spent the remaining years revising his Leaves of Grass.

惠特曼成長于紐約州長島一個工人階級家庭。他上過五年學，大量地游蕩并廣泛地閱讀書籍。由于渴望經驗和喜愛社交的習性，他嘗試了多種多樣的工作并獲得了新世界的生活和在這里生活的人們的第一手材料。惠特曼與人們的交往及游覽美國大好山河的經歷，為他的史詩《草葉集》提供了素材和導向精神。內戰開始后，他在戰地醫院做看護員。1873年患半身不遂遷至新澤西，在那兒受到朋友的照顧，修訂《草葉集》直至去世。

2．Literary point of view（文學觀點）

(1) Influenced by the leading New Englander Emerson, Whitman states that the greatest poet breathes into the world the grandeur and life of the universe.

(2) Art should be based organically on nature; the poet’s work grows out of nature and cosmic processes and derives its form from within.

(3) Whitman embraces idealism. He relies on insight and intuition.

(1) 受新英格蘭領軍人物愛默生的影響，惠特曼認為最偉大的詩人給世界注入了宇宙的壯觀和生機。

(2) 藝術以自然為基礎。詩人的作品來源于自然。

(3) 惠特曼信奉理想主義。他依賴于自己的內心與直覺。

3．Themes（主題）

(1) He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities.

(2) He advocates the realization of the individual value. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and the self as well.

(3) Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. The individual person and his desires must be respected.

(4) Some of Whitman’s poems are politically committed. Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory. Later, he wrote down a great many poems to air his sorrow over the death of Lincoln, and one of the famous is “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

(1) 他關注辛勤勞動的人民和迅速發展的城市生活。

(2) 他提倡個體價值的實現。《草葉集》中大部分的詩作不僅歌頌了全體，還有個體。

(3) 他的詩行中不斷深情地贊頌對愛和幸福的追求。作為個體的人和他的欲望應受尊重。

(4) 惠特曼的一些詩有堅定的政治立場。詩中他向戰場上喪失了年輕的生命表達哀思，并展示了堅持無畏戰斗直至最后勝利的決心。之后，他寫下了很多詩表達對林肯遇刺的悲痛，其中著名的一首為《當紫丁香最近在庭院開放》。

4．Writing style（寫作風格）

(1) Whitman broke free from the traditional iambic pentameter and wrote “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.

(2) There is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines contribute to the musicality of his poems.

(3) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day.

(4) Whitman’s language is relatively simple and even rather crude. Another characteristic in Whitman’s language is his strong tendency to use oral English. Whitman’s vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words.

(1) 惠特曼打破了五步抑揚格的傳統，并創作“自由體”詩歌，也就是沒有固定韻律的詩歌。

(2) 惠特曼的詩歌有很強的節奏感，詩行前幾句排比和語音重復使他的詩歌頗具音樂美感。

(3) 他用語言描述的大部分畫面都是反映美國社會當時各個方面的真實景象。

(4) 惠特曼語言相對簡單樸實，甚至十分粗獷，另一個特點是口語化。惠特曼詞匯驚人，他總能用有力的、生動的、別人不常用的語言。

5．Whitman’s influence（惠特曼的影響）

Whitman’s influence over modern poetry is great in the world as well as in America. Whitman has been compared to mountain in American literary history. For his innovations in diction and versification, his frankness about sex, his inclusion of the commonplace and the ugly and his censure of the weakness of the American democratic practice—these have paved his way to a share of immortality in American literature.

惠特曼對當代詩歌的影響在美國以致在世界范圍內都同樣深遠。惠特曼被比作美國文學歷史上的高山，因他在措辭和詩律方面的創新，對性這一話題的坦率，詩作中反映有平凡和丑陋的題材，以及他對美國民主弊端的指責，這些都為他在美國文學上的不朽地位奠定了基礎。

6．Major works（主要作品）

Leaves of Grass《草葉集》

“Song of Myself”《自我之歌》

“The Poet” 《詩人》

“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”《當紫丁香最近在庭院開放》

“O Captain, My Captain”《哦，船長，我的船長》

“I Hear America Singing”《我聽到美國在唱歌》

“There was a Child Went Forth”《有一個孩子向前走去》

“Out of Cradle Endlessly Rocking”《從永久搖蕩的搖籃里》

Two Riverlets《兩條小河》

Drum Traps《桴鼓集》

7．Analysis of major works（主要作品分析）

◆Leaves of Grass《草葉集》

(1) Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom.

(2) In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism (the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him.

(3) In this book he also praises nature, democracy, labor and creation, and sings of man’s dignity and equality, and of the brightest future of mankind. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and the self as well.

(1) 草葉，最為平凡卻也最有生機，是詩人自己的形象，也是崛起中美國的象征和詩人關于民主自由理想的體現。

(2) 在這部巨作中，開放，自由，尤其是個體主義（主張個人的權利和自由最為重要）是他最為關注的。

(3) 這部作品中他也贊美了自然，民主，勞動和創新，也歌頌了人的尊嚴和平等，憧憬了人類最美好的未來。《草葉集》中大部分詩歌贊頌了大眾和自我。

◆“Song of Myself”《自我之歌》

Whitman extols the ideals of equality and democracy and celebrates the dignity, the self-reliant spirit, and the joy of the common man, “Song of Myself” reveals a world of equality, without rank and hierarchy.

惠特曼贊美了平等和民主的理想，贊美了人的高尚、自力更生的精神和普通人的快樂。《自我之歌》呈現了一個沒有階層和等級的平等世界。

◆“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”《當紫丁香最近在庭院開放》

It deals with the typical Whitmansque love-and-death motif. It was written as part of the memories of President Lincoln. In the poem, when the poet looks up, he sees the western fallen star, and then when he looks around, he spots the lilac bush blossoming in the dooryard. Here the star is associated with the thought of death, the lilac with a token of life for the dead. Death is not the end, but the beginning of life.

這首詩體現了典型的惠特曼作品中的愛與死的主題。他為紀念林肯總統而作。在這首詩中，當詩人仰望天空，他看到西天星星隕落；當他環望四周，他發現了紫丁香花在庭院的開放。這里隕落的星星是死亡的象征，丁香花叢是死者生命的象征。死亡不是終點，而是新生的開始。

II. Emily Dickinson(1830-1886)（艾米莉·狄金森）

1．Life（生平）

Dickinson was born into a Calvinist family. Her father, an old Puritan, with a heart “pure and terrible”, influenced his daughter in no small way. She was shy, sensitive, sometimes rebellious. It was during her mid-twenties that Emily became a recluse. She wanted to live simply as a completely independent person.

狄金森生于一個信奉加爾文教的家庭。她的父親，有著“純潔而可怕的心”的一位虔誠清教徒，對女兒產生了很大的影響。她害羞，思想敏感，有時具有反叛精神。在她二十多歲時她成為一名隱士。她希望完全獨立，簡單生活。

2．Themes（主題）

(1) Based on her own experiences, joys or sorrows, she writes about doubt and belief about religious subjects, suffering and frustration caused by love, success and failure.

(2) The largest portion of Dickinson’s poetry concerns death and immortality. For Dickinson, death leads to immortality.

(3) Dickinson sees nature as both gaily benevolent and cruel.

(4) On the ethical level, Dickinson holds that beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one.

(5) She emphasizes free-will and human responsibility.

(1) 基于她個人的經歷，喜與悲，她的詩歌是關于宗教主題的疑惑和信仰，愛情中的痛苦和挫折，成功與失敗。

(2) 狄金森的大部分詩歌是關于死亡與永生的。對狄金森來說，死亡導向永生。

(3) 狄金森視自然為仁慈并冷酷殘忍的。

(4) 在倫理的層面上，狄金森認為真善美是合而為一的。

(5) 她強調自由意志和人類責任。

3．Writing styles（寫作風格）

(1) Her poetry abounds in telling images. In the best of her poems, every word is a picture. So she is regarded as the precursor of Imagism poetry.

(2) Her poetic idiom is noted for its conciseness, directness and plainest words.

(3) Dickinson’s poems are usually short, and the first line of Dickinson’s poems is used to be the title.

(4) The capital letters in her poems are used for emphasis.

(1) 她的詩歌描繪有各種意象。在她創作的最好的詩歌中，每一個詞都是一幅畫。所以她被視作意象派詩歌的先驅。

(2) 她詩歌的風格簡明，直接，善用最平易的詞。

(3) 狄金森的詩歌通常篇幅較短，第一句往往是詩歌的題目。

(4) 詩歌中用做強調的詞均大寫。

4．Comparison: Whitman VS. Dickinson（比較：惠特曼VS.狄金森）

Similarities:（相同點）

(1) Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “American Renaissance”.

(2) Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.

(1) 主題選擇上，他們都用不同的方式歌頌了一個新興的美國，遼闊，個體主義和自身特色，他們的詩歌是“美國文藝復興”的組成部分。

(2) 寫作技巧上，他們打破了傳統詩歌創作的五步抑揚格，給詩歌創作形式上以很大的自由，在新興的國家獨立地創作，這是史無前例的。他們是美國詩歌的先驅。

Differences:（不同點）

(1) Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.

(2) Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.

(3) Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simple style) which Whitman doesn’t have.

(1) 惠特曼更細致地關注社會生活，而狄金森更傾向于探索人的內心世界。

(2) 惠特曼的視野放眼“全國”，而狄金森關注“地方”。

(3) 狄金森創作風格直接簡潔，而惠特曼并非如此。

5．Influence（影響）

Her poetry abounds in telling images. Her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainest words. All these characteristics of her poetry were to become popular through Stephen Crane with the Imagists such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in the twentieth century. She became the precursor of the Imagist movement.

她的詩歌意象豐富，詩歌風格簡潔，直接，用詞平易。這些特點很受斯蒂芬·克萊恩和20世紀意象派詩人艾茲拉·龐德和艾米·洛威爾的歡迎。她被視作意象派詩歌的先驅。

6．Major works（主要作品）

“The Soul selects her own Society”《心靈選擇了自己的友伴》

“My life closed twice before its close”《我的生命在結束之前已結束了兩次》

“Because I could not stop for Death”《因為我不能等待死神》

“I heard a fly buzz when I died”《我死時聽到了蒼蠅的嗡嗡聲》

“Mine—by the Right of the White Election”《我的——根據白色選舉的權利》

“Wild Nights—Wild Nights”《狂風夜——狂風夜！》

“Death is a Dialogue between”《死是一場對話》

“I died for Beauty—but was scarce”《我為美而死》