第8章　現(xiàn)實主義時期?豪威爾?詹姆斯

8.1　復(fù)習(xí)筆記

I. American Realism（美國現(xiàn)實主義）

Realism was a reaction against Romanti cism and paved the way to Modernism.

During this period a new generation of writers, dissatisfied with the Romantic ideas in the older generation, came up with a new inspiration. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the realities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death and heroic individualism, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence, to what was brutal or sordid, and to the open portrayal of class struggle.

So writers began to describe the integrity of human characters reacting under various circumstances and picture the pioneers of the Far West, the new immigrants and the struggles of the working classes.

Mark Twain, Howells and Henry James are three leading figures of the American Realism.

現(xiàn)實主義是對浪漫主義的一種反抗，并為現(xiàn)代主義做了鋪墊。

在這一時期，新一代的作家對浪漫主義觀點頗為不滿，于是提出了新的思想。新的理念對現(xiàn)實生活產(chǎn)生極大的關(guān)注，目的在于真實地反映現(xiàn)實生活的各個方面，摒棄主觀的偏見，理想主義或是浪漫主義色彩。人們不再考慮生與死的神秘和個人英雄主義，而是直接關(guān)注日常生活的特點，寫生活的殘忍和卑賤，坦率地描述階級斗爭。

作家開始描述各種各樣環(huán)境下人性格當(dāng)中的正直，并描寫在遙遠(yuǎn)西部的拓荒者，新移民和工人階級的斗爭。

馬克吐溫，豪威爾斯和亨利·詹姆斯是美國現(xiàn)實主義的代表作家。

II. William Dean Howells（威廉姆·迪恩·豪威爾斯）

1．Life（生平）

He was born in a small town in Ohio and brought up in humble surroundings. He had little formal education but read widely. He was the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, once the editor-in-chief of the country’s most influential journal, The Atlantic Monthly. He was a prolific writer. He wrote volumes of drama, poetry, and novels in addition to criticism, travelogues, and autobiography.

豪威爾斯出生在俄亥俄州一個小城鎮(zhèn)，在一個卑微的環(huán)境中成長。他沒有受過多少正規(guī)的教育，但閱讀涉獵廣泛。他曾是美國藝術(shù)文學(xué)院的院長，并曾擔(dān)任過國內(nèi)最有影響力的期刊——《大西洋月刊》的主編。他是一位多產(chǎn)的作家。他寫了大量的戲劇、詩歌和小說，另外還有評論文、旅行見聞及自傳。

2．Literary point of view（文學(xué)批評觀）

(1) He defines realism as “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”, a quest of the average and the habitual rather than the exceptional and the unique high or low.

(2) Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howells’s fictional representation.

(3) Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes a central concern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.

(4) Realism, interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people,” was best suited as a technique to express the spirit of America.

(5) With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detached scientist in accurate description, interpretation, and classification.

(1) 他指出，“現(xiàn)實主義忠實于生活，反映動機的可能性”，尋求表現(xiàn)一般性和習(xí)慣性，而不是特殊性或獨特的高尚或卑微現(xiàn)象。

(2) 他表現(xiàn)的主體是自然、不嬌柔做作的人。

(3) 現(xiàn)實主義絕非簡單的攝影式再現(xiàn)生活，它包含著對“動機”和心理矛盾的描繪和分析。

(4) 現(xiàn)實主義是要表現(xiàn)普通人一般的情感，目的在于訴說美國的精神。

(5) 關(guān)于文學(xué)批評，豪威爾主張文學(xué)批評家不應(yīng)隨意地主觀地去評價作品，應(yīng)該中立地去做準(zhǔn)確精煉的描述，闡釋和分類。

3．Major works（主要作品）

The Rise of Silas Lapham《塞拉斯·拉帕姆的發(fā)跡》

A Modern Instance《現(xiàn)代婚姻》

A Hazard of New Fortunes《新財富的危害》

Criticism and Fiction《批評與小說》

4．Analysis of major work（主要作品分析）

◆The Rise of Silas Lapham《塞拉斯·拉帕姆的發(fā)跡》

In this novel Howells’ qualities as a novelist are shown at their best. It relates the story of a new upstart in mid-19thC in Boston. It is a fine specimen of American realistic writing. There is nothing heroic, dramatic or extraordinary. Howells is here so devoted to the small, the trivial, and the commonplace.

In this novel the author emphasizes on ethics, stresses the need for sympathy and moral integrity and the need for different social classes to adapt to one another. The author criticizes the rise of materialism in American life.

該小說充分體現(xiàn)了豪威爾斯這位小說家的素養(yǎng)。它講述了19世紀(jì)中期波士頓一個暴發(fā)戶的故事。它是美國現(xiàn)實主義文學(xué)的典范。這里沒有英雄主義，沒有戲劇化或非同尋常的情節(jié)。豪威爾斯專注于描寫渺小、瑣碎及平常的事務(wù)。

在這部小說中作者強調(diào)道德，強調(diào)同情心、道德高尚以及不同社會階層互相適應(yīng)、和諧相處的必要性。作者批判了美國生活中的物質(zhì)主義。

III. Henry James（亨利·詹姆斯）

He is considered the founder of psychological realism. He was the first American writer to conceive his artistic work in international themes.

他是心理現(xiàn)實主義的先驅(qū)。他是美國第一個致力于國際題材的作家。

1．Life（生平）

Henry James was born into a wealthy cultured family of New England. His brother, William James, was to be the famous philosopher and psychologist. To some extent, his family background decides his theme: he wrote about the wealthy, deep-rooted leisure class. At a very early age, he was exposed to the cultural influence of Europe. In 1876, he settled down in London, and spent the rest of his life there.

亨利·詹姆斯生于新英格蘭一個家境富裕的書香門第。他的哥哥威廉·詹姆斯是著名的哲學(xué)家和心理學(xué)家。在一定程度上，他的家庭背景決定了他寫作的主題：他的作品主要是敘述富有悠閑的上流社會的生活。他早年深受歐洲文化的影響。1876年他定居倫敦在那里度過余生。

2．James’ literary point of view（詹姆斯的文學(xué)批評觀）

(1) As a realist, he holds that art must be related to life, the aim of the novel is to represent life. He advocates an immense increase of freedom in novel-writing and argues for inclusion of the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace.

(2) James’s realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. He emphasized the inner awareness and inward movements of his characters in face of outside occurrence rather than merely portraying their environment in any detail.

(3) James was concerned with “point of view” which is at the center of his aesthetic of the novel. James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention.

(1) 作為一個現(xiàn)實主義作家，他認(rèn)為藝術(shù)與生活息息相關(guān)，小說存在的理由是就是表現(xiàn)生活。他主張應(yīng)予小說寫作極大的自由，作品應(yīng)包括所有不愉快、丑陋的現(xiàn)象?，F(xiàn)實的氣氛是小說最大的優(yōu)點。

(2) 詹姆斯作品的題材有明顯的心理分析的特點，他不僅僅細(xì)致地描述外部環(huán)境，更多的是強調(diào)人物的內(nèi)心活動。

(3) 詹姆斯關(guān)心敘事角度，這是他小說美感的關(guān)鍵。他避免用全能視角，他讓角色表現(xiàn)他們自己而盡量不加干涉。

3．Theme（主題）

During his lifetime his fame rested largely upon his handling of his major fictional theme, “the international theme”: the meeting of America and Europe, American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence, and its moral and psychological complications. For the American it was a process of progression from inexperience to experience, from innocence to knowledge and maturity.

詹姆斯的名聲主要是建立在他的小說主題“國際主題”上的，即美國和歐洲的相會。美國的天真和歐洲的墮落、道德和心理上的復(fù)雜性相對照。對美國人而言，這是一個從積累經(jīng)驗、增長知識、走向成熟的過程。

4．Style（寫作風(fēng)格）

James is not so easy to understand. He is often highly refined and insightful. With a large vocabulary, he is always accurate in word selection, trying to find the best expression for his literary imagination. Therefore Henry James is not only one of the most important realists of the period before the First World War, but also the most expert stylist of his time.

詹姆斯的作品不易理解。他語言優(yōu)美，眼光獨到。他詞匯量豐富，選詞準(zhǔn)確，力求尋找能夠表達(dá)他所想的最佳表達(dá)方式。因此詹姆斯不僅是一戰(zhàn)前的這段時期最重要的現(xiàn)實主義作家之一，也是最老練的文體家。

5．Major works（主要作品）

The American《美國人》

Daisy Miller《黛西·米勒》

The Portrait of a Lady《貴婦人的畫像》

The Bostonians《波士頓人》

The Princess Casamassima《卡薩瑪西瑪公主》

The Turn of the Screw《擰螺絲》

When Maisie Knew《梅西見聞》

The Ambassadors《專使》

The Wings of the Dove《鴿翼》

The Golden Bowl《金碗》

6．Analysis of major works（主要作品分析）

◆The Portrait of a Lady《貴婦人的畫像》

This novel tells about the fate of one of those splendid Jamesian American girls, Isabel Archer, arriving in Europe, full of hope and with a will to live a free and noble life, only to fall prey to the sinister designs of two vulgar and unscrupulous expatriates, Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond. Isabel’s dreams and expectations evaporate: her unawareness of evil around her and her money combine to work her undoing.

小說講述了典型的詹姆斯式的美國姑娘伊莎貝爾·阿切爾，來到歐洲，滿懷希望過一種自由和高貴的生活，卻不幸落入兩個粗野且不擇手段的默爾太太和吉爾伯特·奧斯蒙德的歹毒圈套里。伊莎貝拉的美夢和期望破碎了：她對周圍人對她及她的財富的虎視眈眈毫無察覺，這導(dǎo)致了她的毀滅。

◆The Ambassador《專使》

The Ambassador, which James considered his “most perfect” work of art, is a comedy of American and European manners. Strether, the middle-aged American, is sent to Paris to bring back the young man too fascinated with Europe to return home, but is eventually convinced that Paris is the place both for the young man and for himself. James stresses mutual understanding and sympathy.

《專使》是詹姆斯自認(rèn)為最完美的著作。它是一部關(guān)于美國和歐洲舉止方式的喜劇。它講述了中年美國男子斯特雷瑟赴巴黎接一位迷戀歐洲的年輕人回家，但是最終卻相信巴黎才是這個年輕人和他自己應(yīng)該生活的地方。詹姆斯強調(diào)了相互理解和同情。