英美诗歌鉴赏——To Helen,致海伦演示教学

英美诗歌鉴赏——T o

H e l e n,致海伦

英美诗歌鉴赏——To Helen，致海伦

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks1 of yore,2

That gently, o'er a perfumed3 sea,

The weary4, wayworn5 wanderer6 bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam7,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece

And the grandeur 8that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche9

1平底船

2很久以前

3芳香的

4疲倦的

5旅行累了的

6漫游者，旅行者

7漫步，漫游

8壮丽，宏伟

How statue-like10 I see thee stand,

The agate11 lamp within thy hand!

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

The writer Edgar Allen Poe was born in 1809. His father deserted the family, and his mother died when Poe was three. Poe was taken into the home of his uncle. In 1826, he entered the University of Virginia, only to drop out later . He was sent to West Point and dismissed, too. Then he turned to fiction writing to support himself. He worked as an editor throughout his life. His wife’s death in 1847, drove Poe to heavy drinking occasionally. One day in 1849, he was found unconscious on a Baltimore street and then died.

Poe established himself as a successful short story writer and literary critic. He succeeded in formulating influential literary theories and in demonstrating mastery of the forms he favored_hinghly musical poems and short prose narratives. His theory of short fiction is best exemplified in Ligeia and The Fall of The House of Usher, which was to become one of his most famous stories.

10向雕像一样

Poe wrote To Helen as a reflection on the beauty of Mrs.Standard who died in 1824. She encouraged Poe to write poems when he was 14. Poe regarded her as his first , pure love.

First, let us see the clever rhymes in this great poem. Alliteration: the /w/ in “The weary, wayworn wanderer bore” and the /s/ in

“ How statue-like I see thee stand” .assonance: both “like” and “Nicean” have the vowel /ai/; both “wont” and “roam” have the vowel / / ; “agate”,“lamp” and“hand”all have the vowel / /. Rhyme: “me” and “sea”; ”yore”, ”bore” and “shore”; “roam”, “home” and “Rome”. The rhymes makes the poem contain musical charm and more attractive to read.

The title expressed how beautiful Mrs.Standard was by just one word—Helen，who， in Greek story, was the most beautiful woman in the world and also lighted the flames of the Trojan war．But that is not enough, we see the poet used similes to continue his praise. He compared her to “Nicean barks of yore”which brought tired “wanderers” home. The /w/ in “ The weary, wayworn wanderer bore” bring out the tired faces vividly. The lady are not doll, she could brought peace and relief. Maybe that is how the writer thought about Mrs.Standard.

In the second part, the poet described just two body parts, “Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,” short but vivid, just let the r eader