伊丽莎白时代~17世纪(第四章~第五章)

四

④William Shakespeare威廉·莎士比亚

William Shakespeare is the most popular and most widely respected writer in all English literature.

Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon雅芳河畔的斯特拉福德镇

Shakespeare has been said to have the“Midas’s touch.点石成金之术”

Shakespeare has been known as a“physical”poet,and his poetry is alive with its sounds,colors, odors气味,and fine textures肌质（the poetic content）.The art of Shakespeare envelopes these poems with a halo光环of permanent fascination.

莎士比亚被认为是一位“物理学”诗人，他的诗歌充满了声音、颜色、气味和精密的结构。莎士比亚的艺术才能使这些诗歌戴上了永久的美丽光环。

Shakespeare’s sonnets,154in total.十四行诗共154首

The sonnets fall essentially into three groupings:over100of these seem to be addressed to a young man年轻美男,some20seem to be concerned with a young woman黑牡丹女子,and of these two read like free translations of a Greek poem of about the fifth century AD.译自5世纪的希腊诗歌。

Upon publication,the sonnets drew instant attention for their grace in form（形式优美）,depth in thought（深度）,and vivacity in tone（朝气）.They are peerless（无与伦比）in freshness, poetical beauty,and human interest.

诗歌一出版就因其形式美，思想深度和基调活泼引起了人们的关注。它们在独创性、诗歌意境美、和人情味方面都出类拔萃。

They are in essence the Renaissance paean of man,his spirit,and his values,and as such they are a faithful record of the mood and tenor of the times.

这些诗歌本质上是文艺复兴时期对人、人类的精神和价值的赞歌，同时也是忠实记载了当时的思想趋向。

For example,Sonnets18and65both assert the power of literature to combat斗争the ravages of time and declare the greatness of man伟大and his immortality不朽.(as the literature is man’s creation.)

十四行诗18和65都主张文学可以经历时代的洗礼，宣称人类的伟大和不朽（因文学是人类的创造。）

“Love‘s fire heats water,water cools not love.”爱的火焰使水烧热，而水冷却不了爱情。

His dramatic work is amazing in its variety:他的戏剧作品种类繁多：

1.the histories and comedies of his early period,

2.the tragedies of the middle or“tragic”period,and

3.the late period of romances or the period of serenity

1.早期的历史剧和喜剧（1600年以前）

2.中期或“悲剧”时期的悲剧（1600-1608）

3.晚期或宁静时期的浪漫剧（1608-1612）

I.the first period are generally happy and cheerful:

Henry IV亨利四世

Love’s Labor’s Lost爱的徒劳

Richard III理查德三世

Romeo and Juliet罗密欧与朱丽叶

A Midsummer Night’s Dream仲夏夜之梦

The Merchant of Venice 威尼斯商人

The Merry Wives of Windso r 温莎的风流娘们

As You Like It 皆大欢喜

——All theses dramas end happily (Though Romeo and Juliet is essentially a tragedy and The Merchant of Venice is tragic for Shylock.)虽然《罗密欧与朱丽叶》实际上是悲剧，而《威尼斯商人》中夏洛克的结局悲惨。

II.the second,or the tragic period

All his major tragedies were written within the space of a few years:

Julius Caesar 尤利乌斯•凯撒

Hamlet 哈姆雷特

Othello 奥赛罗

King Lear 李尔王

Macbeth 麦克白

Antony and Cleopatra 安东尼与克里奥佩特拉

Timon of Athens 雅典的泰门

Even the comedies written in the period,All’Well That Ends Well 终成眷属and Measures for Measure 一报还一报,reveal a Shakespeare are writing a wry smile.都显得笑容牵强

III .the last period of his life was one of emotional ．．．．．．．．．tranquility ．．．．．．．．．．．

when he must have won through pain and possibly a nervous breakdown to acceptance of the inevitability of life.

生命的晚期经历了生活的痛苦磨难，几近精神崩溃，从而归入情感的平静时期。

Cymbeline 辛柏林

Winter’s Tale 冬天的故事

The tempest 暴风雨戏剧手法：

One dramatic device 装置that Shakespeare uses in all his works involves the juxtaposition 并置of the comic element 喜剧元素alongside the serious.庄谐并置

莎士比亚所有作品中都用到一个戏剧手法，即喜剧和严肃元素的并置。

As to Macbeth ,Shakespeare took his story from Holinshed’s Chronicles of Scotland 何琳赛德的《苏格兰编年史》and made it into a lucid statement about man and his problems.Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a complex multi-dimensional 多维person.一个复杂的多维人物。

Macbeth represents the effect of sin and guilt upon the moral fiber of man:he ends with the tragic vision of human existence (Life is a tale/Told by an idiot,full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing ).The implication is that evil and sin and greed ,all part of human nature ,conspire to bring about man’s inevitable helplessness and downfall.There is ample indication of his awareness of the odds overwhelmin man.It is good to note here that William Faulkner derive from the quotation above the title for his famous novel,The sound and the Fury.

麦克白代表了人类道德犯罪的后果：他在人类生存的悲剧的幻象中死去（[生命]是傻瓜讲的故事，热热闹闹，却毫无意义。）寓意着罪恶和贪婪都是人类本性的一部分，一起合谋带来人类不可避免的无助和堕落。这充分表明他意识到了机会会制约人类。威廉·福克纳的著名小说《喧嚣与躁动》的题目就源自这段引文。

Psychoanalytical criticism seems to suggest that the young prince suffers from the Oedipus complex .俄狄浦斯情结·恋母情结

心理分析批评似乎暗示年轻王子有恋母情结。

The Merchant of Venice is another of Shakespeare’s popular plays.