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.
As the story goes,young Bassanio,who needs money to win the hand of the rich young heiress——Portia,comes to Antonia,a merchant of Venice,for help.Antonio,as he has no ready cash,goes to Shylock,the Jewish usurer,who has been at odds with Antonio because of the competition and r acial discrimination he has suffered at his hands.
《威尼斯商人》是莎士比亚备受欢迎的另一部戏剧。

故事开始，巴萨尼奥需要钱来赢得富家女继承人鲍西亚的心，他去找一位威尼斯商人安东尼奥帮忙。

安东尼奥没有现金，就去找犹太高利贷者夏洛克借钱，而后者因为双方的竞争在安东尼奥手里遭受的种族歧视一直与他不和。

The characterization of Shylock presents an intriguing ambiguity矛盾混合体.奸商+种族歧视
夏洛克这个任务的刻画复杂含义不明确。

The play is thus a kind of tragicomedy悲喜剧,tragic if we take Shylock’s losses into consideration.
因此，如果考虑到夏洛克的失败便是悲剧，此剧便是一个悲喜剧。

⑤Francis Bacon弗朗西斯·培根
Bacon’s Essay is the most cogent有说服力的testimony证明，证据to his wisdom and his unique style.The essay form was traceable to the work of the French essayist,Montaigne蒙田, but Bacon’s Essay was the first of its kind to appear in English literature.Bacon drew chiefly on the various phenomena现象of nature and his careful observations and analyses.
培根《随笔》就是其智慧和独特风格的最有力的证明。

这种随笔形式可以追溯到法国随笔作家蒙泰涅的作品，但培根的《随笔》是英国文学史上第一部随笔作品。

It deals with subjects such as truth,love,envy,high position,good nature,riches,ambition,beauty, vainglory虚荣，自负,learning,and politics and economy.无所不包
文中讲到了真理、爱情、嫉妒、高位、善良本质、富人、抱负、美丽、自大、学习、政治和经济等话题。

⑥Ben Jonson本·琼森
Ben Jonson was the last great Elizabethan and probably the first poet laureate(桂冠诗人)and the first literary dictator in English history.
本·琼森是伊丽莎白时期最后一位著名的，也许是英国历史上第一位桂冠诗人。

One of these was to bring the classic form of the three unities——unity of action,unity of time and unity of place——back to the stage.戏剧“三位一体”
第一件事就是把古典的三一原则——情节一致，时间一致和地点一致带回舞台。

Jonson is remembered today chiefly as a playwright.琼森主要作为剧作家被人铭记。

Of his18plays,the best include:
Every Man in His Humour个性异
Volpone or the Fox福尔蓬奈或狐狸
The Sad Shepherd or A Tale of Robin Hood悲伤的牧羊人或罗宾汉的故事
⑦King James’Bible《詹姆士王圣经》
The Bible consists of two parts——the Old Testament旧约and the New Testament新约.
The whole Bible took final shape around the beginning of the3rd century.
整部《圣经》最终形成于约3世纪。

The Old Testament tells of the history and religious beliefs of the Jews while the New Testament relates the life of Jesus Christ and the birth and the growth of the Christian faith.The word “testament”means“contract”契约,referring here to the one between God and the Jews,His first chosen people,that God promises the land of Canaan(today’s Palestine)for the Jews in return for
their faith in Him.
旧约讲的是犹太人的历史和宗教信仰，而新约讲的是耶稣·基督的生平和基督信仰的产生和发展。

“testament”这个词的意思是“契约”，这里指上帝与其选民犹太人之间的契约，上帝向犹太人许诺迦南之地（今巴勒斯坦）作为他们信仰的回报。

The writing of the Bible went through different stages:
1.The Oldest Testament was written in Hebrew,旧约：希伯来语
2.while the New Testament was done in Greek.新约：希腊语
In270AD72Jewish scholars spent72days translating the Old Testament.
3.Toward the end of the4th century,St.Jerome translated the Septuagint version of the Bible into Latin.圣哲罗姆将《圣经》中的希腊文本旧约圣经翻译成拉丁文。

4.John Wycliffe was the first Englishman to render the whole Bible into English.
约翰·威克里夫是最早一位将整部《圣经》翻译成英语的英国人。

Thus the most enduring King James’or the Authorized Bible came into being in1611.The version has been seen as the authoritative text because it is accurate in sense and beautiful and dignified in language.It has influenced generations of writers in their literary endeavors over the centuries.
于是，影响最深远的《詹姆士王圣经》或《钦定版圣经》于1611年问世。

这个版本被看成最权威的文本，因为它含意精确，语言美丽高雅。

几世纪以来，它影响了一代又一代作家的文学创作。

五、The17th Century17世纪
The period under discussion was one of transition过渡时期，chaos,and great perplexity.The old value system was on its way out,new values were taking shape,and the conflict generated an acute sense of loss...
这一时期是一个极度混乱、令人困惑的过渡期。

旧的价值体系正在退出历史舞台，新的价值观正在形成，冲突让所有的阶层都感到了在信任、信仰和荣誉方面极大的失落感。

This led to attempt to seek certainty and intellectual harmony on the one hand,and to address the question of values through violence and sexuality.These incidentally constituted the basic features of the literature of the period.The prevalent mood that enveloped literary works was one of gloom, pessimism,decadence,and frivolity.
这就导致人们一方面尝试寻求确定性和学术和谐，另一方面又通过暴力和性来解决价值观问题。

这正是之一时期文学的基本特征。

文学作品的普遍基调是忧郁、悲观、颓废和轻浮。

①John Donne(1571-1631)约翰·邓恩
His famous works include such poems as：
The Flea跳蚤
A Valediction:Forbidden Morning离别辞：节哀
Song歌
The Canonization追认圣徒
Death be nor proud死神，你莫骄傲
Batter my heart,three-personed God,for you锤击我心，三位一体的上帝
his prose work:
the23-section Devotions which contains his Meditations以及包含23个部分的散文《祷告》，其中包括《沉思录》
Meditations沉思录
“All mankind is of one author and is one volume,”and“Any man’s death diminishes me because I
am involved in mankind,and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;it tools for thee.”offer the American novelist Ernest Hemingway the tile for one of his famous novels,For Whom the Bell Tolls.
邓恩提到，“全人类就是一个人写的一本书”，还说，“任何人的死都让我受损，因为我与人类息息相关，因此别去打听丧钟为谁而鸣。

”
海明威的著名小说《丧钟为谁而鸣》的标题。

His poetry possessed a highly idiosyncratic quality特别气质that reveals a peculiar,brilliant imagination at work.
他的诗歌具有极强的特质，作品揭示了一种奇特且灿烂的想象。

His type of poetry has been known as Metaphysical Poetry and the group of poets,sharing some of his poetic features,has been called【“Metaphysical Poets”玄学派诗人】
But there is no school of poetry by the name of the Metaphysical school;the major features of “Metaphysical”poetry in fact characterize mostly Donne’s work.
但并没有玄学派这样一个诗歌流派；“玄学”诗歌的主要特点其实是描述邓恩的作品。

The“Metaphysical Poets”as a group included George Herbert乔治·赫伯特,Henry Vaughan,亨利·沃恩Richard Crashaw理查德·克拉肖,Robert Herrick罗伯特·赫里克, Thomas Carew托马斯·卡鲁,Abrham Cowley亚伯兰·考利,and Andrew Marvell安德鲁·马维尔.
The term“Metaphysical”comes first from17th-century poet-critic诗人批评家John Dryden who,commenting on Donne,feels that Donne loves to play with metaphysics玄学both in his satirical讽刺的and love poetry.
“玄学”这个术语第一次由17世纪诗歌批评家约翰·德莱顿提出，他在评论邓恩时觉得后者喜欢在讽刺诗和爱情诗中大玩形而上学
The basic features of Metaphysical poetry are its“wit”机巧or“conceit”奇喻.“Wit”here means being clever at“yoking”哈哈大笑the most heterogeneous不同的，多样的ideas together by violence so as to impress people(to paraphrase Samuel Johnson’s statement on the subject),and “conceit”denotes a fantastic fancy or way of thinking in the form of peculia r特殊的,ingenious 有独创性的,knotty棘手的,many-sided多面的metaphors隐喻.
玄学派诗歌的基本特点是“巧智”或“奇思妙喻”。

“巧智”在这里指的是把完全不同的概念令人震惊地结合在一起，给人留下深刻印象（转述塞缪尔·约翰逊对此的评述），而“奇思妙喻”则是一种以奇特、精巧、费解、多面的比喻为形式的奇想或思维方式。

These people tried to conquer by sheer unconventionality纯粹的异常rather than follow the normal channel of communication.
有理由相信这些人试图通过反传统，而不是通过正常的交际渠道来征服观众。

The reward,however,hard-won often after a battle of wit and intellect,is often a combination of grateful pleasure,gratification,and fun.
然而，经过一番巧智与智力的艰苦较量后得到的汇报通常是愉悦、满足和乐趣。

Donne’s love poems are good examples of Metaphysical poetry.
“The Flea”跳蚤,is disconcertingly fantastic in equating“the flea”with“love”.
《跳蚤》因把“跳蚤”比作“爱情”而十分奇异怪诞。

Desist from killing it because she would have committed murder谋杀罪,self-murder自杀,and sacrilege亵渎罪:“three sins in killing three”
The flea is the most sordid肮脏的，卑鄙的,disgusting令人厌恶的,and hateful parasite寄生虫in the world,while love is the sweetest,noblest,and purest human emotion in life.
跳蚤是世界上最肮脏、最让人恶心和讨厌的寄生虫，而爱情却是人类最甜蜜，最高贵和最纯洁的感情。

No one else would have ever thought of the flea as the“marriage bed”and“marriage temple”.
没有人会把跳蚤看成是“婚床”和“婚姻殿堂”
Donne’s uniqueness lies独特的谎言in this sudden jump from the conventional符合传统的to the unconventional非传统的and metaphysical,and making it appear rational合理的and acceptable.
邓恩的独特之处在于他从传统到非传统和玄学的跳跃，并跳跃得合理，让人可以接受。

Another illustrating example is easily found in his有说服力的例证
“Valediction:Forbidden Mourning”离别辞：节哀
The novelty新奇的事consists in the comparison of two separate lovers to the legs of a compass 圆规.The choice is strangely apt if the readers take into account the fact that the compass is a symbol of both firmness(its legs)and perfection(the circle it draws).
其新奇之处在于把两个分离的爱人比作圆规的两只脚。

如果读者考虑到圆规是坚定（圆规的脚）和完美（圆规画的圆圈）的象征，因此也是他们爱情坚定与完美的象征，那么这个比喻的选择又是十分恰当的。

②Andrew Marvell安德鲁·马维尔
Although his work reveals some“Metaphysical”features,he has his own unique style,which is subtle amalgam of“Metaphysical”with Elizabethan features—he was sensitive to the influence of Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney.
他的作品里虽呈现“玄学派”特点，但也有自己的独特风格，即巧妙融合了“玄学派”和伊丽莎白时代的特点——他深受埃德蒙·斯宾塞和菲利普·锡德尼的影响。

③John Milton约翰·弥尔顿
Milton is regarded as the third greatest English poet after Chaucer and Shakespeare,and the greatest to come out of the17th century.
Paradise Regained复乐园
Paradise Lost失乐园
Samson Agonistes力士参孙
Lycidas莱西达斯
Readers tend to feel after reading the work that Satan is not thoroughly condemned.撒旦不是完全十恶不赦。

读者在读完作品后会感到撒旦并不没有受到完全的谴责。

In fact the epic devotes a good deal of space to rebellious反抗的actions against God and His scheme.
实际上，史诗花了大量的篇幅描写了他反叛上帝的行动和他的计划。

Milton’s portrayal描绘of God and Satan may be an index to the built-in ambiguity内置的模凌两可and dichotomy二分法in the sensitive complexities敏感的复杂性of the poet’s own inner soul.
弥尔顿对上帝和撒旦的刻画就暗示了诗人敏感复杂的内心世界的迷蒙与对立。

Samson Agonistes力士参孙(or the Athlete运动员,the powerful)...
诗剧《力士参森》（或运动员，力士）
as the objecting the poet’s own unflinching spirit是诗人自己的坚定精神的写照
The tragedy draws from a different section of the Bible,The Book of Judges.
这个悲剧取材于《圣经》的另一个故事《士师记》
Lycidas：莱西达斯It is a pastoral elegy田园挽歌in memory of Edward King.
这是一部纪念年轻诗人爱德华·金的田园挽歌。

An elegy is in English poetry a lament挽歌or meditation冥想often written on the occasion of the death of a loved one.
挽歌是英语中表达悲伤和冥想的诗歌，常写于心爱之人死亡之际。

【世界四大挽歌之一】
④John Dryden约翰·德莱顿
The Poet Laureate1668Cambridge
In historical retrospect,Dryden is remembered for two things he did admirably for his country’s literature.
One of these was his successful effort to prune the Elizabethan language of its formless exuberance and turn it into a cool,lucid,plain,and natural medium for English writing.
其一就是他成功地删改了伊丽莎白时期语言中过多的情感表述，使之变得冷峻、明晰、朴素、自然。

No wonder that Pope took Dryden as his model.难怪蒲柏将德莱顿视为自己的楷模。

Samuel Johnson18th英国批评家says Dryden’s contribution to the refining of the English language:“…he found it brick砖,and he left it marble金.”
塞缪尔·约翰逊在评论德莱顿为英语语言的精炼所做的贡献时说，“……英语在他初次接触时是砖，在他离开的时候是大理石。

”
Another thing,more significant in nature,is his contribution to English literary criticism.
第二件事情更具有重要意义，那就是他对英语文学批评的贡献。

Dryden has been seen as“the father of English criticism.”英国批评之父
⑤John Bunyan约翰·班杨
The Pilgrim’s Progress天路历程is an allegory寓言.
It reads like a medieval miracle play中世纪奇迹剧with vivid and lively personifications of virtues and vices人性的善恶and all the human qualities in between.
充满了对美德和恶行，以及居于二者之间的人类品质的生动活泼的比拟。

It takes the form of a dream vision on the part of the narrator-author:the whole book,in fact,is the description of the visions of a dozen dreams.
这是以叙述者——作者的梦境形式展开的：整部书其实就是对12个梦境的描述。

Pilgrim’s Progress abounds充满in acute严重的social criticism.The section on Vanity Fair is one of the best.The Town of Vanity虚荣human vanities on sale for a price(property,status, nations,husbands and wives,souls,honors,lusts and delights)
《天路历程》充满了激烈的社会批评，其中关于浮华集市的部分当属最佳。

在浮华镇可以看到各种各样的名利标价出售（财产、地位、民族、夫妻、灵魂、荣誉、乐趣）It is vivid satire against the corrupt and depraved England of the restoration,where the princes and nobles lived a reckless life of debauchery.
这生动讽刺了复辟时期腐败堕落的英格兰，王公贵族们都过着不计后果的放荡生活。

It is good to know that the notion概念of Vanity Fair名利场was to offer a title for one great Victorian novel,Vanity Fair,by William Makepeace Thackeray.威廉·梅克比斯·萨克雷
值得一提的是，浮华集市的概念成了一部维多利亚时期伟大小说的标题，即威廉·梅克皮斯·萨克雷的《名利场》。