第6章 超验主义和符号表征
6.1 复习笔记
I. The Transcendental Club（超验主义俱乐部）
Origin（起源）
In 1836, an informal group met in Concord, Massachusetts, to discuss theology, philosophy, and literature. At first they called themselves the Symposium of Hedge Club, after Henry Hedge who had initiated the meetings. But good-intentioned neighbors began calling the group members Transcendentalists since they always engaged in lofty discourses. The group accepted the name.
1836年，一个非正式群体在马萨诸塞州的康科德成立，讨论神学、哲学和文学。起初由于是亨利·海德格发起建立，所以他们自称为海德格俱乐部研讨会。但是，一些善意的邻人开始称呼这一群体成员为超验主义者，因为他们总是使用崇高的话语。俱乐部接受了这一称呼。
Development（发展）
As the club continued informally, it involved others: clergymen, learned women and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Emerson was ultimately the most representative Transcendentalist, but William Ellery Channing had planted the seeds before him.
由于俱乐部继续非正式发展，它吸纳了其他成员：牧师、知识女性和诸如爱默生、梭罗、阿尔科特和霍桑等作家。爱默生最终成为最具代表性的超验主义者，但是威廉·艾勒里·钱宁为其奠定了基础。
Ideas（思想）
Channing was a Unitarian minister who proposed that human nature is potentially good, even godly, and human genius is the strongest moral and creative force. In other words, humans define God. This idea of the Original Good seriously challenged the Puritan and Quaker belief in the Original Sin.
钱宁是一位一位论派牧师，主张人性是善的，甚至是神圣的，人类天赋是最强大的道德力和创造力。也就是说，人类定义神。这种原善说严重挑战了清教徒和贵格派的原罪说信仰。
End（结束）
The experiment ended in failure in 1847.
这一实验于1847年以失败告终。
Influence（影响）
Although this experiment failed at last, it exerted great influence on American culture and literature. Even writers who disagreed with certain aspects of Transcendentalism—writers such as Hawthorne and Melville—were influenced by much of its philosophy.
尽管最终失败了，但是超验主义对美国文化和文学产生了重大影响。甚至一些不同意某些超验主义观点的作家——如霍桑和梅尔维尔——受到超验主义的许多哲学观点的影响。
II. Transcendentalism as a Philosophy（作为哲学的超验主义）
(1) As an intensified expression of romanticism, Transcendentalism shares the characteristics of romanticism such as: the importance of intuition, the exaltation of the individual over society, the new and thrilling delight in nature, fascination with the Gothic and the “Oriental,” and the desire to build a national literature and culture.
作为一种对浪漫主义的极致表达，超验主义与浪漫主义具有共性：直觉的重要性、对个人主义战胜社会的欢庆、对自然的狂喜、对哥特式和“东方”的着迷以及对构建本国文学和文化的渴望。
(2) Transcendentalism, as a type of romanticism peculiar to New England, took on a specific moral and philosophical tone. The moral implications came from the environment where Puritan idealism persisted, but the philosophical tone was largely defined by Emerson.
超验主义作为新英格兰一种特殊的浪漫主义，采用了一种特定的道德和哲学基调。道德含义来自于清教徒所坚持的思想环境，而哲学基调主要是由爱默生定义的。
(3) Transcendentalism thinks that the visible world, if intuited with imagination, offers endless clues about the invisible world whose truths stand eternally behind the factual world perceived by the senses. Translated into literature, this belief became an emphasis on symbolic representation.
超验主义认为如果凭直觉想象，可见的世界提供了无限的关于隐形世界的线索，这一世界的真理永远存在于所感官的客观世界的背后。涉及到文学的话，这一观点强调了符号表征。
(4) Transcendentalism does not have the kind of logical consistency one would normally associate with a philosophy, but this inconsistency is not a weakness.
超验主义不具有一种逻辑连贯性，能够与哲学自然而然地联系在一起，但这种非连贯性并不是一个缺点。
i. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) （拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生）
1．Life（生平）
Emerson was born in Boston in 1803 and was the descendant of a long line of New England clergymen. When he was still a child, the family fortune fell. He went to Harvard. Later he embraced Unitarianism and became a Unitarian minister to the Second Church of Boston. But not for long, he found the rationality of Unitarianism intolerable and left his job. He went to Europe and brought back with him the influence of European Romanticism. He formed an informal Transcendentalists’ club with some friends and edited for a time the Transcendentalist journal, The Dial, to explain their ideas. He became the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.
1803年，爱默生出生于波士顿的一个显赫的新英格兰牧师之家。幼年时家道中落。他曾在哈佛大学就读。后接受唯一教教义，并成为波士顿第二礼拜堂唯一教牧师。不久，因对该教一些古板仪式持异议而辞职。赴欧洲旅行时受到欧洲浪漫主义的影响。回国后跟朋友结成非正式的“超验主义俱乐部”，编辑超验主义专刊《日晷》，传播超验主义思想。他是新英格兰超验主义最杰出的代言人。
2．A conceptual Revolution（一场概念革命）
Emerson is today regarded as the “Father” of American literature. That is primarily because he creatively defined the basic parameters of the American individual and because his social and literary liaisons decisively contributed to the formation of American culture and letters.
爱默生如今被认为是“美国文学之父”。主要是因为他创造性地定义了美国个人主义的基本参量，而且他将社会与文学联系起来，为美国文化和书信体的形成做出了决定性的贡献。
Emerson is a fervent defender of individualism. And his sense of individualism is associated with a certain kind of pantheism.
爱默生是个人主义的狂热辩护者。他的个人主义与一种特定的泛神论联系在一起。
It has been pointed out that Emerson learned from Confucius. Indeed, Emerson, copied aphorisms from Confucius in his Journals, mentioned Confucius in his essays, and published his translation of selected sayings of Confucius (such as from The Analects) in The Dial.
有人指出爱默生学习过孔子的学说。的确，爱默生在他的《日志》中摘录过孔子的格言，在他的散文中也提到了孔子，并在《日晷》中出版了他翻译的孔子语录。
3．Emerson’s Form（爱默生的形式）
The power of Emerson comes not only from his ideas but also from the eloquence with which he could express his ideas. He is certainly the most quotable American writer.
爱默生的力量不仅来自于他的思想，也来自于他用于表达思想的雄辩才能。他无疑是最令人津津乐道的美国作家。
In the technically more exact sense, Emerson’s form is lecture.
从技术层面上讲，爱默生的写作形式是一种演讲式的。
4．Emerson’s Poetry（爱默生的诗歌）
Emerson’s poetry exemplifies his belief that a poem should present concrete images that stand as symbols. In this he is the precursor to Whitman, Emily Dickinson and, in the modernist period, Ezra Pound and the imagists.
爱默生的诗歌体现了他的诗歌应呈现具体的意象作为象征的观点。从这点看，他是惠特曼、迪金森的先驱，也是现代时期的庞德等意象派的先驱。
5．Major Works（主要作品）
Nature (1836)
《论自然》（1836）
Self-Reliance
《论自助》
The American Scholar
《美国学者》
The Divinity School Address
《神学院演说》
Representative Men (1850)
《代表》（1850）
English Traits (1856)
《英国人的特性》（1856）
6．Appreciation of Works（作品赏析）
◆Nature《论自然》
(1) Published in 1836, Nature is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism.
《论自然》发表于1836年，它通常被认为是新英格兰超验主义的圣经。
(2) In this book, Emerson emphasizes the transcendence of the “Oversoul”. He holds the universe is composed of Nature and Soul. He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocates a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.
在这本书中，爱默生强调超灵无处不在。他认为宇宙由自然和人类灵魂组成。自然是最纯洁无暇的。能够神化人的心灵。倡导人们直接体验自然界无处不在的上帝。
(3) The spiritual God is operative in the soul of man, and that man is divine. The divinity of man became a favorite subject in lectures and essays. Each man should feel the world as his, and the world exists for him alone. Emerson’s message was eventually self-reliance. His self-reliance was an expression, on a very high level, of the buoyant spirit of his time.
神圣的上帝存在于人的灵魂中，因而人也是神圣的。人的神性成为爱默生演讲和写作挚爱的话题。每个人都应认为世界是属于他的，世界只为他而存在。爱默生要传达的思想是“自助”。在深层次上讲，“自助”是时代上升精神的反映。
(4) Nature is the emblematic of God. It mediates between man and God. A natural implication of Emerson’s view on nature is that the world around is symbolic.
自然是上帝的象征，他协调人和上帝的关系。爱默生关于自然的观点表明，人类周遭的世界具有象征意义。
◆Self-Reliance《论自助》
(1) Emerson’s master principle self-reliance is also the main theme of the American Transcendentalist movement This essay provides us sayings as well as builds up new concepts through which the author paves the path for the readers to follow, and furthermore, he tries to force the readers to be self-reliant in order to obtain their self-reliance successfully.
爱默生在《论自助》中所阐述的观点也是美国超验主义运动的主题。这篇文章也使我们知道了很多新的想法，并使读者意识到自己要自立只有这样才能成功的成为一个独立的人。
(2) The distinction of Self-Reliance is the elegant style of prose and vivid expression of his thoughts. His words can capture the thoughts of people. He also used a lot of figures of speech to emphasize his ideas.
爱默生的不同之处在于他优雅的散文风格及生动表达思想的能力。他的文章能抓住人们的想象。同样他也在文中运用了很多修辞手法。
(3) The idea of abolishing the slaves can be also found in this essay. But he also tells people that love your neighbor not the far-away slaves.
虽然他也持有废除奴隶的想法，但是他也告诫人们要爱你的邻居而不是千里之外的奴隶。
ii. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) （玛格丽特·傅勒）
1．Brief Introduction（简介）
(1) Margaret Fuller was a key figure in the Transcendental Club. She was the first editor of The Dial. Her familiarity with languages, especially with German, made her a valuable member of the group.
玛格丽特·傅勒是超验主义俱乐部中的一位重要人物。她是《日晷》的首位编辑。她通晓语言，尤其是德语，使她成为俱乐部具有价值的成员。
(2) With Emerson she was long intimate and she influenced his ideas and she also contacted with Hawthorne.
她与爱默生长时间保持亲密关系，影响了他的观点，也与霍桑保持联系。
(3) Fuller’s surviving writings, especially her principal book Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), have established her as a persuasive advocate for women’s rights.
傅勒留存下来的作品，尤其是《十九世纪的女性》，使她成为女权的有力倡导者。
(4) Fuller also followed a career in journalism, an accomplishment rare among women in the 19th century.
傅勒从事过新闻业，对女性来说，这在19世纪是很罕见的。
(5) Fuller was highly intelligent and was profoundly interested in the affairs of the human mind and spirit.
傅勒聪颖过人，特别热衷于人类心灵和精神事业。
(6) She perished in a shipwreck.
傅勒在沉船事故中去世。
2．Major Works（主要作品）
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
《十九世纪的女性》（1845）
iii. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) （亨利·大卫·梭罗）
1．Life（生平）
Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau worked in his father’s factory, attended Concord Academy, learned surveying, went to Harvard, and in 1837, took his brief fling at school teaching. When Emerson moved to Concord, Thoreau was only 17. Their association led Thoreau to the Transcendental Club and to a lifelong friendship.
梭罗出生在马萨诸塞州的康科德。他在父亲的工厂上班，曾就读于康科德学院，学习测量，后就读于哈佛大学，1837年，进行了短暂的教学工作。当爱默生搬到康科德时，梭罗才17岁。他们的交往将梭罗介绍到超验主义俱乐部，并与爱默生建立了终生的友谊。
Now, Thoreau was regarded as a major voice for nineteenth-century America, now better heard perhaps than Emerson’s. His influence goes beyond America. His statue was placed in the Hall of Fame in New York in 1969.
现在梭罗被认为是19世纪重要的作家，甚至文学成就高于爱默生。他的影响超出了美国范围。1969年，梭罗的塑像被放进了纽约的“名人堂”。
2．Thoreau’s Style（梭罗的风格）
(1) There is a heightened passion, a natural and living energy, in Thoreau whether he is criticizing or praising or arguing. The enthusiasm is balanced by a sense of wit, humor and irony.
不论梭罗是在批判、赞扬，还是在争论，都有着一种高度的热情和一种自然的、充满活力的能量。这种热情通过一种智慧、幽默和反讽达到平衡。
(2) The most important part of Thoreau’s style is the mark of Transcendentalism: the style as the thinking in imagery.
梭罗风格最重要的一点是超验主义：通过意象思考的风格。
3．Major Works（主要作品）
“Civil Disobedience” (1849)
《非暴力反抗》
Walden (1854)
《瓦尔登湖》
“A Plea for John Brown”
《为约翰·布朗请命》
4．Appreciation of Works（作品赏析）
◆Walden《瓦尔登湖》
Thoreau’s masterpiece, Walden, is a great Transcendentalist work. It is a faithful record of Thoreau’s reflections when he was in solitary communion with nature, an eloquent indication that he not only embraced Emerson’s Transcendentalist philosophy but went even further to illustrate the pantheistic quality of nature. Walden can be many things and can be read on more than one level.
梭罗的代表作《瓦尔登湖》是一部超验主义杰作。他忠实地记录了与自然界交流时的反思，表明他不仅接受了爱默生的超然主义哲学，而且进一步亲身实践阐明自然界的泛神特性。《瓦尔登湖》包罗万象，可以从多种角度去解读。
(1) It is a book about man, what he is, what he should be and must be. Thoreau holds that the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self-sufficient and strive to achieve personal spiritual perfection. Thoreau has been regarded as a prophet of individualism in American literature.
它是一本关于人的书，阐述人应该而且必须成为什么样的人。梭罗认为生活中最重要的事情是自给自足，努力实现精神上的完美。梭罗被誉为美国文学史上个人主义的先导。
(2) In this book, Thoreau was very critical of modern civilization. Modern civilized life has dehumanized man and placed him in a spiritual quandary.
在该书中梭罗猛烈抨击了现代文明。他认为现代文明生活使人失去了人性，将人置于精神上的困境。
(3) Furthermore, the book is full of ideas expressed to jostle his neighbors out of their smug complacency. He records how he tries to minimize his own needs on Walden Pond. He holds that spiritual richness is real wealth. One’s soul might not help one to get up in the world, but it will help make real progress in self-improvement.
此外，该书表明梭罗希望国人摆脱自鸣得意、沾沾自喜的情绪。他记录了自己在瓦尔登湖上尽量将个人需求降到最低的情况。他认为精神上的富有才是真正的富有。人的精神或许不能帮助人飞黄腾达，却有助于人在自我完善的过程中取得真正的进步。
(4) Thoreau went to the woods to experiment a new way of life for himself and for his fellowmen. And he felt that he came out of it a better man, reborn and reinvigorated. Thus, regeneration became a major thematic concern of Walden and it also decided its structural framework.
梭罗去森林居住目的是为自己和同胞们实验一种新的生活方式。之后，他感到获得了重生，整个人焕然一新。重生成为《瓦尔登湖》中重要的主题之一，并且决定了该书的结构框架。