第7章 霍桑、麦尔维尔和坡
7.1 复习笔记
I. Overview（概观）
(1) Poe was not associated with Transcendentalism or any other noticeable -isms of his age. Poe was little known in the United States at the time but was recognized and acclaimed as an important writer in Europe.
坡与超验主义和他那个时代的一些“主义”都没有发生联系。坡在美国名声较弱，但是在欧洲却获得了较好的声誉。
Hawthorne and Melville were marginally associated with the ideas of Transcendentalism, and they would often take a critical distance from that movement.
霍桑和麦尔维尔稍微受到超验主义的影响，他们通常与之保持一定距离。
(2) In terms of genres, Poe wrote short stories primarily and was among the first generation of literary critics. Hawthorne wrote both longer and shorter fictional works and he called his shorter works that speak with the wisdom of parables and allegory romance tales. Of the three, Melville was the only one known for of the epic-scale works and wrote, among other things, Moby Dick. He also wrote short stories some of which are masterpieces.
就体裁而言，坡主要写短篇小说，也是第一代文学批评家。霍桑不仅写长篇小说也写短篇小说，他将充满智慧的短篇小说称为寓言或寓言浪漫故事。三人中，麦尔维尔是唯一一位以写史诗作品闻名的作家，如《白鲸》。他也写短篇小说，有一些甚至成为他的代表作。
(3) Despite their differences in style and vision, the three are strikingly similar in one aspect, namely: they are all masters of negative capability.
尽管他们的风格和视野存在差异，但是他们也存在明显的共性，即：他们都是“消极感受力”的大师。
(4) Poe, Hawthorne and Melville were healthy skeptics. Their ability in doubts, irony and detachment enabled them to interrogate the innocence of the age.
坡、霍桑和麦尔维尔都是健康的怀疑论者。他们的怀疑、嘲讽和超然能力使他们能够质问那个世代所表现出来的纯真。
II. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) （纳撒尼尔·霍桑）
1．Brief Introduction（简介）
Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Some of his ancestors were men of prominence in the Puritan theocracy. One of his ancestors was a colonial magistrate, notorious for his part in the persecution of the Quakers, and another was a judge at the Salem Witchcraft Trial in 1692. Gradually, the family fortune declined. Hawthorn was intensely conscious of the wrongdoing of his ancestors, and this awareness led to his understanding of evil being at the core of human life, so he seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in his life.
霍桑出生于马萨诸塞州的萨勒姆镇，他的一些祖先是17世纪新英格兰清教神权统治中的显赫人物。他的一位祖先是殖民地行政官，因参与迫害贵格派教徒而臭名昭著。另一位祖先则是1692年萨勒姆审巫案的法官。家族渐渐走向没落。霍桑强烈地意识到他祖先的罪恶，这也让他明白了邪恶存在于人生命的核心部分，因此终其一生，他心中的罪恶感都挥之不去。
2．The Scarlet Letter and Hawthorne’s Moral Vision（《红字》和霍桑的道德视野）
In The Scarlet Letter, it is not so much the love between Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale that is the main interest of the novel. The focus of the novel is their moral situation in the long years in which they have to endure suffering.
在《红字》中，故事的主要焦点并不是海斯特和丁梅斯代尔之间的爱情，而是他们在长期的折磨和痛苦中所体现出的道德境况。
To understand Hawthorne’s moral vision is to understand that he is not only connected with the Puritan heritage but is ambivalent towards it. It is in Pearl, more than in the other characters, that the Emersonian idealism sneaks into Hawthorne’s moral vision.
要了解霍桑的道德视野就要清楚他不仅与清教传统有关，并且他的态度是矛盾的。从人物珍珠来看，爱默生的理想主义慢慢地渗透到霍桑的道德视野中。
3．Themes of His Writings（写作主题）
(1) A theme evident in Hawthorne’s writings is the guilty stains of human nature.
霍桑的一个明显主题是人性的罪恶。
(2) Hawthorne is intensely interested in understanding the contradiction of human heart and in defending the right of the human heart to express itself honestly. In his writings there is a consistent concern with the psychological currents beneath the conscious. A dream-like journey at night is a typical Hawthornian metaphor for this concern.
霍桑对于挖掘人的内心世界十分感兴趣，也力求维护真诚地表达内心。在他的作品中有一种对意识下心理活动的持续关注。夜间似梦的旅程是这种关注的一种典型的霍桑式的隐喻。
(3) Hawthorne is critical of any morally irresponsible search for knowledge, and for that reason he has created images of a certain scientist.
霍桑批判任何一种违反道德责任的知识追求，为此，他塑造了许多科学家的形象。
(4) Yet another significant theme is that of male withdrawal from marriage.
另一个重要的主题是男性从婚姻中退出。
4．Hawthorne’s Style（霍桑的风格）
(1) Hawthorne’s style is elevated in diction and restrained in rhetoric, thus graceful and polished.
霍桑措辞严谨，修辞谨慎，所以文笔优雅、精炼。
(2) Hawthorne’s truth, which is more psychological than theological, is conveyed mainly through allegory and symbol. But what makes the Hawthornian allegory truly special is the presence of ambiguity.
霍桑的真理更是心理上的，而不是神学的，主要通过寓言和象征来表现。但是霍桑寓言的真正特殊之处是他对歧义的运用。
(3) He is good at exploring of the complexity of human psychology. He is anatomist of “the interior of the heart”. His works are full of mental activities.
他善于探究人的复杂心理，是人物内心的剖析师。他的作品有着丰富的心理活动描写。
(4) Allegory is used to hold fast against the crushing blows of reality, the symbolism serves as a weapon to attack and penetrate it. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, provides the most conclusive proof.
寓言是对现实沉重的打击，象征主义则是揭露和抨击现实的武器。霍桑是象征主义大师，他继承了清教的传统并光复了美国文学。象征在他的作品中随处可见，尤其可以在他的代表作《红字》中找到确证。
5．Major Works（主要作品）
“Young Goodman Brown” (1835)
《小伙子布朗》（1835）
“The Minister’s Black Veil” (1836)
《牧师的黑面纱》（1836）
Twice-told Tales (1837)
《重讲一遍的故事》（1837）
“Rappacini’s Daughter” (1844)
《拉普奇尼博士的女儿》（1844）
Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)
《古屋青苔》（1846）
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
《红字》（1850）
The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
《带有七个尖角阁的房子》（1851）
The Blithedale Romance (1852)
《福谷传奇》（1852）
The Marble Faun (1860)
《玉石雕像》（1860）
6．Appreciation of Works（作品赏析）
◆The Scarlet Letter《红字》
(1)Theme—This novel assumes the universality of guilt and explores the complexities and ambiguities of man’s choices. Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story nor a story of sin, but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature.
主题——这部小说展现了罪恶的普遍性并探究了人们面临选择时的复杂与矛盾心理。霍桑无意去讲述一个关于爱情或罪恶的故事，而是关注于罪恶感带给普通人或一些主要角色在道德、情感、心理方面的影响，从而展示了社会与个人之间的紧张状况。对于霍桑来讲，每个人都是潜在的罪人，道义上的勇气对人性的改善是必不可少的。
(2)Symbolism—Hawthorne portrays Hester as an aristocratic and sensitive young woman who meets her sentence with dignity and courage. When she is set free, she does not flee the community. She supports herself and her child by doing fancy needlework, devotes her life to her child and helping the sick and the poor, and wins the admiration and love of her fellowmen again. So, The Scarlet Letter is a hymn on the moral growth of the woman. The scarlet letter at first is a token of shame, Adultery, then the genuine sympathy and help she offers to her fellow villagers change it to Able. Later in the end, A appears in the sky, signifying Angel. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she establishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen.
象征主义——霍桑将海斯特描绘成一位仪态高贵并善感的年轻女子，从容勇敢地面对判决。当她获释后，她并没有逃离社区。她带着孩子靠做精美的针线活自力更生，将爱奉献给自己的孩子并帮助老弱病残，重新赢得了同乡人的赞美和爱戴。因此，《红字》就是一曲歌颂海斯特道德成长的赞歌。红字最初是羞耻的象征，是“通奸”；然后因为她对同乡人真诚的同情和帮助使得红字的意义变为“能干”；最后，红字A出现在天空中，意味着“天使”。当她与乡人建立了意义深长的关系时，她的生命最终获得了真正的意义。
III. Herman Melville (1819-1891) （赫尔曼·麦尔维尔）
1．Life（生平）
Melville was born in New York City. When Herman Melville was 11, his father, a businessman, suffered heavy financial losses and soon died from worry and illness. The family moved to Albany where Melville attended Albany Classical School for a while. Then his restlessness and his tension with his mother brought an end to his education, although he continued on his own to read avidly from his father’s library.
麦尔维尔出生在纽约。在他11岁时，经商的父亲遭受到严重的经济损失，不久因焦虑和疾病而去世。他们一家搬往奥尔巴尼，麦尔维尔在奥尔巴尼古典学院学习了一段时间。随后，他的不安分以及和母亲间的紧张关系使他放弃了学业，但是他在父亲的书房里继续自学。
Herman Melville grew up a displaced person in a world of alienating and harsh reality. He drifted into various occupations: a store clerk, a bank messenger, a country schoolteacher, a sailor and so on.
麦尔维尔在流浪中长大，生活在一个异化的世界中，被残酷的现实包围着。他从事过很多职业：商店职员、银行信使、乡村教师、船员等。
Later in his life, Melville worked as a Custom Inspector. He died in 1891.
在晚年，麦尔维尔成为一名海关检查员。他于1891年去世。
2．Melville’s Writing Style and Features（麦尔维尔的写作风格和特点）
(1)Melville’s male central characters are the classic wanderers who struggle against odds and are initiated into some harsh rite of passage.
麦尔维尔以男性为中心的人物都是一些经典流浪汉形象，他们与困难作斗争，经历许多挫折艰辛。
(2)His universe is the single-sex universe, all males and no females. But his male characters show both masculine and feminine qualities. The feminine in man, so to speak, is often shown as tenderness and compassion.
他的世界是单一性别的世界，全是男性，没有女性。但是他的男性形象有着两性的特点。可以说，男性中的女性特点一般表现为温柔和同情心。
(3)The world in Melville’s fiction mirrors the world he saw--defined by the rough seas and the ubiquity of evil. Anyone who boards his ship should have lost innocence already and should expect the unexpected.
麦尔维尔小说中的世界映射了他所看到的世界——主要是波涛汹涌的大海和罪恶的普遍存在。每一个登上他的船的人都会失去童真，并准备好迎接意料之外的事情的发生。
3．Major Works（主要作品）
Typee (1846)
《泰比》（1846）
Omoo (1847)
《欧穆》（1847）
Mardi (1849)
《玛地》（1849）
Redburn (1849)
《雷得本》（1849）
White Jacket (1850)
《白外衣》（1850）
Moby Dick (1851)
《白鲸》（1851）
Pierre (1852)
《皮埃尔》（1852）
The Confidence Man (1857)
《骗子的化装表演》（1857）
Battle Pieces (1866)
《战事集》（1866）
Billy Budd (1924)
《比利·巴德》（1924）
4．Appreciation of Works（作品赏析）
◆Moby Dick《白鲸》
(1) Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West were expressed in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great.
《白鲸》代表了麦尔维尔对他所生活的时代的悲观态度。那里没有上帝，毫无意义。麦尔维尔的作品淋漓尽致地表现了西方现代生活中信仰缺失、徒劳感及无意义等，因此20世纪人们终于发现了它的伟大和引人入胜之处。
(2) One of the major themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melville on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest”.
该小说的主题是疏离。疏离存在于麦尔维尔生活时代的不同层面，如人与人之间，人与社会之间，以及人与自然之间。麦尔维尔同时对新英格兰超验主义过度强调个人主义和“超灵”进行了批判。该小说的另外一个主题是“拒绝与追寻”。
(3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing.
该小说富有象征意义。航行本身是探索和发现，寻求最终真相的隐喻。莫比·迪克是全书中最明显的象征，它可以有多种解释。有人认为它代表邪恶，有人认为它代表了善良，也有人认为它二者兼有。它的白色是自相矛盾的颜色，既代表了死亡和腐朽，又代表了纯洁、天真和青春。它代表了宇宙的最终奥秘，人类最好别去求甚解。
(4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple views of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised.
麦尔维尔通过运用多重视角的技巧以实现模棱两可的效果。他倾向于写掉尾句。他富有韵律的散文和诗意被大众评论和赞美。
IV. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) （埃德加·爱伦·坡）
1．Life（生平）
Poe was born in Boston in 1809, the child of an American actor and English actress; he was orphaned and adopted. He attended West Point Military Academy but was discharged; at the age of 27 he married his cousin who was half his age; he loved her dearly but lost her to tuberculosis; he died at the age of 40.
1809年坡出生于波士顿，父母分别是美国和英国演员。后来他成为孤儿，并被收养。他进入西点军校，但后来被除名。27岁时，他与小自己一半年龄的表妹结婚，他非常爱她，但是不久她因肺结核去世。40岁时，坡去世了。
2．Poetic Principles（诗学理论）
(1) To Poe, poetic meaning is in the poem’s own composition and utterance, thus there is no exterior or transcendental truth in a poem.
对坡来说，诗情存在于诗歌的构成成分和话语中，因此在一首诗中不存在外部的和超验的真理。
(2) His criticism is highly regarded because he judges and practices by a coherent set of aesthetic principles and technical standards.
他的文学批评获得高度评价，因为他的评价和实践是建立在一套美学原则和技术规范的基础上的。
(3) Many others, including D. H. Lawrence, see Poe as a master of exploring and employing psychological abnormality.
包括劳伦斯在内的许多人都将坡视为探索和运用变态心理的大师。
(4) Because Poe’s poetics have the strength of being precise, he is often rightly respected as an expert on formal techniques. Poe suggests that a poem—and this also applies to his fiction—should be short enough so that it can be read at one sitting.
由于坡的诗论精确有力，他经常被尊为正式技术的专家。坡主张诗歌——也适用于他的小说——应当尽量短小，以便能够在一个场景中被解读。
3．Poe’s Short Stories（坡的短篇小说）
(1) Often, the stories gain added complexity and sophistication because of Poe’s use of Complex narrators.
通常，坡的故事有一种复杂性，因为他运用了一种复杂的叙述者。
(2) The force of Poe’s stories comes, in part, from his ability to place his characters in a special situation so that their psychological states can be detailed and sharply delineated.
坡的故事的强度一部分来自于他将人物置于一个特殊的情况下，并对其心理状况进行了细致入微的刻画。
(3) Many of his characters have an alter ego or a double, thus suggesting the incompleteness and the self-loathing part of an individual.
他的许多人物形象都有另一个自我或是双重人格，因此暗示了个体的不完整性和自我憎恶的部分。
(4) Sometimes the characters try to escape from, or attempt to destroy or bury, the part of the self which is represented as the double. The annihilation of the double leads to the destruction of the other half, thus to self-destruction.
有时，小说人物试图逃脱或毁灭、隐藏代表双重人格的那一部分自我。双重人格的消灭导致了人格另一部分的毁灭，由此导致自我毁灭。
(5) Not all of Poe’s stories convey a sense of terror or phobia. Some of his tales are about beauty in color and rhythm. Poe is also the father of detective stories.
并不是所有坡的小说都充斥着一种恐怖和恐惧感。他的有些故事是关于颜色和韵律的美好。坡也是侦探小说之父。
4．Poe’s Poems（坡的诗歌）
(1) Poe is a master of moods. He conveys a mood through internal and external rhyme, regular rhythm, carefully chosen onomatopoeia, and subtle suggestiveness.
坡是一位情绪大师。他通过内在和外在的韵律、规则的节律、精心选用的拟声词和微妙的暗示传达情绪。
(2) Poe’s poetry seems to illustrate this belief: if the end of poetry is the contemplation of the beautiful, then the best manifestation of beauty is associated with sadness.
坡的诗歌似乎说明了一种信仰：如果诗的结尾是对美好的沉思，那么美的最佳表现就是与悲伤相联系。
(3) A subject matter chosen for the expression of melancholy is the death of a beautiful woman.
美丽女人的死亡是为了表达伤感而选择的一个主题。
(4) Restraint and compression is another aspect of Poe’s poetry.
克制与压迫是坡的诗歌的另一方面。
5．Major Works（主要作品）
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840)
《怪诞奇异故事集》（1840）
The Raven (1845)
《乌鸦》（1845）
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
《厄舍府的倒塌》
“The Black Cat”
《黑猫》
“The Masque of the Red Death”
《红死病的假面具》
“Annabel Lee”
《安娜贝尔·李》
“To Helen”
《致海伦》
“The Raven”
《乌鸦》
6．Appreciation of Works（作品赏析）
◆“To Helen” 《致海伦》
“To Helen” is one of the most famous of Poe’s lyrics. It was inspired by the beauty of the mother of a schoolmate of Poe’s in Richmond, Virginia. The poem is famous for a number of things, for example, its rhyme scheme, its varied line lengths, its metaphor of a travel on the sea, and its oft-quoted lines, “To the Glory that was Greece / And the grandeur that was Rome.”
《致海伦》是坡最著名的抒情诗之一。这首诗的灵感来源于坡在弗吉尼亚州里士满上学时一位同学母亲的美貌。该诗以其韵律、多变的句子长度、海上旅行这一比喻以及经常被引用的诗行“光荣属于希腊，伟大属于罗马”等而著称。
◆“The Raven”《乌鸦》
“The Raven” is an illustration of Poe’s poetic theory. It is about 100 lines (108 in fact), perfectly readable at one sitting. A sense of melancholy over the death of a beloved beautiful young woman pervades the whole poem: the portrayal of a young man grieving for his lost Lenore, his grief being turned to madness under the steady one-word repetition of the talking bird introduced right at the beginning of the poem.
《乌鸦》体现了坡的诗歌创作理论。这首诗大概有一百行（具体是108行），读者可以一气呵成，读完全诗。整首诗弥漫着因心爱的年轻美人逝去而忧郁的气氛。诗歌描写了一位年轻人哀悼逝去的丽诺，诗歌开篇出现的鸟儿反复重复一个词，在此影响下，他的悲伤继而转化为疯狂。
The young man, a neurotic on the brink of a mental collapse, outpours his sorrow in his semi-sleep on the appearance of the bird. Poetic imagination externalizes itself in the phantom of a bird and intermingles with it to enhance the effect of the tragedy of the bereavement. Poe’s poems are heavily tinted in a dreamy, hallucinatory color. And the narrator is in a state of semi-stupor.
这位年轻人的精神濒临崩溃的边缘，在半梦半醒之间，面对鸟儿倾吐自己的悲伤。鸟儿的幻影是一种诗意的想象，增强了失去爱人的悲剧性。坡的诗歌中梦幻的色调较重，叙述者处于一种半昏迷的状态。
◆“The Fall of the House of Usher”《厄舍府的倒塌》
“The Fall of the House of Usher” is considered as Poe’s most famous work of prose and best example of Poe’s “totality”, where every element and detail is related and relevant.
《厄舍府的倒塌》被认为是坡最著名的散文作品，是他的“整体性”写作原则的最佳体现，其中的所有元素和细节都相互联系在一起。
This short story shows Poe’s ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt.
这篇小说说明坡有能力在作品中创造一种感情基调，尤其是恐惧感、毁灭感和罪恶感。