拉尔夫.瓦尔多.爱默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882）是美国哲学家、诗人、散文家。 爱默生受欧洲浪漫主义和超验主义思想影响颇深，是新英格兰超验主义的杰出代表。他高风雅望，博学景行，生前名扬欧洲，誉满北美，为其同代人中最富影响的哲学家和文豪。
爱默生反对卡尔文教的命定论和唯一理教科理性主义，强调精神第一，直觉第二，主张发挥人的超验作用。他提倡超验主义，是对美国资本主义上升时期物质主义、拜金主义的否定。他主张个人发展，是对非人格化过程的针砭；但也成为资产阶级个人主义不择手段发展自我的理论依据。
爱默生的美学观点同其哲学思想和自然观契合一致。他重视文艺的社会责任，指出文艺要陶冶人的情操。美国作家要自立标帜，歌颂美国的风土人情，停止依附欧洲。他强调诗人的“先知”作用，提出诗人对世界和自然要有更深刻的直觉认识。诗歌创作应是内容决定形式，要摆脱传统格律的羁束。诗人要善于认识事物内在的“富有诗意的结构”，擅长运用比兴象征的表达技巧。诗的语言要浑朴自然，形象生动，凝炼隽永。爱默生的美学观点对美国著名诗人惠特曼和迪金森影响尤深。
《论自然》是爱默生的第1部重要哲学著作，最初发表于1836年。它虽非作者成熟之作，但却集超验主义思想之大成，有新英格兰超验主义宣言的美称。全书由《前言》和《自然》等8章组成。在表达自然神秘的统一性时，爱默生提出了“超灵”的概念。
《论自然》的发表为美国思想界吹来一股清风，一扫机械主义自然观的乌烟瘴气
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is acclaimed as one of the major writers of the mid-19th century, one of the most stimulating American minds, and transcendentalism’s most seminal force.
He was born in Boston on May 25, 1803 to a clerical tradition. His father was a Unitarian minister, as six generations of the Emersons had been before him. His father died in 1811, leaving his wife as a widow with six children. The family moved to Concord in 1814, and Ralph was brought up by his mother and his aunt. His mother kept a succession of boarding houses to support the family. Young Ralph helped his mother. He received education at the Boston Public Latin School and the Latin School in Concord. Then at the age of 17 he entered the Harvard College. After his graduation in 1812 he taught in a girls’ school in Boston. In 1825 he returned to Harvard to study for the ministry where he absorbed the liberal intellectualized Christianity of Unitarianism. It rejected the Calvinist ideas of predestination, unconditional election, limited atonement, and total depravity, substituting instead a faith in the saving grace of the divine love and a belief in the eventual brotherhood of man in a kingdom of heaven on earth. After his second graduation in 1826, he moved to Florida where he stayed for three years for the good of his health.
In 1829 he returned to Boston, became a Unitarian minister and married Ellen Tucker. His wife died in 1831 and left much money behind. Emerson’s tied to conventional modes of living were loosened. When he thought that religious intuitions were more authoritative than the institutionalized church, Emerson resigned his position with the Second Church in Boston in 1832 to become a lecturer, essayist, and poet. He traveled in Europe for the next two years, met such great romantic poets as Wordsworth (1770-1850), Carlyle (1795-1881), and Coleridge (1772-1834) and learned from his English friends new ideas about German idealism and transcendentalism. He developed a faith greater in individual moral sentiment than in formalized religion. He believed that the transcendental law was the moral law through which people discovered the nature of God as a living spirit. He became the most eloquent spokesman of transcendentalism, advocating a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.
In 1834 he came back to Concord and began to receive money from his late wife’s legacy. He no longer needed to hold any steady job. Therefore, he launched himself on the lifelong career as a public speaker. The growth of the American Lyceum movement coincided with his desire and ambition. The lyceum movement was a lecture movement. During the early part of the 1800s, , Americans flocked to Lyceum halls to hear public lectures. During the height of this movement in the 1840s and 1850s, there were some 5,000 lyceum organizations throughout America. For the next twenty –five years Emerson spent nearly every winter season delivering lectures on the Lyceum circuit, first in New England and New York and then to the southern St. Louis and to the northern Montreal. He captained a group of enthusiasts and formed a transcendental club with them. He also helped to set up and edited the transcendentalist journal The Dial.
IN 1835 he married Lydia Jackson, and his life followed its enduring routine. From time to time, he gave intermittent lectures in Boston and made lecture tours in the country. He edited The Dial from 1842 to 1844. From 1847 to 1848 he was in Europe again mainly for his health. After 1850, he gave much of his thought to national politics, social reforms, and the issue of slavery. In 1871 he made a long trip through the sites of ancient western civilization in Egypt, Greece and Italy. Besides, he also traveled widely in the United States. At the age of seventy-nine he crossed the entire continent and visited in California. While in his travels, he spread his transcendentalist doctrines. When not traveling, he spent his time writing and lecturing. He died at his home in Concord on April 27, 1882.
Emerson’s fame came mainly from his ability as a speaker. Journals and speeches were the forms of communication most natural to him. His essays were usually derived from lectures he had already delivered. Hence his writing has a casual style.
Emerson’s writing falls into two types: essays and poetry. He was one of the greatest essayists in the country. Among his best are Nature (1836), Essays (1841), Essays: Second Series (1844), Representative Men (1850), English Traits (11856), The Conduct of Life (1806), and Society and Solitude (1870). Nature has been called “the manifesto of American transcendentalism.” Although his reputation mainly rests on his essays, his journals are also his masterpieces. They were published under the titles Journals and miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Harvard University Press in 1960-1977. Besides, The Maine Woods (1864) and Cape God (1865) show him as a conservationist and an acute observer of people and events. He published his poems sporadically as though they were by –products, but actually they contain the core of his philosophy. That is why his poems are often difficult to understand. In 1847, he published Poems, the fruit of thirty years of poetic activity. Later he turned two more volumes of poems: May-Day and Other Pieces (1867) and Selected Poems (1876).
Emerson had a respectable, conventional life as a family man and decent, solid citizen. Yet in both literature and philosophy this man “became the American writer with whom every other significant writer of his time had to come to terms” (Baym 379). He exercised a most seminal influence on the development of American cultural independence. His perception of humanity and nature as symbols of universal truth encouraged the development of the symbolist movement in American art and literature. He asserted that even the commonplaces of American life were worth of the highest art. To him, the inspired writer was a seer, using natural images as symbols of spiritual truths. His repudiation of established tradition and institutions encouraged a literary revolution. He supported the organic theory of form, believing that the work’s form was determined by the writer’s perception of the higher truth he found symbolized in nature.
Published anonymously in 1836, the essay contains an introduction and eight brief chapters, which discuss the love of nature, the uses of nature, the idealist philosophy in relation to nature, evidences of spirit in the material universe, and the potential expansion of human souls and works that will result from a general return to direct, immediate contact with the natural environment. In the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main principles of his Transcendentalist pursuit and his love for nature. In expressing his belief in the mystical "unity of Nature", Emerson develops his concept of the "Over-Soul" or "Universal Mind." This essay has become so important that most people consider it an unofficial manifesto for the "Transcendental Club."
纳撒尼尔.霍桑
纳撒尼尔.霍桑(Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864), 美国小说家。
霍桑认为：与文明而古老的欧洲相比，美国“没有阴影，没有古风，没有秘传，没有绚丽而又昏默的冤孽，只有光天之下的枯燥乏味的繁荣”，给作家提供的素材极少。因此，霍桑把注意力转向过去，力图借助想象去挖掘历史上对创作有益的素材，以便“把过去了的时代与我们面前一瞬即逝的现在联系起来”。这也暗示了他以古喻今的创作意图。但是出于清教徒的审慎，霍桑采取了浪漫主义小说的创作形式。他认为只有这样，作者才能以自己选择的方式构思和创作，而又不必拘泥于细节的真实，才能在“真实的世界”和“仙境”之间找到现实与想象得以相结合的“中间地带”。霍桑的伟大正在于他能以表面温和而实质犀利的笔锋暴露黑暗、讽刺邪恶、揭示真理。
描写社会和人性的阴暗面是霍桑作品的突出特点，这与加尔文教关于人的“原罪”和“内在堕落”的理论的影响是分不开的。霍桑是心理小说的开创者，擅长剖析人的“内心”。他着重探讨道德和罪恶的问题，主张通过善行和自忏来洗刷罪恶、净化心灵，从而得到拯救。然而霍桑并非全写黑暗，他在揭露社会罪恶和人的劣根性的同时，对许多善良的主人公寄予极大的同情。正如他的朋友、作家赫尔曼.梅尔维尔(Herman Melville)所指出的，霍桑的黑暗使在这黑暗中不停前进的黎明显得更加明亮。霍桑对美国文学的发展做出了很大的贡献。他对亨利.詹姆斯、福克纳及马拉默德等后代作家的影响是显而易见的。
霍桑的作品想象丰富、结构严谨。他除了进行心理分析与描写外，还运用了象征主义手法。他的构思精巧的意象，增添了作品的浪漫色彩，加深了寓意。但他的作品中也不乏神秘晦涩之处。
Hawthorne wrote Fanshawe, a novel based on his college life, and published it at his own ex­pense in 1828. It was a failure. So he devoted most of his energies to short tales and sketches, which appeared in The Token in Boston in the early 1830s. Then he wrote a collection of short stories -----Seven Tales of My Native Land, but he burnt most of them. In 1837 he published his first collection of short stories entitled Twice-Told Tales, which brought his name before the reading public and won him critical acclaim, but little money. This marked a turning point both in its author"s career and in his personal life. He expanded it in 1842.
In 1839, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. In order to earn some money for his mar­riage, Hawthorne did three things. He took a job as a surveyor at the Boston Custom House. Then he wrote children"s books" to make money in 1840 and 1841. They were Grandfather"s Chair, Fa­mous Old People, and The liberty Tree. The third thing is that he invested his savings at Brook Farm, a utopian agricultural commune set up by transcendentalists. Hawthorne joined this adventure for five months, hoping that he could make a profit. He left disillusioned at the end of the summer in 1841. In 1842 Hawthorne was married and went to live at the Old Manse in Concord, Mas­sachusetts. In 1846, he published his second collection of short stories Mosses from an Old Manse, but earned little money. Meanwhile he worked as surveyor of the Customs at Salem.
While working at the Custom House at Salem from 1846 to 1849, he studied his family history and became intensely sorry for the misdeeds of his Puritan ancestors. In order to expiate the sin of his ancestors, he wrote parts of his most famous novel The Scarlet Letter, which was published in 1850. It was a literary sensation and Hawthorne was proclaimed as the first American romancer.
The Scarlet Letter is set in the 17th-century Boston and opens as Hester Prynne walks out of the prison to stand exposed on the public scaffold with a scarlet letter "A" on her breast as a lifelong sign of her sin of adultery. Hester gives birth to her daughter Pearl hut refuses to reveal her sexual partner. When her long-separated husband Chillingworth comes to America and discovers her rela­tions with the minister Dimmesdale, he is determined to punish the lovers spiritually. When Dimmesdale cannot endure Chillingworth"s humiliation and inner torment any longer1 he confesses his sin on the public scaffold before his death. Hester sustains all humiliation and proves to he ~ strong-minded and capable woman. As she is ready to offer help and advice to other women in trou­ble, she is loved and respected by people in the town. She continues her life of penance and be-comes a model of endurance, goodness, courage, and victory over sin.
The most powerful appeal of the novel to the reader is the remarkable way Hawthorne manage( to evoke emotional sympathy for the heroine. He received wide recognition and earned some mane this time. It was not exactly a best-seller, but it had firmly consolidated his literary position. Hi publisher chose to reissue Twice- Told Tales in 1851 to enhance Hawthorne"s reputation. He the; published The Snow Image and Other rates and The House of the Seven Gables in 1851, The Blithe dale Romance and The life of Franklin Pierce in 1852. Besides, he also produced more book for children. True Stories from History and Biography (1851), A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boy (1852), Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys (1853). Hawthorne was rewarded when Pierce was elected President. Hawthorne was made U. S. consul in Liverpool from 1853 to 1857, and he tra veled in England, in Florence, Italy, and in London until 1860.
Hawthorne had more influence of European literature after his time of living on the Continent than before. He wrote The Marble Faun (1860) about Americans in Rome whereas all of his other works had been set in Puritan New England. In 1860 he returned home in Concord and spent the last four years of his life in illness and depression. He published Our Old Home, a book of essay on England, in 1863. While visiting the White Mountains of New Hampshire with Franklin Pierce he died on May 19, 1864 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. Four unfinished novels eventually appeared as Septimius Felton: or, the Elixir of life (1872), The Dolliver Romance (1876), Dr. Grimshawe"s Secret (1882), and The Ancestral Footstep (1883).
赫尔曼.梅尔维尔
赫尔曼.梅尔维尔(Herman Melville,1819-1891)是美国小说家、诗人。
《白鲸---莫比.迪克》于1851年问世，它是作者17个月心血的结晶，在创作过程中，梅尔维尔经常写作几个星期。当时，他债台高筑，生活艰难，出版商拒绝继续让他预支稿费，因为他已超支700元。他写信给霍桑述说他的苦衷：“激动我的心灵，促使我写作的东西，我写不成了---因为它‘无利’可图。可是要我改弦更张，不这么写，我办不到。”
由于生活所迫，梅尔维尔在1866年至1885年间充任纽约海关的检查员。他一生的文学生涯，曲折坎坷，晚年穷困潦倒，很不得志。他的代表作在当时得不到社会重视，渐渐绝版。1892年他抱恨终天，在无声无息中卒世。只是到了20世纪20年代以后，他的天才思想以及他对美国文学的卓越贡献，才逐渐得到承认，他的作品才又再版，作为文学名著而列入美国文学史册。
《白鲸》是梅尔维尔最杰出的作品，是美国文学中的一部经典性著作。
小说叙述一位名叫埃哈帕的捕鲸船船长率领全体船员，追捕一条叫做莫比.迪克的白鲸。最后两败俱伤，船沉人亡，只有船员伊什梅尔生还，向我们讲述这个悲壮的故事。
《白鲸》是世界文学名著之一。它同时具有几种不同的意义。它是一本扣人心弦的捕杀白鲸的冒险小说。更重要的是，它所描述的乃是一场人同自然和命运相抗衡的恶梦。它旨在表明，人虽然可以观察世界、或竟对世界具有一定的影响力量，但是，从根本上说，他不能左右或征服自然。人只要不冒失地自取灭亡，大自然便乐于让他平静地生活。
《白鲸》是美国文学中运用象征手法的一个典型。对于“白鲸”的含义众说纷纭：有人把它看作“善”的象征，有人认为它是“恶”的体现，还有人说它是不善不恶的永恒的大自然的代表。在作者笔下，“白鲸”颇有神秘主义色彩。
Melville"s style can be summarized in five points.
(I) His writing is consciously literary. His rich rhythmical prose and poetic power show his high craftsmanship. He made many references to former authors in their works, the Bible and Shakespeare in particular. In Moby Dick, for example, there are many allusions to classical myths. Therefore, Moby Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic, a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile world. The literary quality of Melville"s style makes him extremely difficult to understand. On the one hand, much of the talk in the novel is sailor talk; on the other hand, he wrote in an old style. Some of his language is old-fashioned manifesting Elizabethan influence. He did so purposely to raise the importance of the sub­ject that he was discussing.
(2) There is a threefold quality in his writing: the style of fact, the style of oratory celebrating the fact, and the style of meditation. Melville was influenced by popular American oratory, known as the Lyceum movement in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. Melville himself gave such public lec­tures sometimes. Therefore, he wrote as if he were giving a public speech.
(3) His style is highly symbolic and metaphorical. In this respect he was like Nathaniel Hawthorne. Moby Dick is a tragic epic, a romance of moral inquiry about the nature of good and evil, and about the power of will to defy fate. It is a naturalistic story of whale-hunting, yet metaphorical and symbolic. The ship on the ocean is a symbol of the whole world with people of ev­ery land sailing across the waters of life in quest of its mystery. The voyage is a metaphor for search and discovery. The ship is one of the American soul. The ship is also a microcosm of American so­ciety. It contains representatives of most social and ethnic groups, and their various reactions to the chase. Moby Dick itself represents the mystery of the universe.
(4) This hook has many non-narrative chapters, and this is how Melville changed an adventure story into a philosophical novel. Many chapters in the hook have nothing to do with" the search for the whale; rather, these chapters give factual background information about what goes on aboard the ship on a routine day. It contains all of life.
(5) He used the technique of multiple views to achieve the effect of ambiguity. |
