第7单元 19世纪美国诗人
7.1 复习笔记
I. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) （亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗）
1Life（生平）
Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine. His father was a lawyer. In 1822, the 15-year old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College. There, Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would later become his lifelong friend. After graduation, he traveled around Europe and studied the language and literature of France, German, Finland, Spain and other countries. When he returned to the United States in 1836, Longfellow took up the professorship at Harvard. In 1855, Longfellow retired from Harvard devoting himself entirely to writing.
朗费罗出生在缅因州波特兰城的一个律师家庭。1822年进入博多因学院，在那里遇见了霍桑，并成为了一生的好朋友。毕业之后，他去欧洲旅行并且研究法国、德国、意大利、芬兰和西班牙等国的语言和文学。1836年，被聘为哈佛大学教授。在1855年辞去了教授一职，全身心投入到了创作之中。
2Major Works（主要作品）
Voices of the Night《夜吟》
Ballads and Other Poems《歌谣及其他》
Evangeline《伊凡杰琳》
The Song of Hiawatha《海华沙之歌》
3Analysis of major work（主要作品赏析）
◆ I Shot an Arrow《我射出一支箭……》
The poet wrote this famous poem to praise friendship. In the first line of the first stanza, the word arrow represents a friendship because, like arrows, friendships can fly a far distance. He sang a song and then he forgot it. But his friend bears in mind for a long time. This poem is very simple as well as profound. And it is the reason why it’s known to all in western countries.
这首诗歌颂了友谊天长地久。在诗的第一节第一句中，箭代表着友谊，因为友谊就像弓箭一样能飞过遥远的距离。他哼出的一首歌，并没在意。然而朋友却一直都记在心里。这首诗很简单但是很深刻。这也是它能传唱于西方国家的原因。
◆ A Psalm of Life《人生颂》
Longfellow believes that people should lead heroic and courageous lives and not sit idle and remain ineffectual while the world rapidly changes around them. His use of the word "strife" is especially interesting, since it clearly acknowledges that life is inherently difficult, is a constant struggle, and will never be easy. Longfellow then encourages everyone to have faith and trust the lord and not to rely on an unknown future to be stable and supportive.
朗费罗认为人们应以积极和乐观的态度来对待现世的人生。世界正飞速的变化着人们不应当毫无作为。“strife”这一词显示出了人生并不会一帆风顺总有些困难，总会有经历生死关头的时刻。朗费罗鼓励每个人都要有信念并且朝着未来的目标永远向前。
II. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) （埃德加•爱伦•坡）
1Life（生平）
Poe’s childhood was a miserable one. He lost both of his parents when still very small, and was taken care of by a wealthy merchant. Father and son enjoyed nothing but an unhappy relationship together. Poe entered the University of Virginia but did not finish. He went to West Point as a cadet but was dismissed because of misbehavior. Poe wrote and worked as editor most of his short life. He was poor all his life. At 27 he married his cousin, whose death in 1847 left him inconsolable and bitter with life than ever. He died, in October, 1849.
坡有着悲惨的童年。他年幼时父母双亡，他被一位富商收养，父子之间关系紧张。坡进入弗吉尼亚大学学习，但是没能完成学业。后来去了西点军校，却又因为行为不端而被校方开除。他短暂的一生中大部分时间都在从事写作和编辑工作。他终身贫困潦倒。27岁时，他和他的表妹结婚，1847年妻子的离世使他悲痛万分。1849年10月，坡去世了。
2Major works（主要作品）
Annabel Lee《安娜贝尔•李》
The Raven《乌鸦》
To Helen《致海伦》
Sonnet—To Science《十四行诗——致科学》
3Analysis of Major Works（主要作品赏析）
◆Sonnet—To Science 《十四行诗——致科学》
Poe worries about and rejects scientific dogmatism because he regards it as too unimaginative and stagnating. For him, science is a predator or, like a vulture, a carrion-eater, and it has damagingly crippled his imagination with "dull realities."
坡抵制科学教条主义，因为在他看来科学是没有想象力的，会遏制人的想象力使人停滞不前。他认为科学会吞噬人们的想象力，向人们的脑中塞满“枯燥的事实现象”。
◆ 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》是坡的著名诗篇。这首诗的灵感来源于坡在弗吉尼亚里士满的一位同学的母亲。这首诗的韵律，长短句的变化，以及在海上航行的隐喻以及排比，使其闻名于世。
III. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) （沃尔特·惠特曼）
1Life（生平）
Whitman was brought up in a working-class background, on Long Island, New York. He had five years schooling and a good deal of “loafing” and reading. Thirsting for experience and gregarious in habit, Whitman tried at a variety of jobs and picked up a first-hand knowledge of life and people in the new world. The experience with the people and the country furnished both the material and the guiding spirit for his epic, Leaves of Grass. When the Civil War began, he worked as a “wound dresser” in a military hospital. In 1873, he suffered a paralytic stroke and moved to New Jersey where he was taken good care of by his friends and where he spent the remaining years revising his Leaves of Grass.
惠特曼成长于纽约州长岛一个工人阶级家庭。他上过五年学，大量地游荡并广泛地阅读书籍。由于渴望经验和喜爱社交的习性，他尝试了多种多样的工作并获得了新世界的生活和在这里生活的人们的第一手材料。惠特曼与人们的交往及游览美国大好山河的经历，为他的史诗《草叶集》提供了素材和导向精神。内战开始后，他在战地医院做看护员。1873年患半身不遂迁至新泽西，在那儿受到朋友的照顾，修订《草叶集》直至去世。
2Major works（主要作品）
Leaves of Grass《草叶集》
One’s Self I Sing《我歌唱自我》
O Captain! My Captain! 《噢，船长！我的船长！》
Drum Traps《桴鼓集》
3Analysis of major works（主要作品赏析）
Whitman broke free from the traditional iambic pentameter and wrote “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.
惠特曼打破了五步抑扬格的传统，并创作“自由体”诗歌，也就是没有固定韵律的诗歌。
◆One’s Self I Sing《自我之歌》
Whitman extols the ideals of equality and democracy and celebrates the dignity, the self-reliant spirit, and the joy of the common man, One’s Self I Sing reveals a world of equality, without rank and hierarchy.
惠特曼赞美了平等和民主的理想，赞美了人的高尚，自力更生的精神，和普通人的快乐。《自我之歌》呈现了一个没有阶层和等级的平等世界。
◆O Captain! My Captain! 《噢，船长！我的船长！》
Walt Whitman wrote the poem after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Repeated metaphorical reference is made to this issue throughout the verse. The "ship" spoken of is intended to represent the United States of America, while its "fearful trip" recalls the troubles of the American Civil War. The titular "Captain" is Lincoln himself.
With a conventional meter and rhyme scheme that is unusual for Whitman, it was the only poem anthologized during Whitman’s lifetime.
这首诗写于林肯总统被刺杀后不久。惠特曼把美国比作“巨轮”，那“艰难的旅程”是指美国内战，而“船长”就是林肯。
这首诗用了传统的抑扬格诗行，是这首诗朗朗上口，是惠特曼生前流行最广和最知名的诗歌。
IV. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) （艾米莉·狄金森）
1Life（生平）
Dickinson was born into a Calvinist family. Her father, an old Puritan, with a heart “pure and terrible”, influenced his daughter in no small way. She was shy, sensitive, and sometimes rebellious. It was during her mid-twenties that Emily became a recluse. She wanted to live simply as a completely independent person.
狄金森生于一个信奉加尔文教的家庭。她的父亲，有着“纯洁而可怕的心”的一位虔诚清教徒，对女儿产生了很大的影响。她害羞，思想敏感，有时具有反叛精神。在她二十多岁时她成为一名隐士。她希望完全独立，简单生活。
2Writing styles（写作风格）
(1) Her poetry abounds in telling images. In the best of her poems, every word is a picture. So she is regarded as the precursor of Imagism poetry.
(2) Her poetic idiom is noted for its conciseness, directness and plainest words.
(3) Dickinson’s poems are usually short, and the first line of Dickinson’s poems is used to be the title.
(4) The capital letters in her poems are used for emphasis.
(1) 她的诗歌描绘有各种意象。在她创作的最好的诗歌中，每一个词都是一幅画。所以她被视作意象派诗歌的先驱。
(2) 她诗歌的风格简明，直接，善用最平易的词。
(3) 狄金森的诗歌通常篇幅较短，第一句往往是诗歌的题目。
(4) 诗歌中用做强调的词均大写。
3Influence（影响）
Her poetry abounds in telling images. Her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainest words. All these characteristics of her poetry were to become popular through Stephen Crane with the Imagists such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in the twentieth century. She became the precursor of the Imagist movement.
她的诗歌意象丰富，诗歌风格简洁，直接，用词平易。这些特点很受斯蒂芬·克莱恩和20世纪意象派诗人艾兹拉·庞德和艾米·洛威尔的欢迎。她被视作意象派诗歌的先驱。
4Analysis of major works（主要作品）
◆To Make a Prairie《要描绘一片草原……》
This simple poem tells readers imagination is the most important. The word “revery” demonstrates an advanced achievement, far beyond ordinary day-dreaming or cogitation. Ultimately, this speaker is claiming that without any physical objects at all, the mind of one advanced in the art of revery can produce any object that mind desires.
这首诗短小精悍，主题要突出想象力的重要性。“revery”一词说明了，尽管没有物质条件但是通过自己的想象就能够描绘出那美丽的草原。
◆Success Is Counted Sweetest《最美妙的胜利感觉》
In this poem, the author believes that only through the failures, one can know the success is sweet while those who have succeeded a lot of times could not understand the true meaning of success. Dickinson uses the simple but concise words to persuade readers to know that the losers can understand and feel sweetness of success.
诗中阐述了只有通过了失败，人们才能过了解胜利的喜悦。狄金森言简意赅的说明了这一道理，并且这首小诗十分有说服力。
◆I’m Nobody《我是无名之辈》
The poem is told in the monologue and full of ironic tones. It seems that Dickinson enjoyed her life in seclusion and truly wanted to be nobody. But it may also express her longing to the social life.
这首诗采用了独白的形式，并且文中有些讽刺的口吻。狄金森也许是很享受她隐居的生活，真心想做无名之辈。但是也许也表达了她对社会生活的渴望。