2013年经济学人 图书馆藏书 Library book

 

Books and Arts; Book Review; Philip Larkin;Library book;

文艺;书评;菲利普·拉金;图书馆藏书;

The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin. Edited by Archie Burnett.

《拉金诗歌全集》阿奇·伯内特编辑。

Philip Larkin's fame could rest on a dozen poems alone. Even while he was still alive, the poet and lifelong librarian at Hull¹ University in the north of England was considered by many to be one of the finest writers of his generation. With his love of jazz, beautiful women and the grey palettes of post-war Britain, his witty², acerbic³ verse was a fine counterpoint to the more sentimental⁴ stuff produced by the London-born poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman. Eminently⁵ quotable, Larkin's poetry caught a spirit of middle-class disaffection and quiet rebellion. He became known for the short, aphoristic⁶ sayings contained within the four slim volumes of poetry he published in his lifetime, such as the assertion that “Sexual intercourse⁷ began/In nineteen sixty-three”. His poems were pithy⁸ and to the point; short, but often demanding to be reread.

菲利普?拉金仅凭借几首诗就早已名声在望。当他还在世的时候，这位诗人在英格兰北部的赫尔大学做了一辈子的图书馆管理员。早在那时，他就被人们所认可，是同时代最优秀的作家之一。拉金喜爱爵士乐，钟情于美女，着迷于战后英国的消沉生活，他的诗句诙谐机智又尖酸讽刺，与伦敦出生的桂冠诗人约翰?贝杰曼爵士的感伤诗句形成鲜明对比。拉金的诗歌道出了中产阶级内心的不满和反抗，他的诗歌常常被人引用。拉金以短小精悍的警句而出名，一生共出版四本薄薄的诗集，例如他曾写道“开始云雨吧/在一九六三年”。拉金的诗歌简洁、精炼、短小，但能令人回味无穷。

This is one reason why the voluminous size of “The Complete Poems” is startling. Its editor, Archie Burnett, has carefully collected all of the poems Larkin ever wrote. Included in the volume are the four published collections and Larkin's previously⁹ published juvenilia, but also all that remained unpublished or unfinished, from sketches¹⁰ found in Larkin's archive to poems included in letters to friends.

这也是为什么鸿篇巨著的《诗歌全集》令人吃惊的原因之一。本书的编辑阿奇?伯内特仔细收集拉金写过的所有诗歌。其中包括四本已经出版的诗集，拉金青年时期发表的诗歌，还有拉金的手稿和写给友人的信件中包含的所有未发表或未完成的作品。

Mr Burnett presents a very different picture of Larkin from the one by which he came to be known; one that is far more literary, and occasionally far more amusing. A reader can now trace Larkin's development from his allusive¹¹ Oxford¹² University Labour Club Bulletin efforts “about trees and the sky and the seasons” to his more mature, better-known works. It may be common knowledge that his greatest poem, “The Whitsun Weddings”, took three painstaking¹³ years to complete, but it is less well known that during those years Larkin was writing constantly, and continually discarding his efforts.

伯内特别具新意，展现了拉金少为人知的一面；那个充满着书卷气，时常还很幽默风趣的拉金。读者能够从书中追溯拉金的发展，从他在《牛津大学工党俱乐部简报》上引经据典，描写“关于树木、天空和季节”的诗歌到他更为成熟，有名气的作品。众所周知，拉金最伟大的诗歌《降灵节婚礼》是他在三年时间内呕心沥血才完成，但少有人知道在这三年里，拉金一直在写诗，并不断否定放弃自己所做的努力。

The advantage of such a comprehensive volume is the possibility of tracing the development of a writer's voice. It is possible to hear in his poem, “On Being Twenty-six” the tone of world-weariness an older Larkin would make into an art form, looking back on “the slag/Of burnt-out childhood” with his familiar tone of regret laced with misanthropy: “Life, you aren't a god, you're a bloody¹⁴ old sod.” He disliked modern poetry, or the vogue¹⁵ for experimentation¹⁶; even aged¹⁷ 18 he despaired of the lack of wit in contemporary literature: “Nothing like comedy/Can ever be admitted as poetry.” Women continued to remain a mystery to him, even after he left university, and mostly lost the stammer¹⁸ he had had since childhood. Now, instead of dreaming of “The idea of a kiss”, he merely knew his limits: “A bosomy English rose/And her friend in specs I could talk to.”

这部庞然巨著可以使读者看到作家个人思想的发展脉络。在《二十六岁》中，可能听出老拉金对世界感到厌倦的语气，他将这些感受融入到艺术形式之中。回顾《才思枯竭的童年》一诗，拉金用一如往常的语调表达了后悔和厌世之感：“生活，你不是上帝，你是个残忍的老家伙。”拉金不喜欢现代诗歌，亦反感实验主义的风潮；18岁的时候，他就已经对当代文学中缺乏风趣而深感绝望：“什么都比不上喜剧/怎能称之为诗句” 即使在拉金大学毕业之后，他基本上纠正了从孩童时期就有的口吃，但对拉金来说，女人依然是个谜。现在，不再幻想着“吻的遐想”，他知道了自己本领有限：“一位丰满的英国美女/但我只能与她戴眼镜的朋友搭讪。”

However, despite Mr Burnett's efforts, the contrast between Larkin's published poetry and his unfinished efforts remains¹⁹. Frequently scatological, often crudely misogynistic²⁰, some of Larkin's unpublished work makes for uneasy reading. Sketches of poems which rhyme Jung with dung or James Joyce's “Ulysses” with faeces seem intended as private jokes, and they add little to the volume. Larkin himself was aware of this, entitling one series “Dances in Doggerel”. There is a reason why Larkin, normally so particular in his use of words, deemed them unworthy for publication.

尽管伯内特努力弥补，拉金已出版的诗歌和未完成的作品间差距仍然存在。他的作品里时有关于粪便的描写，对女人痛深恶绝，这些未出版的作品让读者读来感到很不舒服。在一些诗歌的草稿上，拉金将金（Jung）韵和粪便（dung）或将詹姆士?乔伊斯的《尤利西斯》（Ulysses）和粪便（faeces）一起押韵，有意写成私下里的笑话,这些对提升拉金诗的水平没有任何帮助。拉金自己对这一点有清醒认识，他将一系列诗命名为“在打油诗中跳舞”。这也是为什么拉金非常注意字词的选择，却认为这些诗不值得出版的原因。

Instead, his finest poems remain his best-loved: ones about his mother overhearing him playing blues²¹ records on the gramophone, or of feeling, once a guest has left, “the instantaneous grief of being alone”. They take place on trains or in an empty church, where the atheist²² Larkin takes off “My cycle-clips in awkward reverence”, and capture life as Larkin saw it, expressing “A hunger in himself to be more serious”. But it speaks of their greatness that these short poems, despite being swamped by so many of his other efforts, still manage to stand out.

然而，拉金依旧最爱他最好的诗歌：一些关于他母亲无意中偷听他在留声机上放布鲁士音乐，或是一位访客走后自己的感受，“独处时瞬间的悲伤”。这些故事发生在火车上，或一间空教堂里，无神论者拉金取下“我的回形针在静默中崇敬”，还是把眼之所及当成生活本身。“他的饥饿更重要”。这些诗歌都自有伟大之处，尽管它们被拉金其他诗歌所淹没，但仍能脱颖而出。

1 hull   

n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳

参考例句：

• The outer surface of ship's hull is very hard.船体的外表面非常坚硬。
• The boat's hull has been staved in by the tremendous seas.小船壳让巨浪打穿了。

2 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

3 acerbic   

adj.酸的，刻薄的

参考例句：

• His lyrics are as acerbic and poignant as they ever have been.他的歌词一如既往的犀利辛辣。
• He sent back an acerbic letter.他回复了一封尖刻的信。

4 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

5 eminently   

adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地

参考例句：

• She seems eminently suitable for the job. 她看来非常适合这个工作。
• It was an eminently respectable boarding school. 这是所非常好的寄宿学校。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 aphoristic   

警句（似）的，格言（似）的

参考例句：

• Some parts are aphoristic and general, others will examine specific case studies in Unix development. 部分内容是箴言式的、概要性的，其余部分将分析Unix开发中的具体案例。

7 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。

8 pithy   

adj.(讲话或文章)简练的

参考例句：

• Many of them made a point of praising the film's pithy dialogue.他们中很多人特别赞扬了影片精炼的对白。
• His pithy comments knocked the bottom out of my argument.他精辟的评论驳倒了我的论点。

9 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

10 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 allusive   

adj.暗示的；引用典故的

参考例句：

• Allusive speech is characterized by allusions.含沙射影的演讲以指桑骂槐为特征。
• Her allusive style is difficult to follow.她引经据典的风格晦涩难懂。

12 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

13 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

14 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

15 Vogue   

n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的

参考例句：

• Flowery carpets became the vogue.花卉地毯变成了时髦货。
• Short hair came back into vogue about ten years ago.大约十年前短发又开始流行起来了。

16 experimentation   

n.实验，试验，实验法

参考例句：

• Many people object to experimentation on animals.许多人反对用动物做实验。
• Study and analysis are likely to be far cheaper than experimentation.研究和分析的费用可能要比实验少得多。

17 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

18 stammer   

n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说

参考例句：

• He's got a bad stammer.他口吃非常严重。
• We must not try to play off the boy troubled with a stammer.我们不可以取笑这个有口吃病的男孩。

19 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

20 misogynistic   

参考例句：

• And it brings out everything that is most noxious and misogynistic about the right. 而且，这种情绪也流露出右派思想中最为保守有害，歧视女性的那一面。 来自互联网

21 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

22 atheist   

n.无神论者

参考例句：

• She was an atheist but now she says she's seen the light.她本来是个无神论者，可是现在她说自己的信仰改变了。
• He is admittedly an atheist.他被公认是位无神论者。