Stevens and Frost Wallace Stevens 1879 1955 Robert
Stevens and Frost Wallace Stevens 1879 -1955 Robert Frost 1874— 1963
Wallace Stevens (1879 -1955) 1. His Subject 1) His sense of the world, philosophical problem of appearance and reality; 2) Interplay between reality and imagination, value of imagination; 3) Three agents in his poetry: real world, imagination (agent) and poetry (medium) (my words) Two repeated activities: 1) looking at things: the self is an active observer of reality 2) playing musical instruments or singing: the self as a creator of reality
2. His Themes 1) Poetry (art) is the marriage or fruit of imagination and reality; 2) Belief (lack of belief) in the modern world; In an era when traditional religion no longer carries immediate conviction, the poet may even be charge with the duty of creating a religion for the time.
3. His Artistic Features 1) Early period: dandified, almost baroque quality of language Later: barer (less adorned) 2) Use of sharp, vivid images, bright colors blue: imagination; green: reality 3) High spirits, a fascination with sensual experience 4) Chief fault: whimsicality, aestheticism
4. His Poem—— Anecdote of the Jar 1) Relationship between art/ culture/humanity and reality/nature Other interpretations: 2) A feminist perspective: a poem concerned with male dominance over a traditionally feminized landscape; 3) A cultural critic: a sense of industrial imperialism 4) Poststructuralist perspective: the poem is concerned with temporal and linguistic disjunction, especially in the convoluted[复� 的 ] syntax of the last two lines;
Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) 1. Subject Common country scenes, common and rural events, objects and characters 2. Themes Universal thoughts and feelings about life and death, survival and responsibility, nature and humanity that are so simple and right as to verge on the obvious ( poetry deceitfully simple) A good poem “begins in delight and ends in wisdom”
3. Style 1) Conventional forms ( a kind of blank verse—iambic pentameter or tetrameter) playing tennis without a net/ “the old-fashioned way to be new 2) Plain language, poems carefully constructed, yet seem effortless by using colloquial language and familiar conversational rhythms( New England speech rhythms 3) Symbols from everyday life (farm images): farmer poet, philosopher poet; comparison between the outer scene and the syche — “outer and inner weather” (Frost) 4) Subtleties of wit, humor, irony
4. His Ideas and Attitudes 1) Attitude toward nature: ambivalent, sees terror as well as beauty in nature 2) Attitude toward life: loves life, but sometimes has fears and doubts about life: individual must stand alone and face “the dark , tideless floods of nothingness ( death) Poems about winter are more common than poems about other seasons, and in spring and autumn poems the speaker always remember winter. But his views are not very black, and he only had “a lover’s quarrel with the world”.
5. His works ---- Poetry 1) North of Boston《波士� 以北》 2) After Apple-Picking《摘苹果后》 3) Fire and Ice《火与冰》 4) Mending Wall《修� 》 5) The Road Not Taken《一条未走的路》 6) Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening《雪夜林� 小� 》 7) Birches《�� 》 8) A Boy's Will《男孩的心愿》 9) New Hampshire《新罕布什尔》 10) West-Running Brook《西去的溪流》 11) A Further Range《山外青山》 12) A Masque of Reason《理智的假面具》 13) A Masque of Mercy《慈悲的假面具》 14) In the Clearing《林� 空地》
6. Appreciate The Road Not Taken “一条未走的路”
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 两条路岔开在黄叶秋林, And sorry I could not travel both 遗憾我不可能同时都走, And be one traveler, long I stood 遗憾我只是孤身一人,
And looked down one as far as I could 我伫立远眺想看到路遥终尽, To where it bent in the undergrowth; 只见那路拐进矮树林里头。 Then took the other, as just as fair, 于是我选了另一条,同样不错, And having perhaps the better claim, 或许我更有理由选择它,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 因为这路上长满了野草未经踩磨; Though as for that, the passing there 尽管这条路经人走过 Had worn them really about the same, 与第一条路同样足迹乱杂。 And both that morning equally lay 那天早晨,两条路同时摆在我面前,
In leaves no step had trodden black. 树叶埋住台阶,还没被踩黑; 0 h, I kept the first for another day! 第一条留待日后再去选! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 但又知道,路尽路始紧接连, I doubted if I should ever come back. 我怀疑我是否还能再回归。
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: 很久很久以后在某处, 我会叹息着把这事情讲: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— 两条路岔开在一林,我未踟躇— I took the one less traveled by, 选择了一条人们较少走的路, And that has made all the difference. 而这选择竟决定了人间与天上。
Homework Please preview the poems in Selected Readings written by Williams, Hughes and Mac. Leish.
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