2013年12月31日 星期二

The Darkling Thrush, by Thomas Hardy



The Darkling Thrush

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The Darkling Thrush is a poem by Thomas Hardy. Originally titled The Century's End, 1900, it was published on 29 December 1900 in The Graphic. A deleted '1899' on the poem's manuscript may suggest that it had been written the year before.[1] It was later included in a collection entitled Poems of the Past and the Present] (1903).
The first stanzas open with a description of the dreary, bleak winter landscape, but the melancholy tone is transformed by the bright, optimistic singing of "an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small." In the end, the speaker concludes that the small bird possesses "some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware."

Text

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

References

Jump up ^ Carol Rumens (28 December 2009). "Poem of the week: The Darkling Thrush, by Thomas Hardy". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2012.


Poem of the week: The Darkling Thrush, by Thomas Hardy

The hymn-like metre combines with the Romantic, Keatsian image of the thrush to produce one of Hardy's most lyrical poems

A song thrush
"At once a voice arose among/ The bleak twigs overhead/ In a full-hearted evensong/ Of joy illimited ... " - Hardy's Darkling Thrush Photograph: Rex Features/BYB
 
Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" was originally called "The Century's End, 1900" and was first printed in The Graphic on 29 December of that year. "A deleted 1899 on the manuscript suggested he had written it a year before," Claire Tomalin tells us in her biography, Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man. Earlier in the same book, Tomalin memorably describes Hardy as a child, waiting each evening for the setting sun to light up the red-painted staircase in the family house, at which point he would recite an "evening hymn" by Sir Isaac Watts, beginning "And now another day is gone,/ I'll sing my maker's praise". "The Darkling Thrush" seems oddly to recall that scene.

It is one of Hardy's most lyrical poems, musical in execution, metaphor, theme, and even title. The Keatsian word "darkling" simply means "in the dark", but it has the sound of a preludial shimmer of birdsong. Visually, too, it prepares us for the image of the "aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,/ In blast-beruffled plume … " Another use of the -ling suffix is to produce a diminutive of a noun (as in gosling, duckling, sapling, etc.) and though this isn't what is happening etymologically, in "darkling" we pick up a distant sense of it, and therefore of the bird's littleness and exposedness in his bare tree.

The plain, steady rhythm and rhyme-scheme of Hardy's hymn-like metre provide a kind of aural blank canvas, allowing individual words to sound out with particular clarity. Sibilance in the first three lines creates a whispery atmosphere, a touch of wind among the stiffened branches which then fall still with the alliteration-free neutrality of "The weakening eye of day". Then there are the hard 'C' sounds in stanza two: "corpse", "crypt", "cloudy canopy" – which evoke, perhaps, the tread of a funeral march, the dislodged clods of earth, the entombment of the personified century.

In the grey scenery of the first two stanzas, the narrator, barely visible, sees only the stasis of deepest winter. That resonating pair of words "leant" and "outleant" impresses on the eye images of disablement, the laying-out of the dead, and, of course, leanness. As in the title, there is a Keatsian echo, this time from "The Eve of St Agnes". Hardy's scene is even more deathly still: it is not only the winter of the year but of a whole century. And then the solo-singer appears, and subtly the music of the diction changes. The beautifully unexpected word, "illimited", is the first we hear, inside the poem, of the singing thrush, the flowing double 'l' conveying the sense and sound of a joy which spills out and cannot be circumscribed or halted. There are further "liquid siftings" in the many l' and 'r' sounds that ensue. It's as if the broken lyre-strings that the tangled stems suggested in stanza one had been mended.

Hardy's thrush of course belongs to the Romantic tradition, in which birds seem to express emotion in "songs" that have human significance. Modern readers interpret bird-song differently: we know the "ecstatic carolings" to be territorially possessive; as mundane as estate agents' 'Sold' signs. Today's ornithologically-minded poets content themselves with more descriptive responses, though birds have never yet gone out of poetic fashion.
It would no doubt have satisfied the deep pessimist in Hardy to have known this, and one can imagine the negating final stanza he might have added to cancel the magic with gloomy thoughts of territorialism and warfare. But he is still close enough to the 19th century to be able to treat the bird, however warily, as a symbol of hope for the new epoch. And, indeed, to give the word a capital letter, which it shares only with Frost, Winter and Century itself. Later on, Hardy became more, not less, despairing: his philosophy of the "Immanent Will" is laid out in The Dynasts (which I haven't yet read, and really should get round to – New Year Resolutions, how are ye?). The heartlessness of this "Will" is more accessibly expressed in the great poem of 1912 about the sinking of the Titanic, "The Convergence of the Twain."
 
In 1899, however. Hardy was more optimistic. Commentators who consider the thrush to represent the poet himself surely have a good point. He was frail and bird-like in appearance, and he had discovered an abundant poetic inspiration towards the end of his life that must have seemed at times miraculously "illimited".

Let the poet-thrush's "happy good night air" sing us out of 2009, with all my thanks and good wishes to friends old and new, on (and behind the scenes of), Poem of the Week.

2013年12月25日 星期三

The Louisa Episodes, Boswell's London Journal 1962-63

Dear HC,

  
好,漢玉小集,我就跑第一棒,我就報告「我的聯學回憶」,「聯」是指「文人楹聯、書齋聯」,大家增加一些文藝氣息作個老文青,而不是「門迎春夏秋冬福,戶納東西南北財」,「天增歲月人增壽,春滿乾坤福滿堂」的俗到爆的春聯、門聯。
 告訴我時間、地點,好讓我準備 ppt file.
          Ken Su
*****
2013年聖誕夜雜憶

推開網路的是非與獨語,走向附近的懷恩堂。他們的主場戲平安夜晚會結束了,工人在拆教堂前增設的戶外帳蓬。接下來是11點到1點的平安夜子夜音樂會,大堂內還是人滿堂,喜氣洋洋。我剛剛喝了許多飲料,自忖無法撐兩鐘頭。於是回去看公共電視的偵探片罪行---第一次看德國偵探片……
看他得性病與妓女的對話The Louisa Episodes
 http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/louisa.html

*****
三代以上的事 ()

小仲馬於1848年完成小說「茶花女」,隨即在1851年改編成劇本,隔 年威爾第又把它改編成歌劇。1898-1899年林紓、王壽昌用古文合譯出《巴黎茶花女遺事》。

胡適之先生1926年夏旅歐時,在法京巴黎看過 《茶花女》一劇,當時觀眾許多人很感動---30年代  唯一有小說與劇本的是 《茶花女》, 所以值得研究它們。
先生日記上說,從小說到劇本, 剪裁的功夫最重要。

同年,1926年劉半農先生譯《茶花女劇本》。77,劉半農還寫了《序》,末段說:「……然而我費了一個多月的工夫把這一齣戲譯出,意思裏可還希望國中能有什麼一個兩個人,能夠欣賞這一齣戲的藝術,能夠對於劇中人的情事,細細加以思索。……. 

趙元任根據好友劉半農的譯本譜成「茶花女中的飲酒歌」。趙元任自己很慶幸地說,他創作此曲時沒聽過威爾第的茶花女歌劇, 否則難免不受影響。

劉半農先生寫《因「茶花女」之公演而說幾句》 (1932.11.6) 、《甘苦之言---看「茶花女」之公演後寫》1926.11.20、《再寫幾句》第三段說有兩先生吵《茶花女》是林琴南或嚴復翻譯的…….末段:哈哈!昨天我看見陳衡哲女士,談起《新青年》時代的白話詩,她說「那是三代以上的事了」。徵之於此,豈不良信。

*****
今年12月才注意到【博客來OKAPI】網頁,因為唐香燕著的《長歌行過美麗島》為12月的選書,除有著作人的專訪之外,還有好幾個人的推薦文章,譬如說25日楊索的:《回到意外見證肅殺時代的記憶》,可以說很精彩。

【博客來OKAPI】網頁的構想的雛形:「珠戲」網路雜誌,約是1999年。那時候的主編 (他曾在我們這兒為宜蘭華德福教育的幹部討論H. Hesse的名著《珠戲),約了博客來老闆、名作家南方朔先生等多人,在我的新辦公室開會討論談書籍的「專欄」---由公司付稿費。那時,我也寫了篇<快樂真的不得了>的文章 (談《生命的心流》(Finding Flow) ,計劃在「博客來公司」的「珠戲」網路雜誌上發表(案:當時隨即發表,稿酬贈台北縣永和社區大學)。

那段時間,二弟曾提出成立網路書店的構想。我認為我們的資源很有限,就拒絕了。

昨天讀IBM的未來科技-社會之預測,時距以五年為一單位,文章中說,五年在科技界而言很長,可以有令人刮目相看的發展。

如果是這樣,我談【珠戲】雜誌和沒成立的網路書店,類似「那是三代以上的事了」。不過,就個人生命而言,這15年是一轉眼間而已。只是,觀看往事的眼神是怎樣的眼神呢?


2013年12月24日 星期二

倫敦日誌‧1762—1763 / Boswell's London Journal, 1762-17...THE BROTHERS BOSWELL

倫敦日誌‧1762—1763 / Boswell's London Journal, 1762-17...


THE BROTHERS BOSWELL


New York Shakespeare Exchange,

 

New York Shakespeare Exchange |

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Directed by. Cristina Lundy. October 15-November 2, 2013. Hudson Guild Theater, NYC 441 W. 26th St. Starring. Anna Paratore, Anna Van Valin*, Anthony ...

Othello

Othello. Directed by. Cristina Lundy. October 15-November 2 ...

Island

Audiences will delight in Kevin Brewer's enchanting Island ...

Othello Cast

Othello Cast. Anna Paratore - Bianca. Picture. Anna is ...

Pericles

The epic romance of Pericles comes to life in unexpected and ...

About

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ShakesBEER

ShakesBEER 2013!!! The Original Shakespearean Pub Crawl.

The Sonnet Project

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Shakespeare begins by exalting the young man's physical beauty, before ...... 2013 The Sonnet Project, All Rights Reserved New York Shakespeare Exchange.
 
 ----
William Shakespeare will be celebrated in the coming year as 2014 marks the 450th anniversary of his birth. He will also make his digital mark thanks to a New York theatre company, Shakespeare Exchange. It will publish online videos of each of the writer's 154 sonnets, performed by 154 actors, in the run-up to April 23rd (the bard's birthday, famous for also being the day upon which he died in 1616) http://econ.st/1c3zpYE ‪#‎TheWorldin2014‬

2013年12月23日 星期一

Neutral Tones By Thomas Hardy 1867



童元方著《一樣花開傳統與實驗》台北爾雅叢書,1996,頁209-217

 翻譯為 中韻: 意思不清楚:  這是一種以曖昧的調子談/描述昔日的一段失戀心境


Neutral Tones

By Thomas Hardy
 
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
         – They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
         On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
         Like an ominous bird a-wing….

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,
         And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

2013年12月17日 星期二

The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by W. H. Davies (1871–1940)

  The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp  by  W. H. Davies (1871–1940) 這本書林語堂先生介紹過. 是否為林先生所譯則待進一步確認.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_a_Super-Tramp

The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp is an autobiography published in 1908 by the Welsh poet and writer W. H. Davies (1871–1940). A large part of the book's subject matter describes the way of life of the tramp in United Kingdom, Canada and the United States in the final decade of the 19th century.
George Bernard Shaw had become interested in Davies, a literary unknown at the time, and had agreed to write a preface for the book, largely through the concerted efforts of his wife Charlotte. It was only because of Shaw that Davies' contract with the publishers was re-written to allow the author to retain the serial rights, all rights after three years, royalties of fifteen per cent of selling price and a non-returnable advance of twenty five pounds. Davies was also to be given a say on the style of all illustrations, advertisement layouts and cover designs. The original publisher, Duckworth and Sons, refused to accept these demands and so the book was placed instead with Fifield. Shaw was also instrumental in keeping the unusual title of the book, of which Davies himself was unsure, and which later proved to be controversial with some reviewers.[1]
The book was the third published by Davies, having been preceded by The Soul's Destroyer (1905) and New Poems (1907). The 1920 edition of the book concludes with five poems selected by Davies from The Soul's Destroyer.

2013年12月4日 星期三

讀小說學致富

2013年 12月 05日 07:20

想致富?讀小說!

Jeremy Olshan

入財務困境時,聰明人會求助于財務顧問,也可能求助于神明——如果債主、討債人或美國證券交易委員會(SEC)的人已經在敲門的話。而我會讀書。

我 這么說,并不是指許多人家中宜家(Ikea)書架上擺放的《致富的科學》(The Science of Getting Rich)、《自成百萬富翁》(The Automatic Millionaire)或無數類似的書。不,我說的是小說,而且主要是19世紀的小說。狄更斯(Dickens)是我的財務顧問。我寧可花一個小時讀伊 迪絲‧華頓(Edith Wharton)的書,而不是與沃頓商學院(Wharton)的畢業生在一起。

Heritage Auction Gallery via Wikipedia
查爾斯•狄更斯
當然,如果真能在文學中找到積累財富和制定穩健財務計劃的鑰匙,那么大學就會培養出更多英文博士而不是MBA。但它們沒有。英文學位永遠不是藍籌股投資,但近來人們似乎開始認為它是低價股、垃圾股。至少從職業前景上看,很難說會計不如書迷(很可能要好得多)。

然 而,書中自有黃金屋。文學一直是挖掘實用智慧的掘金船——荷馬史詩堪稱古代知識的維基百科,口頭詩歌是原始教科書。按照理論家肯尼思‧伯克 (Kenneth Burke)發明的說法,小說為我們提供了“生活裝備”。這種論斷近期得到了一項研究的支持。研究結果顯示,閱讀文學能使人更善解人意。

不過,不要指望在文學作品中找到像幸運餅干里的格言那樣明確的建議,教你如何支出、儲蓄和投資。小說家和劇作家對提出財務建議的人即使不嗤之以鼻,也似乎心持懷疑。這或許就是為何他們提供有價值的個人理財建議時,往往借蠢貨的口說出。

“別借債,莫放債”,莎士比亞(Shakespeare)在《哈姆雷特》(Hamlet)中寫道。但吹牛大王波洛尼厄斯(Polonius)對兒子雷歐提斯(Laertes)發表他荒謬而充斥著陳詞濫調的言論時,卻鼓吹這種貨幣門羅主義。
在 《大衛‧科波菲爾》(David Copperfield)中,狄更斯也贊成量入為出這種看似合理的觀點:“年收入20英鎊,年支出19.96英鎊,結果是幸福的;年收入20英鎊,年支出 20.06英鎊,結果是悲慘的。”這段話是丑角米考伯(Micawber)在負債人監獄的勞作間隙所說。

“有錢人的快樂不是來自于有錢,而是來自于花錢,當然不是任意亂花,而是知道如何花得恰到好處。”這個建議不是來自于瓊‧查茲基(Jean Chatzky)或蘇茲‧奧曼(Suze Orman),而是來自于堂吉訶德(Don Quixote)。

那么,如果文學作品沒有給出致富良方,而且可能會讓頭腦發熱的讀者沖向風車,為什么尋求財務建議的人應該花時間讀小說呢?根據我自己的堂吉訶德式讀書經驗,并向金融專家和文學教授提出這個問題后,我想至少有兩個原因:

首 先,小說展示了“萬能的金錢”影響我們情感、思想和行為的威力——并揭示出我們與錢打交道的方式可能對身邊人產生的連鎖效應。其次,小說很有趣。我同樣喜 歡讀心理學家丹尼爾‧卡內曼(Daniel Kahneman)和行為經濟學家納齊姆‧塔利布(Nassim Taleb)的書,甚至是馬爾科姆‧格拉德韋爾(Malcolm Gladwell)的最新暢銷書,但沒有哪段關于心理實驗或人類思想與弱點的論述,能夠像米考伯和堂吉訶德的弱點一樣,在我腦子里留下深深的印象。

因此,在比我更了解金錢和書本的人的幫助下,我為讀者總結出了以下五堂財務課程:

1. 讀笛福(Defoe)的書,了解金錢。

Wikimedia Commons
1902年的電影《魯賓遜漂流記》中的一個畫面。
20 世紀80年代,唐‧菲利普斯(Don Phillips)正在芝加哥大學(University of Chicago)攻讀英文博士學位,當時他像之前的許多研究生一樣,正在經歷信心危機。“我認為是時候停止讀小說,開始讀文學評論了”,他說。“我心想: 他們怎么能讓如此有趣的東西變得索然無味?”于是他退出了學術界。“我把好小說放在一邊,努力找一份以投資為寫作主題的工作,”他說。

現在,他是晨星(Morningstar)的全球研究主管,完全有獨到的資格評論這件事。他說,他對文學的熱情繼續滲透到他的投資方式之中,更重要的是滲透到他與客戶的交流方式之中。客戶既然是肉胎凡夫,免不了有時任一時沖動破壞他們自己的財務利益。

他 說,《魯濱遜漂流記》(Robinson Crusoe)中有一個場景,發生在主人公的船在一座奇怪的荒島上撞毀后不久,或許沒有什么比這一幕能更好地說明人與金錢的非理性關系了。魯濱遜在殘骸中 翻撿,尋找一切有用的東西,撿出了刀子、工具、食物甚至是酒。當他無意間發現滿滿一抽屜金幣時,他說:

看到這些錢,我感到好笑。“噢,你們這些廢物!”我大聲說:“你們現在還有什么用處呢?對我來說,現在你們的價值還不如糞土。那些刀子,一把就值你們這一大堆,我現在用不著你們,你們就留在老地方沉到海底里去吧,根本不值得救你們的命!”可是,再一想,我還是把錢拿走了。

“他 知道在他當時的處境中,錢是沒用的,對他來說一文不值,但他控制不住自己,”菲利普斯說。“這正是金融界錯誤的地方。在理智上,我們明白有更重要的東西值 得追求,金錢只不過是達到目標的手段(幫助我們過上想要的生活),而不是目標本身。但華爾街將賺錢變成了一場競賽,我們不得不永不滿足地積聚越來越多的財 富。”

應該指出,如果魯濱遜滿足于自己擁有的,如果他聽取了父親的建議,過著中產階級的生活,那么他將永遠不會變成那個魯濱遜——實際上,他根本不會出海。(盡管他可能由于無數其他原因變得更窮。)

還應該指出,最后,魯賓遜拿走金幣是對的。盡管在島上的時候錢對他沒有用,但幾十年后,當他返回文明世界時,它們變得非常有用。

2. 讀特羅洛普(Trollope)和狄更斯(Dickens)的書,認出下一個伯尼‧麥道夫(Bernie Madoff)。

1855年出版的小說《小杜麗》中的插圖。
小說中的理財模范和通情達理的愛人一樣多。還有什么比這更無聊?“你找不到只把金錢當作實現目標的手段的四平八穩式節儉人物”,菲利普斯說。“但有許多警示故事。”

在 許多19世紀的小說開篇,陰差陽錯地得到(或失去)財富都給人物的生活造成了嚴重破壞。在《遠大前程》(Great Expectations)中,窮小子皮普(Pip)從一位神秘恩人那里得到了一筆意外之財,而這位恩人原來是罪犯馬格韋契(Magwitch)。同時, 在《尼克拉斯‧尼克貝》(Nicholas Nickleb)中,同名主人公的父親在一次錯誤投資中賠光了妻子的儲蓄,而主人公的厄運也隨之開始。

“尼克貝走了背字。人們陷入投資狂熱,泡沫破裂,四位股票經紀人奪走了他在佛羅倫薩(Florence)的別墅,四百個無名之輩的生活被毀,其中就有尼克貝。”

重 讀這些維多利亞時代的小說,我深受震撼,我讀高中或大學時,從未發現有那么多情節源自糟糕的財務決策。就像伍迪‧艾倫(Woody Allen)的短片《庫格爾馬斯軼事》(The Kugelmass Episode)中的悉尼‧庫格爾馬斯(Sidney Kugelmass)那樣,我想象自己進入了書中世界——即使不是去引誘女主人公,至少也是去讓他們的財務狀況恢復正常。我要把皮普帶到Sudden Money Institute以阻止他亂花錢,這家公司為彩票中獎者和新秀運動員提供關于如何處理新得到的財富的建議。我還會幫尼克貝家族免受幾百頁的痛苦,只需分 散他們的投資組合。

我開始懷疑,自己像注冊會計師而不是藝術碩士一樣去讀小說,到底是編輯了太多個人理財文章的副作用,還是說我瘋了—— 再讀幾本狄更斯的書我就可能騎馬直奔拉曼查省(《堂吉訶德》中的地名——注)去了。盡管哈佛大學的歷史學家尼爾‧弗格森(Niall Ferguson)不能與我的理智對話,但他使我放心,財務失策對于小說一直很關鍵。“在工業革命背景下,19世紀積累起了史無前例的金融財富,”他說。 “這就是為什么19世紀的歐洲文學中有如此多關于金錢的明確討論。”

哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)的比較文學教授尼古拉斯‧達姆斯(Nicholas Dames)說,許多維多利亞時代的小說都在報道當時的各種金融危機、經濟泡沫和鐵路潮的刊物上連載,且經常與貨幣政策之類的文章并排登載。“當時的國民 經濟波動比以往更加劇烈,解釋其原因成為了小說的任務之一”,他說。“故事教給我們,沒有人能躲開金融危機,即使個人毫無錯誤。”

新財富 的洪流,伴隨著鐵路和其他投資的投機狂潮,也孕育出一種新型反派人物:冒牌金融家。伯尼‧麥道夫在文學中有許多祖先,以至于人們不禁得出結論,如果更多人 做了功課——也就是說,讀過特羅洛普的《如今世道》(The Way We Live Now)和狄更斯的《小杜麗》(Little Dorrit)——他的500億美元龐氏騙局決不會成功。

這兩本書都描寫了麥道夫式騙子。特羅洛普筆下的奧古斯塔斯‧麥爾墨特 (Augustus Melmotte)擠入倫敦社會的方式,和一個多世紀后他現實中的同行擠進棕櫚灘(Palm Beach)的方式如出一轍。注意,麥爾墨特這個名字甚至也用M開頭而且也是雙輔音詞(麥道夫名字Madoff以M開頭,且有兩個f組成的雙輔音—— 注)。狄更斯筆下的莫多爾(Merdle)——另一個M打頭的名字(而且一語雙關)——謀取受害者財富的方法與麥道夫一模一樣。

《如今世道》一開始,這位金融家就舉辦了一個盛大的舞會,說服社會精英也就是皇室參加,盡管他的財富籠罩著一層神秘氣息,傳說他“在巴黎曾被認為是有史以來最大的騙子”。

“憑他自己的本事,我們不會允許他這種人進入我們的廚房,更別提我們的餐桌了。但由于他學會了賺錢的藝術,我們不僅容忍他,還像許多猛禽一樣環伺在他的尸體周圍。”

麥 爾墨特的錢化解了對他背景的擔憂。他或許不是一名紳士,但他是個“了不起的人”。有了這種金色光環和幾位關鍵人物的背書(麥道夫在猶太社會中以如出一轍的 手段利用了他的親和力),受害人紛紛向他靠攏。他毫不費力就賣出了“中南太平洋墨西哥大鐵路公司”(Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway)的股票,甚至沒有幾個人費心去懷疑他的大鐵路公司到底有多大。

投資者會從這些 詐騙案和龐氏騙局中吸取教訓嗎?莫多爾的騙術在《小杜麗》中被拆穿后,狄更斯暗示,他們不會吸取教訓。在馬夏爾西(Marshalsea)債務人監獄中茍 延殘喘的亞瑟‧克萊南(Arthur Clennam)被騙局奪去了一切,他說自己希望別人能避免他的命運。政府官僚費迪南德‧巴納克爾(Ferdinand Barnacle)笑了。

“我 親愛的克萊南先生”,費迪南德笑著回答。“你真有這么一個幼稚的希望?再來一個有同樣大的欺騙本領,有同樣真正的欺騙愛好的人,也同樣會得逞。請你原諒, 我覺得你確實不懂得人類這一群蜜蜂,一聽見敲起馬口鐵破茶壺來,都會成群成群飛出蜂巢的;這個事實體現了馭人之法的全部奧秘。假如能叫他們相信這個茶壺是 用貴重的金屬做的,那么這個事實就體現了死去的莫多爾那種人的全部本領。”

3. 在刷信用卡之前讀艾略特(Eliot)和福樓拜(Flaubert)的書。

香煙包裝上印著衛生局局長的警告。但當一張新信用卡寄到時,它是用粘性膠粘在一封賀信中的,本‧伯南克(Ben Bernanke)也沒發出警告,提醒你刷卡可能對你的財富有害。

《包法利夫人》中的插圖。
消 費者權益保護人士哀嘆,有關這種便利信貸的罰款、費用和可能造成的破壞的細則,都隱藏在大量細小的文字之中,幾乎沒有人費心去讀。坦率地講,他們讀兩本有 史以來最優秀的小說會更好:《包法利夫人》(Madame Bovary)和《米德爾馬契》(Middlemarch)。

說《包法利夫人》講的是信用卡風險聽上去就像說《李爾王》(King Lear)講的是糟糕的遺產規劃。然而,愛瑪‧包法利(Emma Bovary)不是因欺騙她的醫生丈夫而被擊垮,而是被累累負債擊垮的。

對 包法利夫人,狡猾虛偽的商人勒合(Lheureux)扮演的是亞馬遜網站(Amazon.com)(納斯達克股票代碼:AMZN)和萬事達信用卡 (MasterCard)(紐交所股票代碼:MA)雙重角色,他給她一組高利率高端產品。起初,她告訴他:“我不需要任何東西”,但當他繼續拿出可愛的圍 巾和其它小飾品時,她開始無法自制。

“賣多少錢?”

“不貴”,他回答道。“只要很少錢。也不必忙著給錢,看你什么時候方便。”


最 后,她在債務泥潭中陷得越來越深,用一筆貸款償還另一筆貸款,直到她被欠款壓垮,甚至無法忍受把債務數字累計起來。“有時的確是這樣,她試著計算”,福樓 拜寫道。“但她發現數字如此之高,她簡直無法相信。”我當然會聯想到自己,雖然我年輕時濫用信用卡和學生貸款并未驅使我像包法利夫人那樣咽下砒霜。

寬 松信貸的危險也是喬治‧艾略特(George Eliot)的《米德爾馬契》中的一條線索。正如《包法利夫人》一樣,其中一個情節是關于一位鄉村醫生的物質主義妻子的,亨利‧詹姆斯(Henry James)將這個故事形容為“由于欠了屠夫債務,迫切需要省吃儉用而造成的悲劇。”《紐約客》(New Yorker)撰稿人麗貝卡‧米德(Rebecca Mead)讓我注意到了這段引語,她即將出版的著作《我在米德爾馬契中的生活》(My Life in Middlemarch)結合了自己的生活磨難和她對這本小說一讀再讀的感受。(庫格爾馬斯會自豪的。)

利德蓋特(Lydgate)娶了美貌但膚淺的羅莎蒙德(Rosamond),她要求的房子和生活方式遠遠超過了他的負擔能力。“她是19世紀早期消費文化的化身,她渴望擁有適宜的地毯和餐具”,米德說。“你可以想象,她在網絡購物和信用卡激增的年代可能會造成多大危害。”

這里的利德蓋特不是無辜的。他對羅莎蒙德這種妻子的渴望同樣是物質主義,其程度并不比她對好家具的渴望差。艾略特在這里比較了我們的愛情錯誤和財務錯誤。在故事結尾,好醫生最終意識到,他本可以選擇一位非常不同的伴侶。

現在,他開始想像兩個有共同思想、彼此深愛的人,會怎樣嘲笑他們的破家具,會如何嘲笑他們為還能買得起多少黃油和雞蛋而精打細算。

4. 讀狄更斯的書,學會儲蓄和囤積的區別。

當埃比尼澤‧斯克魯奇(Ebenezer Scrooge)——最著名的財迷(不論是在現實中還是虛構中)——的侄子祝他“圣誕快樂”時,他看到的是赤字。

“圣誕快樂!你有什么權利快樂?你有什么理由快樂?你夠窮的了。”

“來吧”,侄子歡快地答道。“你有什么權利垂頭喪氣?你有什么理由悶悶不樂?你夠富的了。”


這段對話和斯克魯奇作為回應喊出的那聲“呸,騙子!”看起來太著名,太融入流行文化了,無法說服任何現代守財奴改變思維方式。

但 心理學家父子特德‧克朗茨(Ted Klontz)和布拉德‧克朗茨(Brad Klontz)不同意。他們甚至與財務規劃師里克‧卡勒(Rick Kahler)合作寫了一本關于這個問題的書:《吝嗇鬼埃比尼澤的理財智慧》(The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge)。布拉德‧克朗茨說,三個拜訪斯克魯奇的鬼魂實際上是“三位治療師”,他們幫斯克魯奇看到了他生活方式的錯誤所在。他還說,他也對客戶使 用了一種類似但不那么超自然的方法。“我們見過一些非常成功的人,他們在銀行里有數百萬美元,但甚至拒絕看牙醫,而且不愿度假,”他說。“這顯示他們擔心 自己錢不夠而變得有多焦慮。”

1843年Chapman & Hall出版的《聖誕頌歌》中馬利的鬼魂。
例如,在大蕭條年代長大的一代有種根深蒂固的觀念:他們應該囤積商品,盡可能地存起一切。克朗茨稱之為“金錢腳本”。

這些觀念沒錯,但一旦它變得根深蒂固,就會難以擺脫。“當現實改變時——當不再有大蕭條時——人們無法擺脫舊觀念。這時情況就變得不正常了,”克朗茨說。“斯克魯奇害怕變化,需要有人敦促他發現自己兒時形成的觀念正在毀掉他的現在,還可能毀掉他的未來。”

5. 在買汽車前讀托爾斯泰(Tolstoy)的書。

紙牌老手的格言是,如果上牌桌幾分鐘后,你還說不出誰是笨蛋,那么笨蛋就是你。每筆金融交易或多或少也是如此。無論是購買一匹馬、一輛車、一只股票還是一棟房子,買方或者賣方都有可能在交易中吃虧。

Mny-Jhee / Shutterstock.com
這就是為什么在買賣任何東西之前讀《安娜‧卡列尼娜》(Anna Karenina)很重要。盡管托爾斯泰的這本小說講述的偷情故事更為人熟知,但它也是一本關于如何與汽車推銷員討價還價的非常實用的手冊。

莫斯科貴族斯捷潘‧奧布隆斯基(Stepan Oblonsky)到他朋友康斯坦丁‧萊溫(Konstantin Levin)的鄉下莊園作客,告訴他自己賣掉了一塊地——一片樹林——并希望知道這筆交易是否劃算。

萊溫用一個簡單的問題回答了他:“你數過樹了嗎?”

“樹怎么數法?” 斯捷潘‧阿爾卡季奇(Stepan Arkadyich)大笑著說,還在想為他的朋友解悶。“數海濱的沙,星星的光芒,那得有天大的本領……”

“啊,里亞比寧(Ryabinin)就有這種天大的本領。沒有一個商人買樹林不數樹的,除非是人家白送給他,像你現在這樣。我知道你的樹林。我每年都到那里去打獵,你的樹林每俄畝值五百盧布現金,而他卻只給你二百盧布,并且還是分期付款。所以實際上你奉送給他三萬盧布。”


換言之,只有傻瓜才會在不知道物品真實價值的情況下買賣它們。這聽起來很簡單,但我許多次都犯過這種傻。我們有多少次沒有數樹呢?我們有多少次坐在汽車推銷員旁邊,卻不知道汽車的真實價值呢?

所以,一定要把樹數進去。如果必須數的話,用計算器、Excel電子表格或iPhone應用程序數它們。或者根據樹的理想形態來數,也就是在它們被攪成紙漿,釘在一起,成為一本好書的書頁之后。

本文譯自MarketWatch

2013年12月3日 星期二

Mary Webb

 Mary Webb (25 March 1881 – 8 October 1927), was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 此片台灣翻譯謫仙計They inspired the famous parody Cold Comfort Farm.
此段機械讀音: 5K4 http://youtu.be/fW1LvyPk0RU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Webb

   Mary Webb的簡介可參考張秀亞的論藝術 台北:大地1972  其中(以藝術精神處理日常生活的作家) 英國文壇的謫仙 121-141

Works

  • The Golden Arrow (July 1916). London : Constable.
  • Gone to Earth (September 1917). London : Constable.
  • The Spring of Joy; a little book of healing (October 1917). London : J. M. Dent.
  • The House in Dormer Forest (July 1920). London : Hutchinson.
  • Seven For A Secret; a love story (October 1922). London : Hutchinson.
  • Precious Bane (July 1924). London : Jonathan Cape.
  • Poems and the Spring of Joy (Essays and Poems) (1928). London : Jonathan Cape.
  • Armour Wherein He Trusted: A Novel and Some Stories (1929). London : Jonathan Cape.
  • A Mary Webb Anthology, edited by Henry B.L. Webb (1939). London : Jonathan Cape.
  • Fifty-One Poems (1946). London : Jonathan Cape. With wood engravings by Joan Hassall
  • The Essential Mary Webb, edited by Martin Armstrong (1949). London : Jonathan Cape.
  • Mary Webb: Collected Prose and Poems, edited by Gladys Mary Coles (1977). Shrewsbury : Wildings.
  • Selected Poems of Mary Webb, edited by Gladys Mary Coles (1981). Wirral : Headland

許達然《人行道》「牛津街巷」 Adonaïs

許達然《人行道》台北:新地,1985

「我仍相信文藝可以使人想,想,想,想,想!」
這本書出版的時候,我還只去過美國一次,英國一年。

書名,影響我很大,所以我十年後為台灣最小報《立報》寫專欄,就取名「教育人行道」。後來該報果真重新定位為以教育界為主的報紙。

但,當時1985我的了解可能還很表面,正如作者在「後記」中說的,「……有悲壯歷史的臺灣還有美的可能-----美並非外表好看而是實質耐看:然而作者作的,讀者讀的竟仍是表面。」

談一下本書的鎮卷之作「牛津街巷」。這是篇198163的,距離作者弟一次去牛津做博士後進修「英國近代社會經濟史」已十來年了。當然,他們貝利奧(Balliol)學院的人都很有向心力,經常返校,或如胡志強要寫回憶錄,回去找資料,拉關係;或如作者回去當論文評審。

網路是大頭腦,可以幫作者加注,譬如說,「記得雪萊*有兩行詩說生命像彩色玻璃圓頂,污染永橫的閃爍。」 它出自Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Deathof John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc.
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

*1810410在牛津大學的University College, Oxford.注冊

現在,.《人行道》.出版已過28年了,我自己也滿頭白髮了,重讀它一定更能了解書中的「寫就是作…..作與造」嗎,更同情嗎?------「一個作者沒有領土,可能有的是人民與故鄉,若連故鄉的人民都不認識,愛顧,與尊重,不寫也罷。…….把這集子叫人行道,只因想著人行道:人,行道。」

2013年12月2日 星期一

憂鬱的解析The Anatomy of Melancholy

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010y30m

The Anatomy of Melancholy

Duration:
45 minutes
First broadcast:
Thursday 12 May 2011
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Robert Burton's masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy.
In 1621 the priest and scholar Robert Burton published a book quite unlike any other. The Anatomy of Melancholy brings together almost two thousand years of scholarship, from Ancient Greek philosophy to seventeenth-century medicine. Melancholy, a condition believed to be caused by an imbalance of the body's four humours, was characterised by despondency, depression and inactivity. Burton himself suffered from it, and resolved to compile an authoritative work of scholarship on the malady, drawing on all relevant sources.
Despite its subject matter the Anatomy is an entertaining work, described by Samuel Johnson as the only book 'that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.' It also offers a fascinating insight into seventeenth-century medical theory, and influenced many generations of playwrights and poets.

 

  • FURTHER READING

    Robert Burton, 'Some Anatomies of Melancholy' (Penguin Great Ideas, 2008)

    Robert Burton, 'The Anatomy of Melancholy', ed. by Holbrook Jackson (New York Review Books, 2001)

    Angus Gowland, 'The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy: Robert Burton in Context' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

    Roy Porter, 'Madness: A Brief History' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)

    Mary Ann Lund, 'Melancholy, Medicine and Religion in Early Modern England: Reading The Anatomy of Melancholy' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

    Douglas Trevor, 'The Poetics of Melancholy in Early Modern England' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

    John Ford, 'The Lover’s Melancholy', ed. R. F. Hill (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985)

    John Milton, ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’, in 'The Complete Poems' (Penguin Classics, 2004)

    Jennifer Radden, ed., 'The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva' (Oxford University Press, 2000)

    Erin Sullivan, ‘Melancholy, medicine and the arts’, The Lancet, vol. 372, Sept. 13, 2008, pp. 884-5

    Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, and Fritz Saxl, 'Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art' (Nelson, 1964)

    Jeremy Schmidt, 'Melancholy and the Care of the Soul: Religion, Moral Philosophy and Madness in Early Modern England' (Ashgate, 2007)

The Anatomy of Melancholy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton frontispiece 1638 edition.jpg
Frontispiece for the 1638 edition
Author Robert Burton
Illustrator Christian Le Blon
Country Britain
Language English
Publication date 1621
Media type Print
ISBN N/A
The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up) is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621.

Overview

Burton's book consists mostly of a collection of opinions of a multitude of writers, grouped under quaint and old-fashioned divisions; in a solemn tone Burton endeavoured to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations.[1] The subjects discussed and determined by Burton ranged from the doctrines of religion to military discipline, from inland navigation to the morality of dancing-schools.[1]
On its surface, the book is presented as a medical textbook in which Burton applies his vast and varied learning, in the scholastic manner, to the subject of melancholia (which includes what is now termed clinical depression). Though presented as a medical text, The Anatomy of Melancholy is as much a sui generis work of literature as it is a scientific or philosophical text, and Burton addresses far more than his stated subject. In fact, the Anatomy uses melancholy as the lens through which all human emotion and thought may be scrutinized, and virtually the entire contents of a 17th-century library are marshalled into service of this goal.[2] It is encyclopedic in its range and reference.
In his satirical preface to the reader, Burton's persona Democritus Junior explains, "I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy." This is characteristic of the author's style, which often supersedes the book's strengths as a medical text or historical document as its main source of appeal to admirers. Both satirical and serious in tone, the Anatomy is "vitalized by (Burton's) pervading humour",[3] and Burton's digressive and inclusive style, often verging on a stream of consciousness, consistently informs and animates the text.[citation needed] In addition to the author's techniques, the Anatomy's vast breadth – addressing topics such as digestion, goblins, the geography of America, and others[2] – make it a valuable contribution to multiple research disciplines.

Publication

An obsessive rewriter of his work, Burton published five revised and expanded editions of The Anatomy of Melancholy during his lifetime. It has often been out of print, most notably between 1676 and 1800.[4] Because no original manuscript of the Anatomy has survived, later reprints have drawn more or less faithfully from the editions published during Burton's life.[5] Early editions are now in the public domain, with several available in their entirety from a number of online sources such as Project Gutenberg. In recent years, increased interest in the book, combined with its status as a public domain work, has resulted in a number of new print editions, most recently a 2001 reprinting of the 1932 edition by The New York Review of Books under its NYRB Classics imprint (ISBN 0-940322-66-8).[2]

Synopsis

Burton defined his subject as follows:
Melancholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or in habit. In disposition, is that transitory Melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causes anguish, dulness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing forwardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy, that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. And from these melancholy dispositions no man living is free, no Stoick, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can vindicate himself; so well-composed, but more or less, some time or other, he feels the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of Mortality... This Melancholy of which we are to treat, is a habit, a serious ailment, a settled humour, as Aurelianus and others call it, not errant, but fixed: and as it was long increasing, so, now being (pleasant or painful) grown to a habit, it will hardly be removed.
In attacking his stated subject, Burton drew from nearly every science of his day, including psychology and physiology, but also astronomy, meteorology, and theology, and even astrology and demonology.
Much of the book consists of quotations from various ancient and medieval medical authorities, beginning with Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen. Hence the Anatomy is filled with more or less pertinent references to the works of others. A competent Latinist, Burton also included a great deal of Latin poetry in the Anatomy, and many of his inclusions from ancient sources are left untranslated in the text.
The Anatomy of Melancholy is an especially lengthy book, the first edition being a single quarto volume nearly 900 pages long; subsequent editions were even longer. The text is divided into three major sections plus an introduction, the whole written in Burton's sprawling style. Characteristically, the introduction includes not only an author's note (titled "Democritus Junior to the Reader"), but also a Latin poem ("Democritus Junior to His Book"), a warning to "The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill", an abstract of the following text, and another poem explaining the frontispiece. The following three sections proceed in a similarly exhaustive fashion: the first section focuses on the causes and symptoms of "common" melancholies, while the second section deals with cures for melancholy, and the third section explores more complex and esoteric melancholies, including the melancholy of lovers and all varieties of religious melancholies. The Anatomy concludes with an extensive index (which, many years later, The New York Times Book Review called "a readerly pleasure in itself"[6]). Most modern editions include many explanatory notes, and translate most of the Latin.[2]

Critical reception

Admirers of The Anatomy of Melancholy range from Samuel Johnson, Holbrook Jackson (whose Anatomy of Bibliomania (1931) was based on the style and presentation), George Armstrong Custer, Charles Lamb, and John Keats (who said it was his favourite book), to Stanley Fish, Philip Pullman, Cy Twombly, Jorge Luis Borges (who used a quote as an epigraph to his story "The Library of Babel"), Nick Cave, Samuel Beckett, and Jacques Barzun (who sees in it many anticipations of 20th century psychiatry).[citation needed] According to The Guardian literary critic Nick Lezard, the Anatomy "survives among the cognoscenti".[7] Washington Irving uses a quote from the book on the title page of The Sketch Book.
Burton's solemn tone and his endeavour to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations were ridiculed by Laurence Sterne in Tristram Shandy.[1][8] Sterne also mocked Burton's quaint and old-fashioned divisions in the ludicrous titles of his chapters, and parodied his grave and sober account of Cicero's grief for the death of his daughter Tullia.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Ferriar (1798), chapter 3, pp. 55–9, 64.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Nicholas Lezard (1 August 2001). "The Book to End All Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2007.
  3. Jump up ^ Émile Legouis, A History of English Literature (1926)
  4. Jump up ^ The Complete Review discussion of The Anatomy of Melancholy
  5. Jump up ^ William H. Gass, Introduction to The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York Review of Books 2001 ISBN 0-940322-66-8
  6. Jump up ^ Thomas Mallon, The New York Times Book Review, October 3, 1991
  7. Jump up ^ Nick Lezard, "Classics of the Future," The Guardian, September 16, 2000.
  8. Jump up ^ Petrie (1970) pp. 261–2.

References

Further reading

External links

Online editions

Discussions of the book



中文已有楊周翰十七世紀英國文學史的一章和梁實秋等的介紹


憂鬱的解析 金城 刪減本

忧郁的解剖

作者: 罗伯特·伯顿
出版社: 金城出版社
原作名: The Anatomy of Melancholy
译者: 冯环
出版年: 2012-11
页数: 219
定价: 32.00元
装帧: 平装

内容简介  · · · · · ·

作者简介  · · · · · ·

目录  · · · · · ·

1932 年版导言/ 霍尔布鲁克• 杰克逊 001
第一部分 德谟克利特二世致读者 001
第二部分 忧郁之成因与症状
一、何谓忧郁 042
二、忧郁的内因 046
1. 过度锻炼、孤独、懒散 046
2. 谈幻想的效力 057
3. 羞愧、耻辱 065
4. 争胜、仇恨、怨怼和报复欲 067
5. 愤怒 069
6. 不满、忧虑和痛苦 075
7. 痴迷狩猎、爱好财博 084
8. 自恋、虚荣、爱虚名、好吹棒 087
三、沉迷书本,兼谈学者之苦 093
四、忧郁的外因 108
1. 教育 108
2. 恐惧与惊吓 111
3. 讥讽、诽谤、挖苦 115
4. 失去自由、奴役、监禁 120
5. 贫穷与匮乏 123
6. 其他导致忧郁的意外因素,
如友人之死、财物损失等等 129
五、忧郁之症状 140
第三部分 忧郁之疗法
一、闲话空气 150
二、锻炼 157
三、救治不满与不幸之良方 171
1. 身体缺陷、疾病、出身低微等特殊不幸 175
2. 贫穷与匮乏 183
3. 奴役、失去自由、监禁、放逐 186
4. 嫌弃、辱骂、侮辱、蔑视、羞辱、谩骂、
诽谤、嘲笑等等 188
四、对治疗忧郁本身 202
《忧郁的解剖》原书目录 207
译名对照表 211
译后记 215