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得一忘二 FAN Jinghua

(Go to my blog) http://poetrychinese.blogspot.com
Updated 11/10/2007
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1/22/2008

Go to My Blogs 我的博客

Please go to my poemlife blog 请访问我的诗生活博客, which is temporarily down due to Beijing Olympic Games 奥运期间已经和谐封停). However,
 
I am keeping my bilingual blog http://poetrychinese.blogspot.com/ alive with my own poems and my translations of contemporary and classical Chinese poems. 我在blogspot上的双语博客有我自己的双语诗歌,以及我翻译的中国当代及古典诗歌。
 
11/14/2007

玛·莫尔诗论婚姻 M Moore on Poetry and Marriage

 

     玛丽安·莫尔诗论婚姻

  美国女诗人玛丽安·莫尔Marianne Moore 1887-1972被视为现代派诗人中唯一一个女诗人,是美国三大女诗人之一,另外两个一般认为是狄金森Emily Dickinson和毕肖普Elizabeth Bishop(当然会有人不同意吧)。不管怎么说,莫尔的地位是不容动摇的了,而且她诗歌所显现出来的性情似乎和现代派提倡的那种不动声色特别一致,绝对没有后来的女性写作的私人化倾向。这个女人,太智慧了,反讽中带着冷意但是绝不会受自己的情绪左右,于是寒意中总能让同样智慧的人感到一种圆润(对了,是否正因她如此地不动声色,所以才能如此长寿?——我这样说,似乎显出我作为一个男人的偏颇了)。

  该诗人对于诗歌本身说过这样经典的话。这首叫做《诗》的诗篇,全文如下:

     Poetry

 I, too, dislike it.

  Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in

  it, after all, a place for the genuine.

     诗歌

 我,也是,不喜欢它。

  不过,读它时,带着对它全然的不屑,总会在最终

  发现,这其中,有个空间,藏着真切。

这首诗的写作大概和很多现代派诗歌有得一拼;因为它还有一个较长的版本,三十行。结果发表出来的,就是长版本的开始三行压缩的,还是将原版本的开始一节抄出来吧:

 I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.

  Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in

  it after all, a place for the genuine.

   Hands that can grasp, eyes

   that can dilate, hair that can rise

    if it must, these things are important not because a

 我,也是,不喜欢它:有很多事情比这一切倒腾来得重要。

  不过,读它时,带着对它全然的不屑,总会在最终

  发现,这其中,有个空间,藏着真切。

   双手能够有所抓,眼睛

   能够有所发亮的,头发能有所立起

    如果必要,这些事便算是重要,倒不是因为

 High-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are

 Useful....

 听来很高调的阐释可以加诸其上,而是因为它们

 有用。……

正是这种看似不把诗歌当成至高无上的崇拜物的态度,使得人们可以成为真正的诗人。因为,崇拜也是一种功利吧,而只有没有了功利,诗歌才能纯粹。正如在这首诗的第四节所说的:

                       One must make a distinction

however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,

                      不过,必须做出明确区分:

          当半吊子诗人将它拖出来招摇风光,结果必不是诗歌。

  说到底,诗虽然是虚的,但却必然还是一门来不得半点虚假的技术。紧接着的一个比喻令人叫绝:“imaginary gardens with real toads in them,” shall we have it (我们应该有的是,想象的花园中有着真正的癞蛤蟆”)。说了这么多,结果她也许忽然意识到,有关诗歌说得越多越没意义吧,因此干脆就把后面的话都砍掉了。不过(你看看,他的诗歌中有多少however不过,这口吻是很多人学不来的,越年轻越学不来)也正是这样的人,才会将诗歌作为自己的最佳表达手段,所谓的现实关注或者终结关怀都在似乎与现实脱离的诗歌中。

  作为现代派中唯一被认可的女人,她当然是靠诗艺实力赢得尊重的;因此,她的主题很少时候来所谓的女性诗歌,可以说她和埃米莉·狄金森完全不是一条路子。然而,正如前面说到的,她就是要以看似超越性别的方式谈论自己的感受。她那首长达293行的诗Marriage《婚姻》在现代派作品中可谓是凤毛麟角。这首诗如此开始:
   This institution
   
perhaps one should say enterprise
   
out of respect for which
   
one says one need not change one's mind
   
about a thing one has believed in,
   
requiring public promises
   
of one's intention
   
to fulfill a private obligation
意译如下:

   这一机制
   或许应称之为企业
   出于尊重
   人们说一个人不必为此改变
   其对事物已有的信念
   因为这需要一个人
   作出公开承诺
   才能履行私人的义务
  在西方,婚姻自然是一种公开的承诺,在教堂宣布,大声讲出,保证Till Death Do We Part (直到死亡将我们分离),而这位出生于1887年的女人似乎早已看出,婚姻的公共性监督也许并不能保证其私人性的和美。这里从一开始就已经将婚姻的公共性和私人性的矛盾或滑稽成分揭示出来。
  紧接着,诗人开始了她许许多多看似随意的引用,这些引用的话都来自有影响的男人和公共媒介。首先,写到了戒指,她引用了弗兰西斯·培根Francis Bacon的话(后面有很多引用,恐怕令人想到T. S. Eliot了吧):
   how bright it shows---
   
"of circular traditions and impostures,
   
committing many spoils,"
   
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
   
to avoid!
   (它是如此闪耀
——
   有着循环的传统与欺诈,

   承诺着许多缺陷
   需要调动一个人的所有犯罪才智
   才能避免!)
这里所以引用培根,更多的是反映着婚姻的政治性,或者反之,借用这种政治历史社会术语来反正婚姻对于男人来说不过是社会的一种延伸。

  对于家庭中的男人来说,如何同女人相处或者说与女人的相处到底是出于什么呢?当作为一家之主的女人,所谓的一家之主应该说是屋里的主人(我们过去的说法就是,屋里的,也就是说,如果她有什么能够做主的,应该就是在屋子里),说:
   “I should like to be alone;"(我想独自呆着)
作为来访者的男人说:
   "I should like to be alone;
   why do be alone together?"

   (我想独自呆着

   为何不一起各自呆着?
这个屋子仍然是一个受侵犯的领域,那个屋里人并没有专属权。肉体的亲近绝非夫妻生活的决定性条件,在西方尚且如此,在东方夫妻双方的私人空间似乎更难实现。
  英国的著名女作家弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)于是想象莎士比亚有一个妹妹,一样的聪明有才,然而却没有能够写出任何作品,其中一个最关键的原因就是:她没有a room of her own一间属于自己的房间。无论是男人还是女人,私人空间的完整,是成为自己的保证。那么在婚姻中,法律(从来都是男人制定的,而且起初还不将女人作为其适用对象,只是在适用于一个男人时候顺带实施到他附带的女人身上)往往成为对于一个人的个人权利的保护。

 

后记:在一个文件夹中发现了这篇东西,不知道什么时候的,查看最后一次修改日期是200674。自己看了一遍,估计是当时写不下去了,因为这里讲了两首诗两个主题,没办法统一的缘故吧。今天只是通读一遍,改一个题目,也没有时间再作多少调整。对了,再过几天(1115)是她的120岁诞辰了。

                    20071112

 

10/26/2007

演奏 Performing Elgar's Cello Concerto

 

Performing

 

  When listening to Elgar’s Cello Concerto (op.85), one cannot help remembering the most gifted cellist Jacqueline du Pré. The film based on her sister’s memoir is dubbed with a Chinese title which literally means She Is Lonelier Than the Flowers of Smoke. I could not decide to marvel at this translation or reprove it as kitsch. Elgar’s Cello Concerto reminds me of T. S. Eliot’s poems, especially, perhaps, The Waste Land, though I have to admit the idiosyncratic association may appear to be a little farfetched.

  The CD I am listening to is performed by Yo-yo Ma. Ma’s interpretation sounds a little “hovering.” By hovering I mean that he has a kind of pre-knowledge of the “meaning” in the music, and he knows that he could live through the suffering and misery. That is, the player of the musical text has an assured mastery of the meaning behind it, and he is overtly self-assured and confident. Therefore, the skill is given a self-awared attention, and the player is half a step before the emotions in the music.

  For the representation or interpretation of pain, it is a hard issue. For the composer or author, to represent is to re-live, sometimes even more difficult than the actual experience, because when he was in the grip of pain the will to survive might be his driving force to live on. When representing it, he has to turn back and re-submerge into it and re-invest all the tiny moments of pleasure in the world in in-between years. This is deadly consuming.  That is why many writers commit suicide after they survived trauma and usually they took their own lives immediately after writing about it.

  Of course, Yo-yo Ma is not experiencing the pain. He is interpreting.

 

演奏

 

  听Elgar埃尔加的大提琴协奏曲,无法不想到Jacqueline du Pré杜普莱。那部电影的名字被中文翻译成《她比烟花寂寞》(不知道该惊艳还是责骂kitsch媚俗)。埃尔加的这个大提琴曲听来很重,从我这个读诗人的角度来听,难免会想到T.S.艾略特。大提琴是不是很男人的乐器,我无法说。记得最早着迷大提琴是在大学三年级,那时候写过一个短诗剧,只有两个演员的角色,也找好了一个学妹排演了;当然,最终没有上演。我在其中用的第一个主要道具就是大提琴,当时写那个诗剧脑子里很有一股浮士德在书斋的味道。一个教文学的老师也是一个诗人,拿去看了,说了一些很鼓励的话;呵呵,现在想起来,也许就是一些礼貌性的话。做诗人的,而且还是老师,大概总应该对学生有点屈尊鼓励才是应该的。

  我听的这个版本的演奏者是马友友,多少有点温暖了一些,或者有点抽离了吧。我觉得埃尔加应该比这个演奏更为沉重一点。马友友的演奏中带一点洋洋之气,也就是有点这一切我能对付的那种自觉,不是沉入、经过,而是心中有数:这一切苦痛虽然严重,然而我觉得似乎可以经受。这种自信最终使得演奏的感情或者演奏感比音乐所要传达的感情先走了一步这种自信最终使得演奏的感情或者演奏感比音乐所要传达的感情先走了一步,有一点飘(就像大部分很有技术/艺术自觉的诗歌阐释者阐释诗歌一样,当然并不能说是不好,而是说这样的阐释往往在给普通读者以技术指引的同时,使得读者不敢仅仅沉醉于那首诗的强烈感情)。

  而我觉得对于痛苦不应该是这样的,否则就不会真正懂得什么叫痛苦了。痛苦的再现和阐释,这是一个很难的论题。对于一个作者而言,再现就是重新经历,有时可能比实际经历的时候更加难以忍受。这是因为当他被痛苦钳制的时候,生存意志可以成为他活下去的驱动力,也就是对将来还能抱有希望。在再现的时候,他必须回过头来,重新沉浸到痛苦中,并且将日后的每一点小小的快乐时刻都重新投出其中。这种耗损是致命的。这也就是为什么很多作家在幸存多年,却在写出了痛苦之后,很快就自杀了。

  记得前几天读黑塞Herman Hesse的诗,有一首叫做Without You《没有你》,表面上似乎是情诗,但是这个更是死亡。该诗的第一节和最后一节几乎是重复的(有点像艺术歌曲):

   I never thought it would be so bitter

   To be alone,

   Not to lie down asleep in you hair.

     我从未想到过独自一人

     未能躺在你的长发间睡去

     竟会如此之苦

从这里的我从未想到过过渡到最后,成为:

   I never knew it would be so bitter

   To be alone

   Alone, without you.

     我从未体识过独自一人

     独自一人没有你

     竟会如此之苦

从想到到体识,这才是关键。这是说,不是我不知道或者没想到过其苦,而是说,没想到如此之苦。而这么苦的时候,就是在经历的时候说才行。否则就好像走在一个淤泥沟边上,深深体会着那个跋涉在淤泥中的人,感到自己似乎也陷入其中;然而,真正的识知,不是与那个人共鸣,而是自己一边走在淤泥沟中,一边说:没想到竟是这么艰难。这里的区别也就在于人们所说的:那个人领会吃透了那音乐,那个人就是音乐。

  马友友的演奏是很高超的,高而且超。然而,有时候人们应该听的不是演奏中的技术性高超和阐释,而是融入生命激情,也就是纯粹的私人版本。写诗读诗或许也应该是这样吧。

 

10/23/2007

Zheng Danyi's Poetry 诗

 
    
       郑单衣
排好日程,铺平纸张,血液沉稳、低吼
一个声音俯下
铺天盖地的身影说:可以
可以写作了
当山谷混合着明日歌声的全部音响
 
我撕开纱布绷带
我撕痛苦的皮给你看——
瞧,这就是
——正在变红的这只鸟
羽翼丰满,肌肉结实,包扎着骨骼
声带白银薄如蝉翼
整个地……再瞧
那天上的发育
 
以及,有力的她留在纸上的深深爪痕……
            1995.5
 
    Poetry
       By ZHENG Danyi  tr. FAN Jinghua
 
The schedule well-arranged, paper laid plain, blood howls calm and low
A sound stoops down
An all-embracing shadow to proclaim: Time
Has come for writing
As the valley blends with all the resonances of tomorrow’s songs
 
I peel off the gauze bandages
I peel off the skin of pain for your eyes—
Look, this is
Poetry—this bird turning red
Has grown full-fledged and strong-muscled, its bones well covered
Vocal cord silvery and flimsy as cicada wings
All in all…and take a second look
At the gestation in the sky
 
And deep scratches her powerful claws left on the paper…
                May 1995
 
About the Poet:
ZHENG Danyi (b. 1963) graduates from Southwest China Normal University in Chongqing in 1983 where he led a poetry society. He published poems when in university and self-published some chapbooks. His major collection of poetry Wings of Summer was published bilingual (translated into English by Mr. Luo Hui) in 2003 after he settled in Hong Kong.
 
和郑单衣相识多年,第一次竟然是在美国的印第安纳大学别人和我提到他的诗歌的英译草稿都留在Lilly Library。因为他那本《夏天的翅膀》的英文翻译罗辉在那所大学的比较文学系做翻译研究,主任Breon刚好是Lilly Library的馆长。这个图书馆收藏了一些作家的手稿等,那年我刚好去这个图书馆做Plath研究。
zheng Fan
10/5/2007

Reading Daphis and Chloe

    Reading Daphis and Chloe
         
(from Chinese original written on Aug.1, 2005)
  Afternoon, reclining on a couch, I read Ronald MaCail’s translation of Daphis and Chloe (OUP 2002). This is the prototype of romance, a pastoral. There seems to have a Chinese translation which I read in university. Remember Ravel’s ballet music, quite nice. The setting of this pastoral is Lesbos, the hometown of Sappho, and the word root of Lesbian (female homosexual). The Preface starts with:

    Out hunting in Lesbos,

    in a grove sacred to the Nymphs

    I saw a sight

    whose like, for beauty, I had never seen—

    a painting,

    a love story.
  
It is notable that Western novel starts with a two-dimension narration: description and painting. Here, a sight is a painting as well as a story. The sight of a site. This is the tradition of ekphrasis. Chinese literature privileges lyricism, and there is no ekphrasis in this sense.
  
Chloe’s first sensual feel of love and lust is stupefyingly vivid:
    
Now I am sick,
     
but I don’t know what with;
    
I am in pain,
     
yet have no wound upon me;
    
I am unhappy,
     
yet none of my sheep has been lost;
    
I am on fire,
     
and yet I am sitting deep in the shade.
    
How often have brambles scratched me
     
without making me weep!
    
How often have bees stung me
     
without making me cry!
  
Of course, these two are too innocent to quench the fire of desire, and they eventually learn from the sheep how to make love. Human beings have to learn the rear posture of sex from animals.

  下午,躺在沙发上,又看了一遍古希腊的小说Daphnis and Chloe《达夫尼斯与克洛伊》(牛津大学出版社2002Ronald McCail的新译本)。这可说是所有爱情小说的起源,似乎国内有过译本;而拉威尔的芭蕾舞音乐也很不错。这个田园牧歌的地点是Lesbos,也就是古希腊第一女诗人萨芙的故乡。《序幕》开始:

     在Lesbos出猎之时
     在水泽仙女们的圣林
     我眼见一景
     那般美色我未曾目睹
     一幅画

     一场爱情。
  西方小说之初,描写就在两个层面上展开:叙事与绘画。这里,一个场景就是一幅画,就是一个故事。对于一个场景/场地的视觉呈现,这是ekphrasis传统。中国重抒情轻叙事,因此没有严格意义上的ekphrasis(叙画诗文)。
  Chloe怀春的一段,写得痴痴的:
     眼下我病了,
      却不知道有啥问题;
     我非常痛苦,
      却全身没有伤口;
     我很不快乐,
      但我并没有丢失一只羊儿的羊儿;
     我火烧火燎,
      而我正坐在树荫之下。
     灌木刺扎了我多少次了,
      而我没有一滴泪水!
     蜜蜂蜇了我多少回了,
      而我没有叫喊一声!
 当然,这两个不解风情的少男少女是不知道如何消除这种欲火的,所以他们就学着羊的样子。呵呵,人类得向动物学习男后位。

 

7/2/2007

Kiln Workers Speaking of Reality 砖窑奴工谈到现实

Shanxi Enslaved Kiln Worker 山西黑砖窑奴工