【EXLIBRIS】随笔记 002

  随 笔 记 <二>

Swift和Pope是朋友，当然也有分歧。1660年，要建立一个英格兰国家学院的想法逐步形成，想要固定、“纯洁”他们的语言。Dryden力倡此举，之后还有Defoe的Essays upon Projects及Swift的A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tougue，而同时站在他们对面的是Thomas Sheridan, Pope还有Dr. Johnson，他们认为想把一种语言固定下来是徒劳的，因为任何东西都不能真正阻止语言的演变。Pope在其Essay On Criticism里说Dryden有一天会和Chaucer一样喜欢古语的。

Pope对古语的确爱好，深受法国古典主义文学理论家Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux的影响，认为只有自然才是值得研究和描写的对象，诗人不能离开自然，并认为古希腊、罗马的诗歌是最优秀的艺术典范，Pope就是遵循着这种古典主义的原则进行文学创作的：

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; These shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largerly sobers us again.                                           ---- Essay on Criticism

Pope喜欢用Heroic Couplet，这是a pair of rhymed lines of iambic pentameter，是由Chaucer引入英国，

这种诗体reached a height of popularity and sophistication in the works of Dryden and Pope。我也写过一个shabby的Heroic Couplet J：

On Tolerance But who can tell the love from hate, I doubt, Ability to do with or without.                                                           Jan.16.2000 These words came to me a couple of days ago in prose which I put down as "love and hatred, but to do with and to do without"(sounds melancholy? But no! It is generosity and tolerance.) I, somehow, stubbornly believe that it could be translated into a poem. So last night, lying in bed, after turning off the light and before sinking into fast sleep, I produced my first couplet (if you don't mind my calling it 'couplet') in iambic pentameter. Do let me know your advice on this shabby couplet, or simply tell me whether you can "do with it" or "do without it". May the lines survive me.                                                       Jan.17.2000 我怀疑有谁能将爱与恨分清， 爱是有她可以，恨是没她也行。                                                   translated   Jan.17.2000

 

Sonnet也至少有三种Rhymes：

A．Italian style：abba abba cdcdee，这种abba叫做抱韵(envelope rhyme)，全诗十四行分作三个stanzas：4 4 6；

B．Spenser style：则是abab的韵，三个stanzas的诗行分配仍为4 4 6；

C．著名的Shakespearean style：abab cdcd efef gg；

Heroic Couplet里用的是iambic抑扬格ˇ ˉ ，即第一个音节是轻音，unaccented或thesis，第二个音节是重音，accent或ictus，这两个音节构成一个音步foot；其它的格有：trochee扬抑格、anapestic  抑抑扬格、dactyli扬抑抑格，这些meter中只有一个ictus；另一种spondee扬扬格有两个ictus，还有pyrrhic抑抑格只有两个thesis；amphibrach抑扬抑格，读起来就像arrangement，ˇ ˉ ˇ。

这种Heroic Couplet采用pentameter五音步，即一行有5个meters/feet，顺着数过来应该是：monometer, dimeter, trimester, tetrameter, pentameter, hexmeter, heptameter, octameter, …

根据行数可以将诗分为couplet, triplet/terza rima, quatrain等，一直到十四行的sonnet。