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摘 要:理查德克利(Richard Cory)是罗宾森(Edwin Arlington Robinson)最著名的短篇诗歌之一。克利如皇帝般的生活受到普通劳动阶层的仰慕,然而他回到家用一把手枪打穿自己的头颅震惊了所有人。生活于一战其间,罗宾森和他的同一时代的人一起遭遇了传统和信仰的迷失。克利似遭受了诅咒一般,不能再相信生活是有价值的。他因精神空洞和与周围人群的疏远感而结束了自己的生命。这种蔓延的迷失感正是Robinson试图在诗中表达的主题,由此作者也试图寻求生命意义的所在。
关键词:罗宾森 理查德克利 传统信仰的迷失 生命的意义
1、Introduction
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), America’s greatest living poet in the 1920s, was a poet of transition. (Coxe, 1976) He was, as Robert Frost noted in his preface to King Jasper, “content with the old way to be new”. (Coxe, 1976) First published in E. A. Robinson's second book of poems, Children of the Night, “Richard Cory” is one of the short, lyrical and dramatic character sketches that Robinson is now best known for. Robinson created an imaginary place called “Tilbury Town,” which he peopled with various failed and frustrated people. Richard Cory is one of those people.
There were various critical voices on this short yet classical poem. As far as Robinson’s poetic features are concerned, Moore claimed (1924) that Robinson cares for humanity and art which makes his works stand out with a self-sustaining stiffness that is not mere exterior North American correctness, and gives it an aspect of solitary, mystical security of possession. Referring to the structure Lucas argued (1985) that it had the “plain-Jane” manner that Robinson loves to affect. He continued to say that it let Robinson gain for himself just the right amount of freedom to let otherwise unremarkable phrases stand out.(Lucas, 1985) To mention its theme Ed. Mary K. Ruby hold (1999) that the poem may be read as an ironic comment on the American dream of wealth, success, and power. Barnard put (1952) it exactly to the point that somehow Richard Cory was cursed with the inability to believe that life is worth living. Cory killed himself for some unspecified reason, perhaps a spiritual emptiness or alienation from his fellow human beings. His death left the people who wanted to be like him wondering about the purpose of life. The speaker, a representative of the working class people who admired and envied Cory, thought of the man in medieval terms as a king. Robinson seemed to question the values of both Cory and the speaker, as well as to make an ironic comment on the American dream. This paper is in three parts researching into the theme of this short poem from aspects of the historical period the author lived and his poetical feature.
2、Theme of Robinson’s poetry: the lost tradition and faith
2.1. The society was lost itself in tradition and faith: the historical background.
World War I started a new stage in human history. Yet it also marked a huge transition period in human intellectual world. America’s participation in World War I marked a crucial stage in the nation’s evolution to a world power. However, it involved American artists and thinkers with terrible actualities of large-scale modern war, so different from imagined heroism. The senses of a great civilization being destroyed or destroying itself, of social breakdown, and of individual powerlessness became part of the American experience as result of its participation in World War I, with resulting feelings of fear, disorientation, and on occasion, liberation. It was so-called “Modern temper”. (Baym, 1989:932) Urbanization, industrialization, and immigration had been altering the appearance and character of the United States since the end of the Civil War and they continued apace after the World War I.(Baym, 1989:927) All those stand for a new form of civilization which was so different from those before came out with so disturbing force. People were confused once again standing on the road of human civilization.
Robinson was not an exception. He was also lost like his fellow man. As a poet of this era, he was sharper than his contemporaries in sensing the transition of the society and human civilization. Baym (1989) draw the conclusion that much serious literature written between 1914 and 1945 attempted to convey a vision of social decay through appropriate techniques, or tried to develop a conservative literature that could counter social breakdown. He made poetry his career. He neither travelled nor taught; neither married nor made public appearances as a form of rejecting the social change and the corresponding human tragedy and meanwhile holding firmly to some past value. He carried this credo out with his own life experience.
2.2. The overwhelming lost: Robinson’s poetical feature.
Robinson was a poet regarded as transitional. (Coxe, 1976) He was, as Robert Frost noted in his preface to King Jasper, “content with the old way to be new.” (Joyner, 1994) The old way was his unwavering insistence on traditional forms. Yet Robinson was new in his attitudes in and toward his poetry. His poetry was always dealing with modern subjects concerning the current social problems. This poetic feature he possessed reflects Robinson’s nostalgia-complex toward the old way of life and the past civilization. He failed to find a balance between his faith of life and the current changed society. Therefore his life as well as his poetry was suffused with overwhelming lost. Thus Robinson’s poems discussed the themes of American dream of wealth, success, and power. He cared for humanity as well as for art. Like a solitary and tough soldier he stand alone, with his pen he was sticking to the so-called old value in the hope to recall the brightness of humanity. We heard a voice, calm and sure, speaking out of and into the darkness, telling us of loneliness, sorrow, defeat, endurance. (Lewis, 1973)
Robinson’s “Richard Cory” is an ironic comment on the American dream of wealth, success, and power. In “Richard Cory” Robinson created a king-like figure that was admired by common people:
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
……
This gentleman’s existence firstly brings a sharp contrast with the majority of working class people, which is a reflection of the social reality at that time, when most people were suffering while there few privileged existed. Secondly, it was a token of Robinson’s nostalgic complex over the past graceful, genteel society. He failed to be adjusted to the current social state. There’s where his ‘lost’ lies.
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good morning’ and he glittered when he walked.
……
Here a transition in tone marked the author’s sympathetic attitude to the hero. Though he was graceful, privileged, ‘a gentleman from sole to crown’, however, it’s obvious that he was uneasy and nervous as a result of marginalization. He was not happy though he was:
And he was rich--yes, richer than a king---
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
……
And what kind of people are ‘we’ and in what situation? Robinson continued as:
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
We are representatives of the majority of common people, laboring for bread. In our eyes Richard Cory has everything and therefore is everything, ‘to make us wish that we were in his place’.
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night;
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
He kills himself for lack of faith. The modern society breaks up with the cultivated and decent tradition on which a gentleman lives. Somehow Richard Cory is cursed with the inability to believe that life is worth living. The lack of living purpose makes life intolerable. So Cory kills himself for a spiritual emptiness and alienation from his fellow human beings. Here Robinson makes an ironic comment on the so-called American dream of wealth and success on the one hand. Richard Cory is such a successful king-like American, yet he is lost in his life, finding no way out but killed himself. On the other hand the values of modern man like Richard Cory as well as that of the ‘people on the pavement’ ‘we’ are also questioned. What they are sticking to or dreaming about seems illusion more than faith. Since the modern society is lost in tradition as well as faith.
Robinson was melancholy on the issue. Louis Coxe (1976) made the argument that to Robinson, life and humanity were failures because as they always lack proper natures. Robinson was never so romantically disillusioned that he could be for long disturbed over the discrepancy between actual and ideal, illusion and reality; for him the real irony, the comedy, and lay in man's willful misconception of life and his role in it.
3、Conclusion
Nancy Carol Joyner (1994) hold the idea that Robinson may be called an impersonal romantic, breaking with the 19th-century tradition by objectifying and dramatizing emotional reactions while at the same time emphasizing sentiment and mystical awareness. In a letter to the Bookman in 1897, responding to the charge that he was pessimistic, he wrote, “This world is not a ‘prison house,’ but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”(Joyner, 1994)
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s own life experience gave food to his poetic talent. The time he lived in marked the tone of his poem. He was nostalgia and lost. Richard Cory is somewhat representative of ‘gentleman class’ of that time. He is confused and lost, finding o meaning in life than life to him unbearable. Here Robinson also makes an ironic comment on the so-called American dream of wealth and success and the values of all modern man including the working class. He claimed that the modern society is lost in tradition as well as faith. Then what’s the meaning of life in his eye? Something lost maybe is just the answer.
Reference
[1]Baym, Nina.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. W.W. Norton&Company:
NewYork • London, 1989
[2]Barnard, Ellsworth. “Characters: A Spiritual Genealogy.” Edwin Arlington Robinson. Macmillan Publishing Company, 1952. 121-148. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon K. Hall. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981. 121-148. Literature Resource Center.
[3]Coxe, Louis. “Edwin Arlington Robinson: The Lost Tradition.” Enabling Acts: Selected Essays in Criticism. University of Missouri Press, 1976. 7-26. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 7-26. Literature Resource Center. Gale.
[4]Ed. Mary K. Ruby.”Overview: ‘Richard Cory’.” Poetry for Students. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1999. Literature Resource Center.
[5]Lucas, John. “The Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson.” Moderns & Contemporaries: Novelists, Poets, Critics. The Harvester Press, 1985. 27-45. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 27-45. Literature Resource Center.
[6]Lewis, R. W. B. “E. A. Robinson, A Voice Out of the Darkness.” Literary Reflections, A Shoring of Images 1960-1993. Northeastern University Press, 1993. 154-176. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.
[7]Moore, Marianne. “The Man Who Died Twice.” Dial. 77.(Aug. 1924): 168-170. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 168-170. Literature Resource Center.
[8]Joyner, Nancy Carol. “Edwin Arlington Robinson: Overview.” Reference Guide to American Literature. Ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Literature Resource Center.
[9]Untermeyer, Louis, “Edwin Arlington Robinson.” American Poetry Since 1900. Henry Holt and Company, 1923. 40-66.Rpt. In Poetry Criticism, Ed. Robyn V. Young. Vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. 40-66. Literature Resource Center.
[10]刘守兰,2002,英美名诗解读[M]上海:上海外国语教育出版社
关键词:罗宾森 理查德克利 传统信仰的迷失 生命的意义
1、Introduction
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), America’s greatest living poet in the 1920s, was a poet of transition. (Coxe, 1976) He was, as Robert Frost noted in his preface to King Jasper, “content with the old way to be new”. (Coxe, 1976) First published in E. A. Robinson's second book of poems, Children of the Night, “Richard Cory” is one of the short, lyrical and dramatic character sketches that Robinson is now best known for. Robinson created an imaginary place called “Tilbury Town,” which he peopled with various failed and frustrated people. Richard Cory is one of those people.
There were various critical voices on this short yet classical poem. As far as Robinson’s poetic features are concerned, Moore claimed (1924) that Robinson cares for humanity and art which makes his works stand out with a self-sustaining stiffness that is not mere exterior North American correctness, and gives it an aspect of solitary, mystical security of possession. Referring to the structure Lucas argued (1985) that it had the “plain-Jane” manner that Robinson loves to affect. He continued to say that it let Robinson gain for himself just the right amount of freedom to let otherwise unremarkable phrases stand out.(Lucas, 1985) To mention its theme Ed. Mary K. Ruby hold (1999) that the poem may be read as an ironic comment on the American dream of wealth, success, and power. Barnard put (1952) it exactly to the point that somehow Richard Cory was cursed with the inability to believe that life is worth living. Cory killed himself for some unspecified reason, perhaps a spiritual emptiness or alienation from his fellow human beings. His death left the people who wanted to be like him wondering about the purpose of life. The speaker, a representative of the working class people who admired and envied Cory, thought of the man in medieval terms as a king. Robinson seemed to question the values of both Cory and the speaker, as well as to make an ironic comment on the American dream. This paper is in three parts researching into the theme of this short poem from aspects of the historical period the author lived and his poetical feature.
2、Theme of Robinson’s poetry: the lost tradition and faith
2.1. The society was lost itself in tradition and faith: the historical background.
World War I started a new stage in human history. Yet it also marked a huge transition period in human intellectual world. America’s participation in World War I marked a crucial stage in the nation’s evolution to a world power. However, it involved American artists and thinkers with terrible actualities of large-scale modern war, so different from imagined heroism. The senses of a great civilization being destroyed or destroying itself, of social breakdown, and of individual powerlessness became part of the American experience as result of its participation in World War I, with resulting feelings of fear, disorientation, and on occasion, liberation. It was so-called “Modern temper”. (Baym, 1989:932) Urbanization, industrialization, and immigration had been altering the appearance and character of the United States since the end of the Civil War and they continued apace after the World War I.(Baym, 1989:927) All those stand for a new form of civilization which was so different from those before came out with so disturbing force. People were confused once again standing on the road of human civilization.
Robinson was not an exception. He was also lost like his fellow man. As a poet of this era, he was sharper than his contemporaries in sensing the transition of the society and human civilization. Baym (1989) draw the conclusion that much serious literature written between 1914 and 1945 attempted to convey a vision of social decay through appropriate techniques, or tried to develop a conservative literature that could counter social breakdown. He made poetry his career. He neither travelled nor taught; neither married nor made public appearances as a form of rejecting the social change and the corresponding human tragedy and meanwhile holding firmly to some past value. He carried this credo out with his own life experience.
2.2. The overwhelming lost: Robinson’s poetical feature.
Robinson was a poet regarded as transitional. (Coxe, 1976) He was, as Robert Frost noted in his preface to King Jasper, “content with the old way to be new.” (Joyner, 1994) The old way was his unwavering insistence on traditional forms. Yet Robinson was new in his attitudes in and toward his poetry. His poetry was always dealing with modern subjects concerning the current social problems. This poetic feature he possessed reflects Robinson’s nostalgia-complex toward the old way of life and the past civilization. He failed to find a balance between his faith of life and the current changed society. Therefore his life as well as his poetry was suffused with overwhelming lost. Thus Robinson’s poems discussed the themes of American dream of wealth, success, and power. He cared for humanity as well as for art. Like a solitary and tough soldier he stand alone, with his pen he was sticking to the so-called old value in the hope to recall the brightness of humanity. We heard a voice, calm and sure, speaking out of and into the darkness, telling us of loneliness, sorrow, defeat, endurance. (Lewis, 1973)
Robinson’s “Richard Cory” is an ironic comment on the American dream of wealth, success, and power. In “Richard Cory” Robinson created a king-like figure that was admired by common people:
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
……
This gentleman’s existence firstly brings a sharp contrast with the majority of working class people, which is a reflection of the social reality at that time, when most people were suffering while there few privileged existed. Secondly, it was a token of Robinson’s nostalgic complex over the past graceful, genteel society. He failed to be adjusted to the current social state. There’s where his ‘lost’ lies.
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good morning’ and he glittered when he walked.
……
Here a transition in tone marked the author’s sympathetic attitude to the hero. Though he was graceful, privileged, ‘a gentleman from sole to crown’, however, it’s obvious that he was uneasy and nervous as a result of marginalization. He was not happy though he was:
And he was rich--yes, richer than a king---
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
……
And what kind of people are ‘we’ and in what situation? Robinson continued as:
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
We are representatives of the majority of common people, laboring for bread. In our eyes Richard Cory has everything and therefore is everything, ‘to make us wish that we were in his place’.
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night;
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
He kills himself for lack of faith. The modern society breaks up with the cultivated and decent tradition on which a gentleman lives. Somehow Richard Cory is cursed with the inability to believe that life is worth living. The lack of living purpose makes life intolerable. So Cory kills himself for a spiritual emptiness and alienation from his fellow human beings. Here Robinson makes an ironic comment on the so-called American dream of wealth and success on the one hand. Richard Cory is such a successful king-like American, yet he is lost in his life, finding no way out but killed himself. On the other hand the values of modern man like Richard Cory as well as that of the ‘people on the pavement’ ‘we’ are also questioned. What they are sticking to or dreaming about seems illusion more than faith. Since the modern society is lost in tradition as well as faith.
Robinson was melancholy on the issue. Louis Coxe (1976) made the argument that to Robinson, life and humanity were failures because as they always lack proper natures. Robinson was never so romantically disillusioned that he could be for long disturbed over the discrepancy between actual and ideal, illusion and reality; for him the real irony, the comedy, and lay in man's willful misconception of life and his role in it.
3、Conclusion
Nancy Carol Joyner (1994) hold the idea that Robinson may be called an impersonal romantic, breaking with the 19th-century tradition by objectifying and dramatizing emotional reactions while at the same time emphasizing sentiment and mystical awareness. In a letter to the Bookman in 1897, responding to the charge that he was pessimistic, he wrote, “This world is not a ‘prison house,’ but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”(Joyner, 1994)
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s own life experience gave food to his poetic talent. The time he lived in marked the tone of his poem. He was nostalgia and lost. Richard Cory is somewhat representative of ‘gentleman class’ of that time. He is confused and lost, finding o meaning in life than life to him unbearable. Here Robinson also makes an ironic comment on the so-called American dream of wealth and success and the values of all modern man including the working class. He claimed that the modern society is lost in tradition as well as faith. Then what’s the meaning of life in his eye? Something lost maybe is just the answer.
Reference
[1]Baym, Nina.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. W.W. Norton&Company:
NewYork • London, 1989
[2]Barnard, Ellsworth. “Characters: A Spiritual Genealogy.” Edwin Arlington Robinson. Macmillan Publishing Company, 1952. 121-148. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon K. Hall. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981. 121-148. Literature Resource Center.
[3]Coxe, Louis. “Edwin Arlington Robinson: The Lost Tradition.” Enabling Acts: Selected Essays in Criticism. University of Missouri Press, 1976. 7-26. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 7-26. Literature Resource Center. Gale.
[4]Ed. Mary K. Ruby.”Overview: ‘Richard Cory’.” Poetry for Students. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1999. Literature Resource Center.
[5]Lucas, John. “The Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson.” Moderns & Contemporaries: Novelists, Poets, Critics. The Harvester Press, 1985. 27-45. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 27-45. Literature Resource Center.
[6]Lewis, R. W. B. “E. A. Robinson, A Voice Out of the Darkness.” Literary Reflections, A Shoring of Images 1960-1993. Northeastern University Press, 1993. 154-176. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.
[7]Moore, Marianne. “The Man Who Died Twice.” Dial. 77.(Aug. 1924): 168-170. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Jennifer Baise and Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 168-170. Literature Resource Center.
[8]Joyner, Nancy Carol. “Edwin Arlington Robinson: Overview.” Reference Guide to American Literature. Ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Literature Resource Center.
[9]Untermeyer, Louis, “Edwin Arlington Robinson.” American Poetry Since 1900. Henry Holt and Company, 1923. 40-66.Rpt. In Poetry Criticism, Ed. Robyn V. Young. Vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. 40-66. Literature Resource Center.
[10]刘守兰,2002,英美名诗解读[M]上海:上海外国语教育出版社