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There is a big difference between “place” and“landscape”, even though the words are often used interchangeably1. The original meaning of“landscape” came from 17th-century artistic discourse. It referred to “a picture representing natural inland scenery” and the term has continued to be associated with visual perceptions of land. Regardless of the scope of its perspective, whether small or large, landscape includes awareness of how the land has been shaped by human or natural agencies. It is not “wilderness”. It is not “pristine”.2 “Place” is more personal and multidimensional altogether. It is temporal as well as spatial, because it thickens with personal memories, local stories,history and archaeology.3 It’s not just a question of how things look, but of how things feel to those who know it well.
Postcodes and map coordinates offer precise locations, but don’t fully distinguish one place from another. The feelings associated with local stories and histories become attached to particular features—triumph or humiliation on the school sports field; tender trysts beneath the cherry trees; the proud hotel that once opened its doors to celebrity guests; the house wounded by the fatal fire.4 The stories that can cluster around ordinary features usually remain invisible to outsiders, and even events startling enough to hit the national headlines rapidly become yesterday’s news.5 People passing through see little of the life within those streets. For those looking on from a distance, buildings are houses, not homes. They might be architectural gems in stunning surroundings,6 but they won’t possess the intimate associations that transform landscape into place.
William Wordsworth7 thought that landscapes should become places. He grew up in the English Lake District8, but it was personal experience and the stories of those who lived there that mattered most to Wordsworth. Many of his poems recreate the hidden lives of those who left their traces on the land; others convey vivid memories of personal experiences that altered the landscape for ever—turning it into a deeply felt place.
In Preoccupations (1980), Seamus Heaney, a modern poet of place, paid special tribute to Wordsworth as“the first man to articulate the nurture that becomes available to the feelings through dwelling in one dear perpetual place”.9 But though Wordsworth wrote so passionately about the region he had known since birth, its special meaning dawned on him10 fully only when he wasn’t there. His first substantial poem was written after he left the Lakes to study at Cambridge, while a very cold winter in Germany prompted his later recollections of his Lakeland boyhood in The Prelude (1850).11 It was only after a decade of restless travelling that Wordsworth returned to settle in Grasmere with his sister Dorothy,12 and then poem after poem poured out. Places can require absence, at least to be felt most deeply. So perspective matters when it comes to place. Recently, cultural geographers have challenged assumptions about the apparent difference between insider and outsider perspectives, because of the less desirable implications of dividing people into those who “belong” and others who “do not belong”. The excluded might come from another region or race, or merely fail to conform to local norms. This has led to new readings of place in terms of stasis and mobility. Instead of regarding “place” as stable and ultimately knowable to those who belong there, it might be understood as a much more mobile space, open to numerous experiences and characterised also by its confluence13 of passing people.
In recent years, David Hockney’s14 great sequence of Yorkshire landscapes is perhaps the most powerful response to a place. The artist has given us, unquestionably, landscapes, in that they represent real scenes from a particular spot, but they are also passionate celebrations15 of places, created by someone who has known the area all his life. Hockney’s series combines the wide view of the internationally travelled artist with the profound understanding of a deeply rooted Yorkshireman. They represent landscape and place.
place和landscape之間有很大的区别,尽管这两个词常常可以互换使用。landscape的词源是17世纪的艺术语汇,意为“一幅表现内陆自然风光的画面”,这一词汇一直以来与人们对陆地的视觉感受相关。不论视角范围大小,landscape包含了一种认知,即陆地是如何被人为或者自然之力所塑造的,既不是“荒山野岭”,也不是“未凿之地”。 place总而言之则更私人化,更具层次,与时空相关,随着个人记忆、当地轶事、历史和考古而愈发厚重;问题的核心不是一个地方看起来如何,而是它让那些熟知它的人们感受如何。
邮编和地图坐标虽然能提供准确的位置,但不能详尽区分各地的不同。一些特殊的地点往往承载着与地方轶事和历史相关的感悟:学校运动场上的成败荣辱、樱桃树下的柔情秘会、因接待过名人贵宾而门庭荣光的酒店、遭受大火重创的宅子。这些围绕特定地点展开的故事往往不为外人所见,甚至那些登上全国媒体头条的惊人事件也会迅速沦为昨日旧闻。往来路过的人们几乎窥见不到街头巷尾中的生活。对于那些从远处旁观之人,建筑只是一座座房子,而不是一个个家庭。那些屋宇可能是绝佳环境中的上乘建筑,但并不具备那些将landscape转变为place的亲密关系。
威廉·华兹华斯认为,landscape应该变成place。他在英格兰湖区长大,但对他而言个人经历和当地人的故事才是最重要的。他的许多诗作都重现了那些在这片土地上留下痕迹的人们的隐秘生活;还有些传达了个人经历的生动记忆,这些记忆永远地改变了landscape,将其转变成了令人感受至深的place。
在《先人之见》(1980)中,谢默斯·希尼,一位“地方”现代诗人,向华兹华斯致以了特殊的敬意,称赞他为“将久居于自己深爱之地所产生的,且能感知于心的育化之力明确表达出来的第一人”。虽然华兹华斯对那片他从出生起就了解的土地进行了激情澎湃的描写,但只有当他背井离乡时,才幡然领悟到其特殊意义之所在。他实质意义上的第一首诗是在他离开湖区前往剑桥学习时写就的,而后来有关他在湖区童年回忆的《序曲》(1850)则是在德国一个异常寒冷的冬天促成的。经过10年漂泊不定后,华兹华斯才回到格拉斯米尔,与妹妹多萝西同住,此后其诗作一首首涌现。places有时会需要离别,至少如此才会感受至深。
所以,对于place来说,视角就尤为重要。最近,文化地理学家们对那些认为“局内人”与“局外人”视角存在明显区别的种种假设产生了质疑,因为这些假设暗地里将人分为“本地人”与“外来户”两类,是不可取的。那些不被接纳的人或许来自其他地区或者种族,或者仅仅是无法适应当地的规则。这就引发了从固定性与流动性角度而言对place的新解读。place不再一成不变,基本上只能为那些本地人所了解,而是也能理解成一个流动性更强的空间,接纳多种体验,以汇集了来来往往的人们为特点。
近年来,大卫·霍克尼伟大的约克郡风景系列画作也许是对place最有力的回应。这位艺术家给我们带来的,毫无疑问的是landscapes,通过画作反映从某个特定的视点所看到的真实景色,但它们也同样是对place的盛情赞颂,是某个生于斯长于斯、对当地知根知底的人创作出来的。霍克尼的系列画作结合了一位周游世界的艺术家拥有的广阔视野,加之一个根深蒂固的约克郡人拥有的深刻理解。它们同时表现了landscape和place。 1. interchangeably: 可互换地,可交替地。
2. pristine: 未开发的,处于原始状态的。
3. temporal: 暂时的,当时的;spatial:存在于空间的,受空间条件限制的;archaeology: 考古學。
4. triumph: 胜利,成功;humiliation:耻辱;蒙羞;feature: 地形,地貌;tryst: 幽会,约会;fatal: 重大的,毁灭性的。
5. cluster: 使聚集;startling: 令人吃惊的,触目惊心的。
6. gem: 宝石;stunning: 极美的,绝妙的。
7. William Wordsworth: 威廉·华兹华斯(1770—1850),英国浪漫主义诗人,与雪莱、拜伦齐名,代表作有与塞缪尔·柯尔律治合著的《抒情歌谣集》、长诗《序曲》、《漫游》等,被封为桂冠诗人(1843)。
8. English Lake District: 英格兰湖区,位于英格兰西北海岸,方圆2300平方公里,因19世纪诗人华兹华斯的作品以及湖畔诗人而著称。
9. Seamus Heaney: 谢默斯·希尼(1939—2013),爱尔兰诗人,1995年获诺贝尔文学奖,代表作有诗集《一位自然主义者之死》、《故地轮回》等,《先人之见》是其论文选集;articulate: 明确有力地表达;nurture: 养育,营养物;dwell in: 居住在;perpetual: 永久的,无期限的。
10. dawn on sb.: 理解,意识到。
11. substantial: 实质的,内容充实的;prompt: 促进,激起。
12. Grasmere: 英格兰格拉斯米尔湖区,诗人华兹华斯的故乡;Dorothy: Dorothy Wordsworth,多萝西·华兹华斯(1771—1855),英国作家、诗人,威廉·华兹华斯的妹妹。
13. confluence: (人或物的)汇合,聚集。
14. David Hockney: 大卫·霍克尼(1937— ),英国画家、版画家、舞台设计师及摄影师,生于英国布拉德福德,绘画代表作为《克利斯多夫·伊修伍德和唐·巴查笛》和《克拉克夫妇俩》。
15. celebration: 颂扬。
Postcodes and map coordinates offer precise locations, but don’t fully distinguish one place from another. The feelings associated with local stories and histories become attached to particular features—triumph or humiliation on the school sports field; tender trysts beneath the cherry trees; the proud hotel that once opened its doors to celebrity guests; the house wounded by the fatal fire.4 The stories that can cluster around ordinary features usually remain invisible to outsiders, and even events startling enough to hit the national headlines rapidly become yesterday’s news.5 People passing through see little of the life within those streets. For those looking on from a distance, buildings are houses, not homes. They might be architectural gems in stunning surroundings,6 but they won’t possess the intimate associations that transform landscape into place.
William Wordsworth7 thought that landscapes should become places. He grew up in the English Lake District8, but it was personal experience and the stories of those who lived there that mattered most to Wordsworth. Many of his poems recreate the hidden lives of those who left their traces on the land; others convey vivid memories of personal experiences that altered the landscape for ever—turning it into a deeply felt place.
In Preoccupations (1980), Seamus Heaney, a modern poet of place, paid special tribute to Wordsworth as“the first man to articulate the nurture that becomes available to the feelings through dwelling in one dear perpetual place”.9 But though Wordsworth wrote so passionately about the region he had known since birth, its special meaning dawned on him10 fully only when he wasn’t there. His first substantial poem was written after he left the Lakes to study at Cambridge, while a very cold winter in Germany prompted his later recollections of his Lakeland boyhood in The Prelude (1850).11 It was only after a decade of restless travelling that Wordsworth returned to settle in Grasmere with his sister Dorothy,12 and then poem after poem poured out. Places can require absence, at least to be felt most deeply. So perspective matters when it comes to place. Recently, cultural geographers have challenged assumptions about the apparent difference between insider and outsider perspectives, because of the less desirable implications of dividing people into those who “belong” and others who “do not belong”. The excluded might come from another region or race, or merely fail to conform to local norms. This has led to new readings of place in terms of stasis and mobility. Instead of regarding “place” as stable and ultimately knowable to those who belong there, it might be understood as a much more mobile space, open to numerous experiences and characterised also by its confluence13 of passing people.
In recent years, David Hockney’s14 great sequence of Yorkshire landscapes is perhaps the most powerful response to a place. The artist has given us, unquestionably, landscapes, in that they represent real scenes from a particular spot, but they are also passionate celebrations15 of places, created by someone who has known the area all his life. Hockney’s series combines the wide view of the internationally travelled artist with the profound understanding of a deeply rooted Yorkshireman. They represent landscape and place.
place和landscape之間有很大的区别,尽管这两个词常常可以互换使用。landscape的词源是17世纪的艺术语汇,意为“一幅表现内陆自然风光的画面”,这一词汇一直以来与人们对陆地的视觉感受相关。不论视角范围大小,landscape包含了一种认知,即陆地是如何被人为或者自然之力所塑造的,既不是“荒山野岭”,也不是“未凿之地”。 place总而言之则更私人化,更具层次,与时空相关,随着个人记忆、当地轶事、历史和考古而愈发厚重;问题的核心不是一个地方看起来如何,而是它让那些熟知它的人们感受如何。
邮编和地图坐标虽然能提供准确的位置,但不能详尽区分各地的不同。一些特殊的地点往往承载着与地方轶事和历史相关的感悟:学校运动场上的成败荣辱、樱桃树下的柔情秘会、因接待过名人贵宾而门庭荣光的酒店、遭受大火重创的宅子。这些围绕特定地点展开的故事往往不为外人所见,甚至那些登上全国媒体头条的惊人事件也会迅速沦为昨日旧闻。往来路过的人们几乎窥见不到街头巷尾中的生活。对于那些从远处旁观之人,建筑只是一座座房子,而不是一个个家庭。那些屋宇可能是绝佳环境中的上乘建筑,但并不具备那些将landscape转变为place的亲密关系。
威廉·华兹华斯认为,landscape应该变成place。他在英格兰湖区长大,但对他而言个人经历和当地人的故事才是最重要的。他的许多诗作都重现了那些在这片土地上留下痕迹的人们的隐秘生活;还有些传达了个人经历的生动记忆,这些记忆永远地改变了landscape,将其转变成了令人感受至深的place。
在《先人之见》(1980)中,谢默斯·希尼,一位“地方”现代诗人,向华兹华斯致以了特殊的敬意,称赞他为“将久居于自己深爱之地所产生的,且能感知于心的育化之力明确表达出来的第一人”。虽然华兹华斯对那片他从出生起就了解的土地进行了激情澎湃的描写,但只有当他背井离乡时,才幡然领悟到其特殊意义之所在。他实质意义上的第一首诗是在他离开湖区前往剑桥学习时写就的,而后来有关他在湖区童年回忆的《序曲》(1850)则是在德国一个异常寒冷的冬天促成的。经过10年漂泊不定后,华兹华斯才回到格拉斯米尔,与妹妹多萝西同住,此后其诗作一首首涌现。places有时会需要离别,至少如此才会感受至深。
所以,对于place来说,视角就尤为重要。最近,文化地理学家们对那些认为“局内人”与“局外人”视角存在明显区别的种种假设产生了质疑,因为这些假设暗地里将人分为“本地人”与“外来户”两类,是不可取的。那些不被接纳的人或许来自其他地区或者种族,或者仅仅是无法适应当地的规则。这就引发了从固定性与流动性角度而言对place的新解读。place不再一成不变,基本上只能为那些本地人所了解,而是也能理解成一个流动性更强的空间,接纳多种体验,以汇集了来来往往的人们为特点。
近年来,大卫·霍克尼伟大的约克郡风景系列画作也许是对place最有力的回应。这位艺术家给我们带来的,毫无疑问的是landscapes,通过画作反映从某个特定的视点所看到的真实景色,但它们也同样是对place的盛情赞颂,是某个生于斯长于斯、对当地知根知底的人创作出来的。霍克尼的系列画作结合了一位周游世界的艺术家拥有的广阔视野,加之一个根深蒂固的约克郡人拥有的深刻理解。它们同时表现了landscape和place。 1. interchangeably: 可互换地,可交替地。
2. pristine: 未开发的,处于原始状态的。
3. temporal: 暂时的,当时的;spatial:存在于空间的,受空间条件限制的;archaeology: 考古學。
4. triumph: 胜利,成功;humiliation:耻辱;蒙羞;feature: 地形,地貌;tryst: 幽会,约会;fatal: 重大的,毁灭性的。
5. cluster: 使聚集;startling: 令人吃惊的,触目惊心的。
6. gem: 宝石;stunning: 极美的,绝妙的。
7. William Wordsworth: 威廉·华兹华斯(1770—1850),英国浪漫主义诗人,与雪莱、拜伦齐名,代表作有与塞缪尔·柯尔律治合著的《抒情歌谣集》、长诗《序曲》、《漫游》等,被封为桂冠诗人(1843)。
8. English Lake District: 英格兰湖区,位于英格兰西北海岸,方圆2300平方公里,因19世纪诗人华兹华斯的作品以及湖畔诗人而著称。
9. Seamus Heaney: 谢默斯·希尼(1939—2013),爱尔兰诗人,1995年获诺贝尔文学奖,代表作有诗集《一位自然主义者之死》、《故地轮回》等,《先人之见》是其论文选集;articulate: 明确有力地表达;nurture: 养育,营养物;dwell in: 居住在;perpetual: 永久的,无期限的。
10. dawn on sb.: 理解,意识到。
11. substantial: 实质的,内容充实的;prompt: 促进,激起。
12. Grasmere: 英格兰格拉斯米尔湖区,诗人华兹华斯的故乡;Dorothy: Dorothy Wordsworth,多萝西·华兹华斯(1771—1855),英国作家、诗人,威廉·华兹华斯的妹妹。
13. confluence: (人或物的)汇合,聚集。
14. David Hockney: 大卫·霍克尼(1937— ),英国画家、版画家、舞台设计师及摄影师,生于英国布拉德福德,绘画代表作为《克利斯多夫·伊修伍德和唐·巴查笛》和《克拉克夫妇俩》。
15. celebration: 颂扬。