“道德的见证者”:后期奥登的诗歌伦理观

“A Moral Witness”: The Ethical Concern in Later Auden’s Poetics

奥登在成名之初表达了对"介入的艺术"的希望,认为诗歌能够引导人们的行为选择,让历史站在善而不是恶的一边。后期奥登在自我反思中全面清算了早年的政治化写作,认为诗不是"介入的艺术",而是"道德上的指引",承担的是教诲的伦理功能。诗歌的教诲不仅在"道德层面"上见证真相,还在"技术层面"上通过审美过程力图超越现实生活,在结构和形式上构成一个艺术伦理寓言。每一首成功的诗歌都是一个"语言的社群",其伦理走向是一个潜在的共同体,一个无限接近乌托邦的体系。

W.H.Auden fell into"l’art engagé"during the early years of his rise to fame as a poet.He once thought that poetry might have led readers to choose their way and shape the future.After self-reflection,not only did later Auden no longer believe in"l’art engage",but he criticized his own left-wing poems written in the 1930 s.His later poems and essays claimed that the function of poetry should be to instruct morals.The task of poetry is teaching morality and bearing witness to moral truths on the one hand,and on the other hand,setting up moral parables through aesthetic structures and forms to transcend reality.