“站立等候”:弥尔顿《哀失明》的清教心路管窥

“Stand and Wait”: A Puritan Quest in Milton's “On His Blindness”

约翰·弥尔顿不仅打破了英国十四行诗着重描写爱情主题的传统,而且在十四行诗诗体结构上也进行了大胆的探索。表面上看,弥尔顿十四行诗第19首《哀失明》描写诗人将用忍耐来抑制自己因双目失明而产生的焦虑和痛苦,但实际上它书写了一位清教诗人寻求侍奉上帝的清教心路。本文将这首诗置于17世纪英国清教主义情境之中,结合文本释读,讨论弥尔顿十四行诗形式与内容的创新契合,考察诗中双关、对照、圣经典故等修辞手法,进而揭示诗人摆脱焦虑和痛苦的清教心路。

John Milton not only expanded greatly the thematic landscape of traditional English sonnets from writing primarily about love,but also explored artistic structure in his Italian sonnets. His Sonnet 19 ['On His Blindness'] is often understood as the poet's calling on the virtue of patience to hold back the anxiety and pain of his early blindness 'ere half [his] days'are spent,but actually it is more dynamic,prescribing a Puritan quest to serve God. This theme is integrated with a discussion of its 17th-century Puritan context,the unity of form and content in an Italian sonnet,and such figures of speech as pun,contrast and biblical allusion.