《母爱》:丽塔·达夫对古典神话的改写

Mother Love: Rita Dove's Rewriting of the Classical Myth

丽塔·达夫作为美国第一位非裔桂冠诗人,在诗歌创作中采用多种方式来丰富诗歌的内涵。在诗集《母爱》中,达夫巧妙地对古典神话中德墨忒尔-珀尔塞弗涅-哈迪斯之间的纠葛进行了颠覆性地改写。这种颠覆性的改写表现在赋予神话人物现代身份,将神话故事置于当代语境,给神话故事赋予现代意义。此外,诗人结合自己作为母亲和女儿的女性人生体验,重新书写了男权社会中的两性关系,从而给神话故事赋予了社会意义。更重要的是,诗人还结合自身非裔美国人的文化身份,在改写过程中添加诸多非裔美国文化元素,以普通非裔美国人的平凡生活来展现美国文化的多元性特征,进而给神话故事赋予文化意义。

As the first African-American female Poet Laureate, Rita Dove adopts a variety of methods to enrich the meanings of poetry in her poetic creation. In Mother Love, Dove rewrites the story of Demeter, Persephone and Hades subversively. The subversive rewriting reflects the modern identities of the mythic characters. Therefore, it confers the ancient mythic story modern meanings. In addition, based on her own female experience as a mother and a daughter, she overturns the gender relationship in the patriarchal society, providing the mythic story with social meanings. More importantly, Dove adds a lot of African American cultural elements to the poems and displays the diversity of American culture, endowing the mythic story with cultural meanings.