惠特曼自由诗诗人的名份之争

The Controversy over Whitman's Title as Free Verse Poet

20世纪的批评著作和文学史大多把惠特曼视为自由诗的先驱,但是也有人认为惠特曼根本不是自由诗诗人,庞德和洛厄尔是这种观点的代表。惠特曼的诗不仅从传统诗律规则中走出来,而且也有清晰的破除音律的诗学主张,他是配得上自由诗诗人的名号的。否定惠特曼为自由诗诗人,不是否定惠特曼的文学地位,而是为了维护自由诗的本体特征,以避免自由诗陷入无形式的危机。惠特曼自由诗诗人的名份之争成为推动当代自由诗分类的一个内在原因。

Most of critical works and literary history books spoke Walt Whitman as the forerunner of free verse while a few critics believed that Whitman was not free verse poet at all, such as ？douard Dujardin, Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell who held the latter opinion.Whitman not only freed from regular metrical rules in his poems, but also presented clearly anti-metrical conception in his proses.The denial of Whitmans claim was not to deny Whitmans literary status, but to defend the ontological property of free verse in order to avoid sinking into the crisis of formlessness.The controversy over Whitmans title as free verse poet became an inner impulse to classify free verse in contemporary literary criticism.