分隔的国度——约翰·厄普代克《纽约》城市诗学意象解读

A Separate Nation:An Urban Poetics Interpretation of the Image in John Updike’s New York City

约翰·厄普代克被公认为小城市中产阶级生活的写作高手,其后期诗集《美国风物及其它》却是为美国大城市而写。以“心物合一”的城市诗学理论来解读诗集中的代表诗作《纽约》,剖析诗歌如何呈现纽约城市地景和隔绝的人际关系。诗眼“分隔的国度”表现在一个意象“电视无处不在”和一个戏剧化场景“说英语不自在”两方面:前者表达了诗人对20世纪90年代受电视文化影响的纽约城市文化的失望,对传统纸媒式微和文学堡垒难以坚守的担忧;后者则用语言冲突例证了外来者身处纽约却无法融入的疏离感受。

John Updike is a renowned writer of small town middle-class life.His late poem collection Americana and Other Poems is regarded as an urban poem collection,among which a sonnet New York City is a repreventative urban poem.“Psychophysical mechanism”urban poetics theory is employed to analyze how New York City’s landscape and separate human relations are combined and shape each other.The key phrase“separate nation”is developed through an image“television’s just like everywhere”and a dramatic scene of“embarrassed to be speaking English so well.”The former reveals the poet’s disappointment at New York culture in the1990s and his worry about the decline of printing media and literature tradition;the latter illustrates the alienation of being a New York outsider with a linguistic conflict.