论锡德尼《诗辩》中诗人的创造性和诗性灵感

On the Poet’s Creativity and the Poetic Inspiration in Sir Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry

自古希腊时期以来,诗歌就与灵感联系在一起。在柏拉图对诗性灵感的解释中,诗人一旦被诗神凭附,其本身的创造性似乎就变得无足轻重。本文认为,锡德尼既不赞同也不全盘否认柏拉图关于灵感的思想。他从词源上探讨拉丁语和希腊语中"诗人"概念的内涵,表明诗人的神性存在两种类型:其一使人犹如预言家,能够预知未来;其二让人具有一种堪与基督教上帝媲美的创造力。与此对应的是,他巧妙地把诗人分为三类,使柏拉图意义上的神附迷狂仅仅作用于第一类诗人,而第三类"真正的诗人"则受到"恰当的灵感"的影响。由于个人宗教及政治信仰的缘故,锡德尼赋予这种灵感独特的含义,它不仅与诗人的创造性的价值有关,而且还把人自身的作用提升到前所未有的高度。

Poetry has been connected with inspiration ever since the ancient Greece. In Plato’s interpretation of poetic inspiration, once a poet is possessed by the frenzy or ecstasy bequeathed by Muses, his own creativity seems to be of no great importance. This paper argues that Sir Philip Sidney neither endorses nor denies Plato’s idea of poetic inspiration. By exploring etymologically the connotation of the concept "poet" in both Latin and Greek, he suggests that there are two types of divinity in a poet: one is like that of a prophet who can foresee the future, and the other of the Christian God who is able to create. Through his tactful division of poets, he makes the first type of poets be seized by the Platonic divine madness while the third, the "right poet", possessed by "proper inspiration". Due to his own religious and political belief, he endows the latter with unique meanings, stresses the creativity of poets, and lifts the role of human beings up to an unprecedented height.