“解铃还仗系铃人”——读叶公超先生的《爱略特的诗》

“Let the Doer to Undo What He Has Done”:A Reading of Ye Gongchao’s Interpretation of“T.S.Eliot’s Poetry”

叶公超先生是我国最早系统评述T.S.艾略特的学者。叶公超先生认为,艾略特写诗主张维持中国用典的风格,将历代流传下来的观念联合起来,汇成文化源流。诗人写诗不仅表现个人才气,而且展示和代表整个文化。在《爱略特的诗》一文中,叶公超先生反驳了艾略特在创作《荒原》前后的诗歌作品中蕴含着不同态度的观点,讨论了把艾略特诗歌创作与宗教信仰混为一谈的错误观点,并且指出了艾略特通过隐喻手法营造一种“古今错综的意识”。笔者对叶公超先生的观点进行了综述和进一步的评论。

Ye Gongchao has been considered the earliest Chinese scholar who published commentary on T.S.Eliot’s poetry in China.He thought that T.S.Eliot liked to follow the style of Chinese allusions in poetic composition,bringing together all traditional concepts into a flow of cultural source.A poet not only shows his own talent in his poetry but also exibits and represents a whole culture.In his essay“T.S.Eliot’s Poetry”,Ye Gongchao refutes the idea that Eliot holds a different view of life in his poetry before and after his composition of The Waste Land,rebuts the idea of lumping together Eliot’s poetic creation and his religious belief,and points out that one of the charms of Eliot’s poetry is his use of metaphors to create a“consciousness of mixing the pastness with the presentness”in his poetry.Ye Gongchao’s ideas about T.S.Eliot’s poetry and poetic writing have been summarized and further explored here in this essay.