厄普代克《纽约》诗对弥尔顿《失乐园》地狱语象的重复与改写

Ekphrastic Repetition and Revision:A Comparative Reading of Updike’s Poem New York City and Milton’s Paradise Lost

约翰·厄普代克的《纽约》是一首语象诗。诗人用语言再现当下纽约城市地景和城市人生存状态时,把弥尔顿《失乐园》的地狱场景以及堕落天使修筑"万魔殿"密谋推翻上帝的语象并置其中。诗歌重复了相似的地狱物理结构,改写了"精神地狱"的道德秩序。《纽约》诗对弥尔顿《失乐园》地狱语象的改写本质上是诗人长期以来对纽约城市多元文化弊端的批判。

The sonnet New York City by John Updike is an ekphrastic poem in which the poet verbally depicts the scene of the building of Pandemonium in Milton’s Hell and the angels’ plot to overturn the Grace to represent the cityscape of modern New York city and the living states of the city dwellers. Compared with the text of the book one of Paradise Lost by Milton,Updike’s poem repeats similar physical spaces,but it revises the moral states of the hell spiritual quandary. Updike’s revision in essence reveals his constant criticism on the deficits of multi-culture in New York city.