塞克斯顿家庭挽诗中的“纪念品”叙事

Souvenir Narratives in Anne Sexton’s Family Elegies

家庭挽诗是自白派诗人塞克斯顿作品的核心构成。在这类诗歌中,日记、书信、剪贴薄、相片和肖像画等作为不可取代的“纪念品”意象,成功唤起了主体与已故亲人的身份协商和关系修通。但以往研究因着重于阐述传记细节与精神分析指涉,而忽略了上述意象作为媒介的表征内涵及其折射出的诗学用意。本文拟沿着关于“纪念品”概念的学理化阐释路径,辨析塞克斯顿家庭挽诗中由“书信”“画像”与“相片”所负载的三种微妙有别的媒介功能,指出这些意象为自白诗之主体话语建构所提供的策略依据,同时也尝试从文本内部检视诗人的媒介意识及其对20世纪中后期美国媒介文化语境的紧密回应。

Family elegies are a key component of the confessional poetry by the American poet,Anne Sexton.In this group of poems,diaries,letters,scrapbooks,photographs and portraits,serving as “souvenir” images,often trigger identity negotiations between the speaker and deceased family members.They also enable a working through of difficult relationships.Studies so far tend to focus on(auto)biographical details and psychoanalytical readings,but seldom consider such images from the perspective of medium.This article proposes that letters,portraits,and photographs function as three distinctive mnemonic media,through which we may re-examine Sexton’s confessional poetry and understand how the speaker comprehends herself and constructs her subject position.Such an approach reveals the poet’s media-consciousness and the close relationship between confessional poetry and the media environment in mid-twentieth century America.