人类世时代再读《荒原》

Rereading“The Waste Land”in the Anthropocene Era

100年前,艾略特以《荒原》一诗震惊文坛;100年后,《荒原》在新的历史时代焕发出新的活力。本文结合人类世理论,从英文标题“Waste Land”出发,重新解读《荒原》与现代生态与现代气候变化之间的关联。英文标题“Waste Land”超越了中文“荒原”的特定含义,已成为一种概念、一个象征。它暗含着地球从无人到有人,从有人到垦殖,从垦殖到殖民扩张乃至膨胀多余这样一种历史发展过程,荒芜的土地(wasteland)衍变成人类废弃物堆积之地(waste land)。土地(land)本应给人温馨的感觉,但是跟waste搭配之后,这种温馨的感觉没有了,取而代之的是乡痛(solastalgia)的感觉。因此,这首诗不仅关注着人类,也关注着人类排放而产生的废弃物。在“Waste Land”中,自然世界和人类废物彼此并置,揭示了它们的共存现实。这种共存并没有弥补自然和社会,自然和科学,或者说城市和乡村之间的分裂,而是促使人们认清了废弃物与人类行为之间的密切关联,促使人们从人类世的视角,重新审视历史传统与人类排放之间的关系。

100 years ago,Eliot’s publication of The Waste Land shook the literary world,and 100 years later,the poem still resonates with readers in the new historical era.Based on the theory of the Anthropocene and the English title of the poem,this paper tries to reinterpret the relationship among The Waste Land,modern ecology and climate change.It believes that the English title has gone beyond the specific meaning of waste land in Chinese equivalence and has become a concept and a symbol.It implies the historical development of the earth from nobody to man and to reclamation,from reclamation to colonial expansion,and the wasteland has evolved into a concept including the human waste.The land should have given people a feeling of warmth,but after correlating with waste,the land no longer carries the feelings of warmth but that of solastalgia.Therefore,this poem is not only concerned about the state of human beings,but also about the waste generated by human emissions.In waste land,the natural world and human waste are juxtaposed,revealing a reality of their coexistence.This coexistence does not bridge the gap between nature and society,nature and science,or between urban and rural areas,but alerts people of the fact that human waste and behaviors are closely connected,and thus urges people to reexamine the relationship between historical traditions and human-induced waste emissions.