人类创造的诗歌反思:莎士比亚十四行诗中的反思缪斯

Poetic Reflection in Creation of the Human: The Reflective Muse in Shakespeare's Sonnets

从文化角度来讲,人类的进步已被展示为一种由传统向反思的进化,“传统”指的是整体思维及仪式/方式,而“反思”指的是个人自我的成长。在文学领域,或更准确地说,在言语艺术领域,这两者间的对立导致个人天赋的长进,将自己从体裁及其它约定俗成的标准权威里解放出来。通常在文艺复兴后期和早期浪漫主义之间,可以标出一条边界线,体裁的权限在线外明显地丧失自身约定俗成的标准权威,进而由个人才智取而代之。鉴于其在“现代思维起源”中所起的作用(P·奥本海默),十四行诗就是一个鲜明的例子。它的作用是解答一个问题的唯一办法,即为什么一个死板的诗歌形式(似乎与小说的言语自由正好相悖)可以独统欧洲抒情诗长达三个世纪,从14世纪的彼特拉克到16世纪后期的莎士比亚。答案十之八九就是十四行诗有自我批评的能力及反思性的“双重性诗学”(J·布鲁克斯戴维斯),彼特拉克风格与反彼特拉克风格得以在一种巧妙的平衡中并存,而这种平衡早在伊丽莎白时代的诗歌里就已形成。

The progress of the human in cultural terms has been memorably presented as an evolution from tradition to reflection where “tradition” stands for the collective mind and the ritual/norm, while “reflection” for the growth of the individual self. In the field of literature, or to be more precise – of verbal art, this opposition results in the progress of an individual talent liberating itself from the normative authority of generic and other prescriptions. The borderline, beyond which the power of genre visibly loses its prescriptive power and the individual talent takes over, is usually located somewhere between the late Renaissance and an early Romantic era. Sonnet is a glaring case with the role it played in “the origin of the modern mind”(P. Oppenheimer), the role that is the only way to answer a question – why could it happen that a rigid verse form(seemingly opposite to the verbal freedom of the novel) could dominate the domain of European lyrical poetry in three centuries – from Petrarch in the 14th to Shakespeare in the late 16th century. In all probability, the answer lies in the sonnet's capability of self-criticism, its reflective “poetics of doubleness”(J. Brooks-Davies), where petrarchism/anti-pertrarcism could co-exist in a delicate balance reached in Elizabethan poetry.