从悲剧到胜利:英语“新冠诗歌”中的“疫情叙事”

From Tragedy to Triumph:The"Pandemic Narrative"in English"Covid-19 Poems"

2020年以来用英语创作的关于新冠肺炎大流行的诗歌作品,是英语世界对这场肆虐人类的瘟疫的记录和反应,其内容包括疫情的爆发和发展、抗疫斗争的展开和推进、由此暴露的社会问题,以及人们对疫情结束和未来的展望等等。这些细节汇聚起来形成了一个完整的“疫情叙事”,其故事情节与历史上类似的“疫情叙事”大致相同,都具有沃尔德所说的对“社会问题”的偏好,也具有桑塔格所说的“疾病隐喻”倾向和“道德教诲”倾向。同时,它遵循了传统的“疫情叙事”的框架与模式,构成了一个“从悲剧到胜利,从苦难到救赎”的悲壮故事,代表着人们对疫情的意味深长和发人深省的反思和拷问。

The poetic works on the covid-19 pandemic published since early 2020 are the"living record"of the English world's responses to the pandemic,which taken together documented the pandemic's progress,including its outbreak,the world's countermeasures,the pandemic-intensified social problems,and the outlook on a changed world which will emerge at the end of the pandemic.The content of these poems constitutes a complete plague narrative,similar to those produced by past pandemics,with a predilection for what Priscilla Wald calls"social implications"of the disease and with a tendency to use what Susan Sontag calls"illness as metaphor"or as means of"moral teaching".At the same time,the pandemic narrative follows the model of traditional plague narratives with a formulaic plot which develops from tragedy to triumph,from suffering to salvation,representing the world's interesting and thought-provoking reflections and questionings.