“整个美国是座疯人院”——伊丽莎白·毕晓普“华盛顿组诗”的政治讽喻

“All America is an Insane Asylum”:Political Allegory in Elizabeth Bishop's“Washington Poems”

1949至1950年,伊丽莎白·毕晓普出任美国“国会图书馆诗歌顾问”,即“桂冠诗人”,其间创作的“华盛顿组诗”可以说是冷战时代美国状况的有力见证和实录,集中表现了诗人的政治敏感和政治意识。本文从政治历史语境出发,选择修辞作为具体切入视角,试图探究“华盛顿组诗”比喻、象征等修辞背后隐藏的美国帝国主义军事扩张和狂热中的意识形态矛盾,进而揭示诗人对冷战时期诗人与国家、国家与冷战之间政治关联的讽喻性思考。毕晓普的“华盛顿组诗”在塑造诗性文体的同时,消解了美国的国家意识形态,改变了帝国话语的形塑。

Elizabeth Bishop's “Washington Poems”, written when she was the Library of Congress' s Poetry Consultant or Poet Laureate from 1949 to 1950, can be regarded as a powerful witness to American politics during the “Cold War” era. While revealing the poet's political sensibility and consciousness, this article studies the rhetorical devices in the poems, such as metaphors and symbolism, to explore the ideological conflicts in the fanaticism and militarism in America's “Cold War” era. At the same time, it tries to demonstrate Bishop's allegorical thinking on the political relations between the poet and the nation, and between the nation and the Cold War. The “Washington Poems”, while creating a unique poetic style, deconstructs America's national ideology and reshapes people's perception of the empire.