中古英语辩论诗述评

A Brief Account of Middle English Debate Poetry

中古英语辩论诗是一种很特殊的诗歌品种,盛行于12—15世纪。它的起源可以追溯到盎格鲁—撒克逊时期和古罗马时期。鸟类辩论、灵魂与肉体辩论和会议式辩论,是中古英语辩论诗的三大基本主题。《猫头鹰和夜莺》及乔叟的《禽鸟会议》代表着同类作品的最高成就。当英语的历史进入现代阶段时,辩论诗便开始走向衰落,其原因主要在于戏剧和散文的兴起。

Middle English Debate Poetry is a very special poetic genre, flourishing in the 12th-15th centuries. Its origin dates from the AngloSaxon Period and Ancient Roman Period. Duality and dramatization constitute its two basic features. Debating is its form of artistic expression, while the meaning or the purport of the poem lies in the questioning dialogues. Two debaters (sometimes more than two) express their viewpoints on a particular subject and thus make their aesthetic or functional or right and wrong judgment. More often than not the debaters are nonhuman animals and plants or even lifeless objects and ideas, hence the poem is usually characteristic of a fable. Indeed, Debate Poetry aimed at exploring truth is the poetic record of the understanding of the objective world of the mediaevalEnglish people.The Bird Debates, the Body Soul Debates and the Parliamentary Debates are thethree basic themes of Middle English Debate Poetry. The Owl and Nightingale and Chaucer's The Parliament of Fouls represent the greatest achievement of the same poetic genre. When English history entered the Modern stage, Debate Poetry appeared to be declining, the cause for that, in my opinion, is the rise of drama and prose.Poetry is aimed at expressing the feeling and aspiration of a poet by means ofimages, so it is not good for a writer to multiply the subjects within a singlepoem. Dialogues dominate the debate poetry, which necessarily results in diversification of the subjects, and therefore does harm to the harmony and coherence of a poem. In fact, dialogue suits drama most instead of poetry. With the development of mediaeval English drama, it is natural that dialogues should fade out from poetry and hence a decline of the debate poetry as a whole occurs.Though debating is a good way for understanding truth and judging right and wrong , it is clumsy to undertake it in poetic form. Prose is more convenient and effective. When the 15th century saw the development of prose romancethe beginning of the modern novel, it is reasonable that later poets were no longer fond of writing debate poetry.