细读研究 以夜莺颂文本为例(英文版)

作者简介 彭秀, 女, 江西萍乡人, 浙江大学外国语学院英语语言文学硕士研究生, 研究方向: 外国文学。 A Study of ? CloseReading? ? ? The Case ofOde to a Nightingales ?Peng Xiu (School of International Studies , Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058 ) ?Abstract?Close reading ,a technique of ne w criticis m,is a type of text analysis which directs readers? attention fro m the background of the author ,the history ofhis or her ti mes ,the psychological and ideological factors, and the social and economic conditions of the literary work to the text itsel, fthat is , what the work says and how it says .It is concerned w ith language ,structure ,style ,tension,figures of speech ,i mages and sy mbols ,denotations and connotations ,rhythms and rhymes that contribute to the analysisof awork. Close reading focuses on the text to explore its contentand value . This paper explores the origin of close reading from the vie ws of different literary writers and literary critics, analyzes threemain features and uses the case ofOde to aN ightingales to explain it in practice . ?Key words? close reading; ? New Criticism; ?text ?中图分类号 I106 . 2? ?文献标识码 A? ?文章编号 1672 -8610( 2010) 03 -0031 -04 I .Introduction New Criticis m,a systematic and methodological for malist approach to literary criticis m appeared in the 1920s in Anglo- American. M atthe w Arnold is one of the most influential poets who proposed thatphilosophy and religionwould be? replaced by poetry? and ? culture? represents ? the best thathas been known and thought in the world?. Representatives ofNe w Criticism in- clude John Crowe Ranso m,his bright students A llen Tate and Cleanth Brooks , T. S. Eliot ,I . A. R ichards , W illiam Empson, F . R. Leavis, W illia m K. W i msatt Jr .andM onroe C.Beards - ley . During their academic study and practice ,they atte mpted to establish so me tenets to text analysiswhichwas a for malistway of reading and ca me to be called close reading . ?. The Origin of Close Reading 2. 1V iew ofT. S. Eliot T. S . Eliot is one of the forerunnersofN e w Criticism.In his Tradition and Talent ( 1917),Eliot argued that writers must have? the historical sense? inwhich they should relate their li- t erary works to their predecessors and the texts are understood for their own right and the writer is to be depersonalized.In his vie w,the creation of a piece of work is a continual sacrifice of the artistand an extinction ofhis personality .In otherwords ,the creating process of a work should eli m inate the influence of the writer or artist .In Tradition and Talent,he co mpared the process of co mposing poe ms to a che m ical reaction. The m ind of the poet is like the catalyst of a bit of shred of platinum in the che m ical reaction of oxygen and sulfur dioxide . The platinum is unaffected and re mained inert which indicates that the text and the writer should be viewed separately .Eliot argued that poetry is not a turning loose ofemotion, but an escape fro m e motion and it is not the expression of personality but an escape fro m person- ality .InTradition and Talent, Eliotwrites: The point of vie w which I a m struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the sou: lformy meaning is ,that the poet has ,not a ? personality? to express ,but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality ,in which i mpressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpectedways. I mpressions and expe - riences which become i mportant in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man,the personality . ( T. S. Eliot , Tradi - tion andTalent in ZhuGang? sTwentieth CenturyW esternCritical Theories P38) In Eliot? s vie w,the poet does not have a personality and only serves as a medium to combine the i mpressions ,feelings , and experiences in the poetry . W hat he means is that the text itselfdoes not havemuch to do w ith the writer ,in other words , the text and writer should be viewed separately . W hen readers appreciate literary texts ,the writer should be depersonalized or should not be taken into consideration . 2. 2V iew of I . R. R ichards I . R.Richards,known as a psychological literary critic , was one of the main proponents of New Criticism.In his The M eaning of M eaning ( 1923),he argued thatwords mean noth- ing by the mselves ,and it is only when a thinker makes use of them that they stand for anything . R ichards e mphasized two as - pects ,one is thatwords havemeaning in a context and the other is that readers? own principles of reading deter m ine ho w they in- terpret the texts . Production ofmeaning does not co me fro m the author but fro m the text itself and thinking patterns of different ?31? 语文学刊 ?外语教育教学? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?2010年第 3期 readers, which co mpliesw ith T. S. Eliot? s vie w of depersonal- i zation.InPrinciples of Literary Criticism ( 1924), he argued that criticism should e mulate the precision of science and he atte mp- ted to articulate the special character of literary language , differ - entiating the ? emotive? language of poetry from the ? referential? language of non-literary discourse .Then in his masterpiece PracticalCriticism: A Study of Literary Judgement ( 1929) which is considered to be most empirical and experi menta, l R ichards included both theory and practice . He did an experi ment which invited hundreds ofundergraduates to co mment on shortunident- i fied poems . W hen analyzing these short poe ms ,students were not offered any infor mation about the author ,the date ,cultural background,social ideological background and so on. W hat they did was focusing on the unidentified poe ms the mselves ,that is to say , on the text . It is through this experi ment that I . A. R ichards established the basic principles for close reading in which text possesses the dominant position .Fro m then on Practical Crit- i cism beca me centralcriticalmethod in literature and higher- ed- ucation fields, which advocated close reading ofblind texts . 2. 3V iew ofW illiam Empson W illia m Empson ,supervised by I . A. R ichards ,empha - sized on a mbiguity as the defining characteristic of poetic lan- guage and explored a detailed way of reading regard a mbiguity as amajor characteristic of poetic language . Based on the assump- tion that ? good poetry is usually written fro m a background of conflict?, he proposed seven types of a mbiguity in his critical work SevenTypes of Ambiguity ( 1930): The first one is ambigu- i ty of reference which is defined as si mple metaphor by Empson; the second one is a mbiguity of referentwhich refers to the fact that two ormoremeanings resolve into one ;the third one is a m- biguity of sense when two disconnected meanings appear ,of which pun is a typicalexa mple ; the fourth one is a mbiguity of in- tent inwhich alternativemeanings combine to state the author ? s complicatedm ind;the fifth one is a mbiguity of transition called ? fortunate confusion? by Empson ;the sixth one is ambiguity of contradiction which happens when a state ment is meaningless , unrelated and needs readers?interpretation;the seventh is a mb- i guity ofmeaning which reveals a total contradiction and suggests the divisions of the author ? sm ind . Empson? s e mphasis on a m- biguity enhances his poe ms, as he said that? my fe w good poe ms are all on the basis of expressing an unresolved conflict . ? Amb- i guity attributes more to the co mplexity and richness of text , which enriches the interpretation of the meaning of text .These seven types of a mbiguity are his most i mportant contribution to New Criticis m and are one of the major concerns of close read- ing . 2. 4V iew ofF. R. Leavis F . R. Leavis, one of themost influentialBritish critic , wri- t er and editor ,argued that literature is a powerful andmoral force which evokes a positive vie w of society and provokes humanism, and that a set of disciplines should be established in literature study . H is approach to criticism concentrated on a close exa m- i nation of thework itself void of social cultura, l historicaland so - cial context . He argued that literary works should be vie wed as disconnected objects and appreciated by close objective analysis . Leavis is a kind of? practical critic?,but also ,in his con- cernw ith the concrete specificity of the ? text itself?,the ? words on the page?,a kind of? Ne w Critic? too : ? the critic? is con- cerned w ith the work in front of hi m ? sic? as so mething that should contain within itself the reason why it is so and not other - w ise . ( Ra man Selden,Peter W iddowson ,Peter Brooker :A Reader ? sGuide to Conte mporary L iterary Theory P24) Profoundly influenced by T. S .Eliot ,Leavis was in side w ith hi m in ter ms of text analysis .Like T. S .Eliot Leavis laid great e mphasis on the specificity of the text itself?thewords on the page , which indicates that during the process of analyzing li- t erary works both the author? s and the readers?background should not be taken into consideration ,as Eliot said they should be depersonalized.In other words ,it suggests the ontological vie w ofnew criticism andwhat should be done is to focus on the text , which is the do m inant characteristic of close reading . 2. 5V iew of John Orley A llenTate and Cleanth Brooks In Tension in Poetry Tate put forward his poetry reading strategy ?tension between extension and intentionwhich intends to be one of the Ne w Critical standards for evaluating poetry . H e argued that science requires the denotation of language while li- t erature requires both the denotation and connotation of language and themore contradicts that denotation and connotation have the more value the text will have . He greatly e mphasized on the or - ganic for m of the text by co mbing both the extension and inten- sion. What I am saying ,of course ,is that themeaning of poetry is its? tension?,the full organized body of all the extension and intension thatwe can find in it . ( JohnO rley A llen Tate , Tension inPoetry in ZhuGang? sTwentiethCentury W estern CriticalTheo - ries , P56). Tate judged the poetry through the way ho w denota - tion and connotation , how extension and intention organically co - here to show the meaning of it . A llen Tate? s concept of ? ten- sion? illustrates a universalcharacter of poetry and it is si m ilar to Russian Formalist? s concept of? literariness?. The object of the science of literature is not literature , but literariness ?that is , that which makes a given work a work of literature ( Boris M ikhailovich Eikhenbaum, TheTheory of the ?For malM ethod in Zhu Gang? Twentieth Century Western Critical Theories ,P22). Roman Jacobson? s vie w on literariness is close to the essence of Tate ? s tension .InNew Criticis m tension is one of themost i m- portant factors of close reading . In Irony as aPrinciple of Structure Brooks gave his illustra - tion of? irony?. Brooks argued that the parts of a poem are rela- t ed to each other organically ,and related to the total the me ind- i rectly . He laid greatemphasis on the i mportance of context . Now the obvious warping ofa statement by the contextwe characterize as? ironical?. ( CleanthBrooks , Irony as aPrinciple of Structure in Zhu Gang?Twentieth Century W estern Critical Theories , P49). In his vie w, certain state mentmeans quite the opposite of what it supposes to say literally ,that is to say ,the effect it a - chieves is the reversalof the literalmeaning .In Irony as aPrin- ciple of Structure, he put for ward a series of ironicalmodes inclu- ding tragic irony ,self- irony ,playful irony ,arch irony , moc - king irony ,gentle irony and so on. Brooksmade great contribu- tion to the development ofNew Criticism and irony becomes one of themost i mportant devices of close reading . 2. 6 V ie w of W illia m K.W i msatt Jr .and M onroe C. Beardsley In IntentionalFallacy W illia m K. W i msatt Jr .andM onroe ?32? LI TERATURE? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Peng Xiu / A Study of ? Close Reading? internalpatterns and has little bearing on biographicalor histor- i cal infor mation about its creator . They wrote in IntentionalFalla- cy: The poe m is not the critic ? s own and not the author? s ( it is detached fro m the author at birth and goes about the world be - yond his power to intend about it or control it). The poe m be - longs to the public .It is e mbodied in language ,the peculiar pos - session of the public , and it is about the human being , an object of public kno w ledge . W hat is said about the poe m is subject to the sa me scrutiny as any state ment in linguistics or in the general science ofpsychology . (W illia m K. W i msatt Jr . andM onroe C. Beardsley , Intentional Fallacy in Zhu Gang? Twentieth Century W estern CriticalTheories , P43) New critics mentioned above mainly focused on text value whileW illia m K. W i msatt Jr . andM onroeC. Beardsley concen- trated on the judging standard of text value . They believed that meaning of a poe m had nothing to do w ith neither the author nor the critic but revealed in language or the public kno w ledge .It is scrutinized through linguistics and generalscience of psychology . In this sense ,their vie w is si milar with the assumption of Struc - turalism which promotes that the author is dead and atte mpts to rethink everything through linguistics .In The Affective Fallacy they tried to eli m inate distractions fro m the external influences on the interpretation of the poem.And they argued that for New Critics the poe m ex ists for itself and by itselfand explains every - thing . They e mphasized the internalfactors of literary works rath- er than external factors of the m and like many other Ne w Critics they dre w attention on the text itsel. f Butwhat differs from other is that they separated absolutely the text and author and the text and readers which results in the isolation of literary from other fields . ?. ThreeM ain Features of CloseReading A ccording to the vie ws of differentNew Critics, close read- ing mainly has three features .F irstly ,close reading is mainly applied in poetry especially metaphysical poetry . T. S .Eliot ex - pressed his idea of depersonalization in Tradition and Talent through exa mples of composing poems ;I .A. R ichards did an experi mentwhich requires hundreds of undergraduates to co m- ment on short unidentified poems to establish basic principles for close reading ; W illiam Empson illustrated seven types of a mbigu- ity mainly through analysis on poetry ;in the third edition ofUn- derstanding Poetry, Cleanth Brooks andRobertPennW arren an- alyzed 345 poe ms in ter ms of close reading . A ll the Ne w Critics mentioned abovemore or less took poetry as their study object . Secondly , close reading concentrates on originalblind texts , explores the internal value of text and the text is an independent objectwhich is not supposed to bemodified or distorted by others but to be vie wed as an organic whole without external infor ma - tion. In accordw ithNew Criticism, reading is text- oriented and text analysis should not involve infor mation about the author , his - tory background, socia, lracia, l cultura, l economical factors and so on . Text itself is an independent organic for m which concerns w ith language ,structure ,context ,style ,cli max ,figures of speech ,tension,irony ,a mbiguity ,i mages and sy mbols , denota - tions and connotations ,rhythms and rhymes that contributes to the analysisof texts. InTraditionalandTalent T. S. Eliot argued that the texts are understood for their own right and the writer is to be depersonalized .And R ichards did an experi ment asking undergraduates to analyze unidentified poe ms .That is to say , their reading merely focused on texts the mselves . Thirdly ,close readingmainly focuses on language itself and the context of the text itsel. f Close reading focuses on poetic lan- guage rather scientific language and it resolves tension,irony , paradox, ambivalence , ambiguity and so on .InTension inPoet - ry, Tate regarded tension between extension and intension as a reading strategy to evaluate poetry and he believed that tension should be in a fullorganized body of allextension and intension. W illia m Empson illustrated a mbiguity in his critical work Seven Types of Ambiguity.And in Irony as a Principle of Structure Brooks gave his explanation of? irony? and put for ward a series - i ronicalmodes . And they believed that all these effects should be carried out in a certain context . ?. A Close Reading in Practice : The Case ofOde to a N ightingales Ode to aN ightingale consists of eight stanzas and each stan- za has ten lines . The theme of this poem is that the persona tries to escape the mystery of the real world when he/she hears the happy tone of the nightingale . The speaker? s psychological jour - ney starts fro m the realword ,through the i maginary world :the Lethe ,the D ryad of the tress,the flora and country green ,the blushfulH ippocrene and the di m forest to the realworld where men sit and hear each other groan. By the viewlesswings ofPoe - sy the speaker escapes from them iserable world to the i maginary Queen- M oon and lost in deep thought and enters darkness thinking about death.Then the speaker comes to magic Ruth castle and finally returns to the real world.The psychological journey begins from the realworld,through the i mag inary world, to the realworld then alters to the i maginaryworld and finally re - turns to the realworld. In the first stanza ,hearing the magic song of the nightin- gale ,the speaker in drowsy numbness pains in the realworld is attracted by itshappiness and longs for accompanying it to escape his pains andm isery . Three metaphors are e mployed in this stan- za to express the sorrow and despair of the speaker . H is sense is so numb as ifhe has drunk poison,as ifhe has taken opiate and as if he has sunk in the Lethe-W ards causing forgetfulness and oblivion. However ,the nightingale flies and