英国浪漫主义诗歌中夜莺意象11571

1、摘 要每首诗歌都有它独特的形式和元素，这些元素包括：韵律、语调、意象和主题。就本质上说，“意象”一词是属于诗歌的，意象就是诗歌的灵魂，因此，意象在读者理解诗歌的过程中扮演着重要角色。英国浪漫主义诗歌中的意象表现极其丰富，其中最常见的是“夜莺”意象。本文首先介绍意象的概念、分类及它在诗歌中的重要作用，其次根据几位英国浪漫主义诗人的代表诗作对诗歌中所含有的夜莺意象进行大致归类，再次结合几位代表诗人各自的生活背景及成长经历比较分析英诗中的夜莺意象的异同点，最后总结夜莺意象在英国浪漫主义时期下的成因及意义。 关键词：英国浪漫主义诗歌；夜莺；意象ABSTRACTPoetry has its unique

2、 form and elements. These elements include rhyme, tone, image and theme. And in essence, image is the soul of poetry, so it plays an important role in understanding the poetry. The images in English Romantic poetry perform a very rich forms, the most common image is the “Nightingale” image. This pap

3、er first introduces the definition and classification and the importance of image in poetry. Second comes up with three types of nightingale images after analyzes some major Romantic poets poems. Third combines the background and their life experience of poets with their nightingale images, comes to

4、 summarize the similarities and differences of nightingale images in poems. Last, points out the causes and significance of nightingale image under that historical background. Key words：English Romantic poetry; Nightingale; image中国最大的论文知识平台Contents1Introduction12. The image in poetry

5、22.1 The definition and classification of Image22.2 The function of poetic Image33. Three types of Nightingale image53.1 Nightingale of myth-based63.2 Description on nightingales life habits73.3 Expression of inner feelings84. The Nightingale and Romantic poets104.1 William Wordsworths To a Skylark-

6、the sad and disparaging nightingale104.2 John Keats Ode to a Nightingale-the happy and sad nightingale115The historical reasons of Nightingale image146Conclusion15Acknowledgements16References171IntroductionPoetic image is the factor and soul of poetry 11. English romantic poets tend to be the creato

7、r of the poetic images. They use their symbolic imagery to express, while the image is a typical product of the Romantic imagination and creativity. Actually, the process of creating a poem is a kind of process in which the poet will select suitable concrete objects to be the poetic images, and cons

8、truct the poetic image to express his subjective feelings. Lots of critics have made fruitful research on the images of the English romantic poetry: the moon, the lark, and the nightingale. Rich images have been represented in English Romantic poetry, in which the most seen are birds, especially sky

9、lark and nightingale, which are vividly and profoundly depicted 255. However, there are still some problems or insufficiencies in the research. The scholars used to display all the poems of English poets, rather than only confined to the English Romanticism period. Some others only represented two b

10、ooks which written about nightingale of two poets and compared them to each other. Also, most scholars tended to explain how many kinds of images that English romantic poets had used in their poems, and nearly just focused on researching the nightingale image. This thesis comes up with three types o

11、f nightingale images after analyzing several famous Romantic poems, and summarizes the similarities and differences of nightingale images in different poets poem. At last, points out the causes and significance of nightingale image under that historical background.2. The image in poetryIn the world

12、of poetry theory, people widely accepted the significance and constructive ability of image. The concrete image that can be felt produces the meaning and whole aesthetic effect of poetry. This special ability of image comes from the images unique nature and function. The function of image completes

13、the expression of the whole meaning of poetry. The image has the function of description, expression, symbolic signification 3116. In the system of image, every image not only influences other images but also be influenced. 2.1 The definition and classification of Image2.1.1 The definition of ImageT

14、he image first appeared in classical Chinese bible Yi Jing more than two thousand years ago. “Books cannot represent thoroughly what we want to say and words cannot express completely what we want to say,” and “The saint created image to imply what he wants to say and to express to the world.” 41. A

15、nd the word “image” derives from old French image or Latin word imaginem. It appears in Middle English and then rises up as a popular jargon of advertising and public relations. However, until now, there isnt an exact definition of image. There only some basic definitions in dictionaries.(1) A physi

16、cal likeness or representation of a person, an animal, or an object photographed, painted, sculptured, or otherwise made visible. (2) An optical counterpart or appearance of an object, as is produced by reflection from a mirror, refraction by a lens, or the passage of luminous rays through a small a

17、perture and their reception on a surface. (3) A mental representation; idea; conception.(4) Psychology. A mental representation of something previously perceived, in the absence of the original stimulus.(5) A description of something in speech or writing.(6) Rhetoric. A figure of speech, esp. a meta

18、phor or a simile.And according to these definitions, philosophers and poets draw the conclusions that image has deep relation to our sight first, then has deep relation to our mind and psyche, and the last to writing and rhetoric.Ezra Pound definite image as “An image is that which presents an intel

19、lectual and emotional complex in an instant time.” 585So we can find that images consist of two parts: one is the emotion of the writers, and the other one is an object or a scene. Readers can understand the poets emotion through the image that poet has produced. 2.1.2 The classification of ImageThe

20、 poetic images have been divided into farewell image, homesickness image, sadness image, emotion image, love image, war image and leisure image in the past. Or on the other hand, they maybe classified into single image, compound image, and overlapping image. But these ways of classification are not

21、effective enough to help readers to understand poems through the poetic images.A poetic image can be seen as a cognitive structure, and so it can be inferred that it relates to the mind first, and that human beings perceive the world with the aid of their senses, which are sight, smell, taste, touch

22、, hearing, and action 417. And the six senses respond to imaginative are visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic. So image in poetry can be divided into six categories. They are visual image, gustatory image, tactile image, auditory image, kinesthetic image, and olfactory im

23、age. Some poets use one sole image in their poems. For example, John Keats To Autumn, the line “Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn” 689 is an auditory image. However, most poets turn like to use more than two images in the same poem. 2.2 The function of poetic ImageAs image is the soul of

24、 poetry, the combined function of image completes the expression of the whole meaning of poetry. The poetic image is of object-describing function, emotion-describing function and aesthetic function 1. They can be explained as following:(1) Example. An image can be used to show what an idea might lo

25、ok like. It may be used to illustrate a concept that is being described of which the poet wants to tell others. This is object describing function.(2) Expression. An image can be used to add new information or express the poets feeling and attitude. Poet may display his ideas or feelings or even mak

26、e an ironic or emotional comment on something. This refers to emotion describing function.(3) Effects. An image can be used just to describe a beautiful or special scene in pets mind, no matter what the image is, it works out an aesthetic function. 3. Three types of Nightingale imageIn the world, am

27、ong all the animals perhaps the nightingale is the most familiar to English poets. In the western literary history, the poems about Nightingale are abundant, especially in English Romanticism poetry. Whether it is The Poetry Treasury or Norton Anthology of English Literature 761, there is a collecti

28、on of a large number of the nightingale images in the poetry. The nightingale is a kind of European warbler of which songs are trilling, sweetly, and magnificent. The nightingale often gives people a sense of painful, because of its plaintive songs. And this is the image characterization of “nightin

29、gale”. The formation of this characterization is the Greek and Roman mythology.Nightingale image as the source of the ancient Greek and Roman mythology provides rich imagination for the British and American writers. In ancient poetry, the nightingale is used to be personified as a woman singer, and

30、the identification of the nightingale with the female gender has been stable throughout literary history. From Homer and Aeschylus through Sappho and Virgil, all the way to Milton and Keats 834, the nightingale has been personified as a beautiful, sad, and full of attraction female presence. After h

31、earing the pathetically chirping sound of the nightingale, writers reconstructed the ancient legends and legendary characters, and expressed their ideal life, and seek the true love. William Blakes Songs of Innocence, John Keatss Ode to a Nightingale, and William Wordsworths To a Skylark and so fort

32、h, English romantic poets have created different nightingale images in their poems. In these poems, nightingales contain different meanings and express the different feelings of poets.In terms of content, the poems can be divided into the following situations: First, some poets wrote nightingale bas

33、ed on its old myth; second, a part of poems focused on the description of nightingales life habits; third, the nightingale image contained the poets own feelings, maybe happy or unhappy.3.1 Nightingale of myth-basedOne of Nightingales beautiful and sad myths and legends comes from Ovids book The Met

34、amorphoses, Book 4 761. In the ancient Greek, there was a King Pandion, he had two beautiful daughters named Procne and Philomela. Once the country was attacked by another country, at that time, the King of Thrace Tereus led his troops and came to help them. In order to thank Tereus, Athens determin

35、ed to give his older daughter Procne to him. A few months later, Procne gave birth to a son, called Itylus. As Procne missed her sister very much, she asked Tereus to take her sister to Thrace. In his way home, Tereus found Philomela was quite delicate and beautiful, and therefore commit a rape on h

36、er. Then he cut off her tongue, and put her imprisoned in a poor small room in a forest. When he went back to Thrace, he lied to his wife that Philomela was dead. However Philomela spent in the prisoner for one year, she had never lost the determination of revenge. She wove her suffering into a blan

37、ket, trying to tell it to her sister. After Procne came to the forest, she realized everything and rescued her sister. Two sisters, then plan the revenge, and killed the little prince Itylus and made its meat dishes to the king. After the king knowing the truth, he wanted to kill the two sisters. At

38、 that moment, the forest gods appeared, and made them turn into three birds: Philomela turned into a nightingale, Procne turned into a swallow, and Tereus became a kind of bird called the hoopoe. From then on, every night in the ancient forests there will have the miserable “Teru-Teru-” sounds, the

39、ancient Greek poet thought it was Philomela that calling Tereuss name, telling her sad story. The song of the nightingale has been regarded as an expression of Philomelas sad plight. The sad legend deeply rooted in the cultural of the West. Now, the nightingale is associated with Philomela, and the

40、burden of her song is her loss of voice, and her cruel betrayal by a man. And the word “Philomela” itself now has a new meaning, means “sad love songs”. It often appears in Romantic poetry is more than a literary motif, and it is a migratory old world bird of the thrush family, renowned for its rema

41、rkable singing. It is the sad legend of nightingale and the plaintive sound that inspired the poets and made it the most often seen image in their works. Geoffrey Hartman, in Evening Star and Evening Land, one of the best essays ever written on the nightingale, described the “philomel moment” in Eng

42、lish poetry as “the post- prophetic moment, when the theme of loss merges with that of voice when, in fact, a lost voice becomes the subject or moving force of poetic song” 935. Whats missing in Hartmans argument is the positive range of emotion the nightingale calls forth. Throughout literary histo

43、ry, the nightingale always means loss and recompense. Sappho, in one of his poetic fragment, evokes the nightingales joyful aspect, calling it “the massager of spring, the sweet voiced nightingale.” 10 Especially in Romantic poetry, the nightingale implies not only heartache and the grief, but also

44、renewed vitality; not only autumnal melancholy, but also springtime rejoicing.In the 19th century, English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne described nightingale in his poems Itylus as the incarnation of Philomela. In the all ten stanzas, the first seven stanzas are all opened with “O swallow, sister

45、” or “Sister, my sister”, and at the beginning of the eighth stanza it turns into “O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow”, these words showed Philomelas dissatisfaction towards her swallow sister. This poem is just writing upon nightingales myths and legends. 3.2 Description on nightingales life

46、habitsNightingales appear so often in English and European poems that their associations of sweetness and romance have sunk to the level of banality. Because of this, attempts are rarely made to see any further relevance in the use of the bird. According to Encyclopedia Curley, nightingale is an old

47、 kind of bird, with reddish-brown coloring on the upper body, and grayish-brown below. It lives in Europe, and migrates to Africa for the winter. It is known for its pleasant voice. It is usually hidden in dense bush in order to catch insects for its food. However, nightingale is timid by nature, so

48、 it often appears in the night and people can only heard its singing in the daytime. These habits of nightingale have been turned into immortal verse in the British Romantic poet Clares poem The Nightingales Nest.And watched her while she sung; and her renownHath made me marvel that so famed a birdS

49、hould have no better dress than russet brown.Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,And feathers stand on end, as twere with joy,And mouth wide open to release her heartOf its out-sobbing songs. (LL19-25). . . But if I touch a bush, or scarcely stirred,All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain;The ti

50、mid bird had left the hazel bush,And at a distance hid to sing again. (LL28-31)11In this poem, the life habits and behavior of nightingale is quite obvious. In the first three lines, poet describes nightingales feather and the brown color. Then Clare writes about the nightingales wings, mouth and it

51、s songs. In the last four lines, Clare tells us the timid nature of nightingale. His poems undergo a major reevaluation in the late 20th century and he is now often considered to be the most important poet among all the 19th-century poets. Also, Jonathan Bate states that Clare was “the greatest labo

52、ring-class poet that England has ever produced, no one has ever written more powerfully of nature” 12. 3.3 Expression of inner feelingsMost poets compared nightingale to their real life and misfortune in order to use nightingale images in their poems, such as R. Barnefields The Nightingale, W. Cowpe

53、rs To the Nightingale, and Keatss Ode to a Nightingale; or some poets expressed their own opinions and views about the world and art through the mouth of the Nightingale, like Samuel Taylor Coleridges The Nightingale. Samuel Taylor Coleridge goes on to articulate a new and distinctively Romantic app

54、roach to the representation of nature in poetry. According to Coleridge, nature and the real world are almost the same. It is not enough for the poet to be a detached observer of picturesque scenery 8. In his poem The Nightingale, Coleridge tries to address the correlation between human consciousnes

55、s and the natural world or between the material and spiritual world. When Milton addressed the nightingale like the most musical and melancholy bird, Coleridge said: A melancholy bird? Oh! Idle thought!In Nature there is nothing melancholy. (L14-15) 13Coleridge rescued from nightingale mythic associ

56、ations of mindless melancholy, and presented a flock of real birds that inhabit a real English grove in early springtime.But never elsewhere in one place I knewSo many nightingales; and far and near,In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each others song,With skirmish and

57、capricious passagings,And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,And one low piping sound more sweet than allStirring the air with such a harmony,That should you close your eyes, you might almostForget it was not day! (L55-64) 13He stresses the division between his own mind and the beauty of the natural

58、world. To Coleridge, the nightingale is a singer or fellow-poet whose voice embodied the powerful, transformative emotions of joy and love. The mind, to Coleridge, cannot take its feeling from nature and cannot falsely imbue nature with its own feeling; rather, the mind must be so suffused with its own joy that it opens up to the real, independent, “immortal” joy of nature.4. The Nightingale and Romantic poetsEnglish romantic poets were the creators of