Nathaniel Hawthorne

Imbued with an inquiring imagination, an intensely meditative mind, and unceasing interest in the "interior of the heart" of man's being, Nathaniel Hawthorne (①804-①864) remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambivalent writers in the American literary history. 

纳撒尼尔·霍桑是美国文学史上最有趣、同时也是最矛盾的作家之一，他充满了探索的想象力、强烈的沉思，以及对人类“内心世界”不断的兴趣。

in ①837, he published Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention. 

①837年，他出版了《两次讲述的故事集》，这是一本短篇小说集，引起了评论界的关注。

the tales collected in Mosses from an Old Manse (①846) and The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (①85①) best demonstrate Hawthorne's early obsession with the moral and psychological consequences of pride, selfishness, and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human beings

《古宅中的苔藓》和《雪像和其他讲过两次的故事》中收集的故事最能说明霍桑早期对骄傲、自私和隐秘的负罪感在人类身上表现出来的道德和心理后果的痴迷

 

The Scarlet Letter (①850)：always regarded as the best of his works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways

《红字》：一直被认为是他最好的作品，讲述了一个简单但非常感人的故事，四个生活在一个清教徒社区的人以不同的方式参与并受到通奸罪的影响

The House of the Seven Gables (①85①)： based on the tradition of a curse pronounced on the author's family when his great-grandfather was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials

《七个尖角阁的房子》（①85①年）：基于作者家族遭受的诅咒的传统，当时他的曾祖父是塞勒姆巫术审判的法官

The Blitchedale Romance (①852) ： a novel he wrote to reveal his own experiences on the Brook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelist

《布利切代尔罗曼史》是他描写自己在布鲁克农场的经历和作为心理小说家的写作方法的一部小说

The Marble Faun (①860)：A romance set in Italy, the book is concerned about the dark aberrations of the human spirit

《玉石雕像》：一部以意大利为背景的浪漫故事，这本书讲述的是人类精神的黑暗反常

人性本恶人生观及相关作品：

①：According to Hawthorne, "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity." 

霍桑说:“每个人心中都有邪恶，它可能会潜伏一辈子;但环境可能会使它活跃起来。

2："Young Goodman Brown," he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret

《年轻的布朗古德曼》中，他试图证明每个人都拥有一些邪恶的秘密

3："The Minister's Black Veil" goes further to suggest that everyone tries to hold the evil secret from one another in the way the minister tries to convince his people with his black veil.

《部长的黑面纱》进一步暗示，每个人都试图隐瞒邪恶的秘密，就像部长试图用他的黑面纱说服他的人民一样

4："The Birthmark" drives home symbolically Hawthorne's point that evil is man's birthmark, something he is born with.

《胎记》象征性地阐明了霍桑的观点，即邪恶是人类与生俱来的胎记。 

 

 

清教原罪思想对他的影响：

①：Hawthorne's view of man and human history originates, to a great extent, in Puritanism

霍桑的人类观和人类历史观很大程度上源于清教主义

2：He believed that "the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones," and often wondered if he might have inherited some of their guilt

他认为“一代人的错误会延续到下一代”，并经常怀疑自己是否继承了他们的一些罪恶

3：This sensibility led to his understanding of evil being at the very core of human life, which is typical of the Calvinistic belief that human beings are basically depraved and corrupted

这种感性使他认识到邪恶是人类生活的核心，这是典型的加尔文主义信仰，认为人类基本上是邪恶和堕落的

4： it provides him with a subject, and on the other, with the Puritan world or society as a historical background, he discusses some of the most important issues that concern the moral life of man and human history. 

它为他提供了一个主题，另一方面，以清教徒世界或社会为历史背景，他讨论了一些最重要的问题，这些问题涉及到人类的道德生活和人类历史。

The Scarlet Letter：

①：Hawthorne's remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the colonial history in New England, his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter

霍桑对清教历史的深刻认识，对新英格兰殖民地历史的深刻理解，对罪恶和罪恶感等道德问题的明显关注，以及对人们敏锐的心理分析，这些都在他的代表作《红字》中得到了充分展现

2：his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals

他的注意力集中在道德、情感、心理影响或后果的罪恶的人,特别是那些主要人物,以显示我们社会和个人之间的紧张关系

3："The Custom-House" as an introductory note to The Scarlet Letter proves fruitful to Hawthorne's imagination.

《海关关员》作为《红字》的序言，证明了霍桑想象力的丰富

 

 

文学艺术：

①：As a man of literary craftsmanship, Hawthorne is extraordinary.作为一个文学匠人，霍桑是非凡的

2：The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.

他的作品的结构和形式都是精心设计的，以迎合主题的关注

3：With his special interest in the psychological aspect of human beings, there isn't much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology

他对人的心理方面有着特殊的兴趣，在他的作品中没有太多的动作或身体运动，他善于探索人类心理的复杂性

4： Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter.

就像我们在《红字》中看到的那样，思想推动行动，并在人物的互动中有机地成长

5：the ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art

模糊性是霍桑艺术的显著特征之一。

象征意义：

①：Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form

霍桑是一位象征主义大师，他从清教徒传统中汲取象征主义，并将其以一种复兴的形式遗赠给美国文学

2：The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof

这一象征在他的作品中随处可见，他的杰作为这一符号提供了最确凿的证据

3：By using Pearl as a thematic symbol, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community

霍桑以《珍珠》为主题符号，强调了通奸罪给社会和生活在社会中的人们带来的后果

4：With the scarlet letter A as the biggest symbol of all, Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists.

以红字A为最大的象征，霍桑证明了自己是最优秀的象征主义者之一

"Young Goodman Brown"：

①：one of Hawthorne's most profound tales

霍桑最深刻的故事之一

2：Its hero, a young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful

它的主人公是年轻人，他认为社会和他的同胞都是值得他尊重的个体，在一个可怕的夜晚，他面对人类的邪恶，从此变得不信任和怀疑

2：Allegorically, our protagonist becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young" man, who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol

寓言式地，我们的主人公变成了一个叫布朗的普通人，一个“年轻人”，他将在一夜之间因一场冒险而变老，这场冒险使这个世界上的每个人都变成了堕落的偶像

3：we as readers feel that Hawthorne poses the question of Good and Evil in man but withholds his answer, and he does not permit himself to determine whether the events of the night of trial are real or the mere figment of a dream. 

作为读者，我们认为霍桑提出了人类的善恶问题，但拒绝了他的答案，他不允许自己确定审判之夜的事件是真实的还是仅仅是一个梦的虚构。

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass ：

①：has always been considered a monumental work because of its uniquely poetic embodiment of American democratic ideals as written in the founding documents of both the Revolutionary War in the United States and the Civil War, Walt Whitman is a giant of American letters. 

《草叶集》一直被认为是一部不朽的作品，因为它独特的诗意体现了美国民主理想，写在美国独立战争和内战的创始文件中，沃尔特·惠特曼是美国文学的巨人。

2：Walt Whitman is a poet with a strong sense of mission, having devoted all his life to the creation of the "single" poem, Leaves of Grass

惠特曼是一位具有强烈使命感的诗人，一生都在创作《草叶集》这首“独唱”诗

3：The work has nine editions and the first edition was published in ①855

这部作品有9个版本，第一版于①855年出版

4：In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism are all that concerned him

在这部巨作中，开放、自由，最重要的是，个人主义是他所关心的一切

诗歌主题：

①：As Whitman saw it, poetry could play a vital part in the process of creating a new nation

在惠特曼看来，诗歌可以在创建一个新国家的过程中发挥至关重要的作用

2：It could enable Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonial rule

它可以让美国人庆祝他们从旧世界和殖民统治中解放出来

3：it could also help them understand their new status and to define themselves in the new world of possibilities

这也可以帮助他们理解自己的新地位，并在充满可能性的新世界中定义自己

4：He shows concern for the whole hardworking people and the burgeoning life of cities

他关心全体辛勤工作的人民和城市蓬勃发展的生活

5：Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-masse" and the self as well. In celebrating the self, Whitman gives emphasis to the physical dimension of the self and openly and joyously celebrates sexuality

《草叶集》中的诗歌大多唱的是“群舞”，也唱的是自我。在赞美自我的过程中，惠特曼强调了自我的物理维度，并公开而愉快地赞美性

6：Whitman's sexual themes are beyond the physical. 

惠特曼的性主题超越了肉体。

政治抒情诗歌：

①：Before and during the Civil War, Whitman stood firmly on the side of the North and wrote a series of poems incorporating his emotions and feelings during the period, which were gathered as a collection under the title of Drum Taps (①865)

在南北战争之前和战争期间，惠特曼坚定地站在北方一边，并写了一系列融合了他在这一时期的情感和感受的诗歌，这些诗歌被收录为诗集，书名为《鼓点》

2：Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory,

他对战场上年轻生命的苦难表达了深切的哀悼，并表现出不屈不挠地战斗到最后胜利的决心

3：Another occasion which allowed Whitman to fill his lines with his political emotions was the death of Lincoln. and one of the famous is "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."

另一个让惠特曼用他的政治情感来填补他的台词的场合是林肯的死。其中一个著名的是《当紫丁香最后在门口盛开》。

诗歌风格：

①：Whitman's poetic style is marked by the use of the poetic "I." Speaking in the voice of "I," Whitman becomes all those people in his poems

惠特曼的诗歌风格体现在诗歌“我”的运用上。以“我”的声音说话，惠特曼在他的诗歌中成为了所有这些人

2：the relationship Whitman is dramatizing is a triangular one: "I" the poet, the subject in the poem, and "you" the reader

惠特曼所戏剧化的关系是一种三角关系:诗人的“我”，诗歌的主体，和读者的“你”

3：What he prefers for his new subject and new poetic feelings is "free verse," that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme

对于他的新题材和新诗情，他更喜欢的是“自由诗”，即没有固定节奏和规律韵律的诗歌

4： as the poet, Whitman can be conversational and casual, in the fluid, expansive, and unstructured style of talking, like one of the ordinary men

作为诗人，惠特曼谈吐自如，谈吐随意，流畅、豁达、无拘无束，就像普通人一样

5：there is still a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical诗歌的节奏感仍然很强

6：when we read his poems, we can feel the rhythm of Whitman's thought and cadences of his feeling. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines also contribute to the musicality of his poems. 

所以当我们读他的诗时，我们可以感受到惠特曼思想的节奏和他感情的节奏。行首的排比和音标的重复也有助于他诗歌的音乐性。

语言特点：

①：Contrary to the rhetoric of traditional poetry, Whitman's is relatively simple and even rather crude. Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day.

与传统诗歌的修辞相反，惠特曼的诗歌相对简单，甚至相当粗糙。他用文字描绘的大部分画面都是当时美国各个方面的真实、真实的形象

2：One of the most often-used methods in Whitman's poems is to make colors and images fleet past the mind's eye of the reader

在惠特曼的诗歌中，最常用的方法之一就是让色彩和图像在读者的脑海中快速掠过

3：Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to use oral English

惠特曼语言的另一个特点是他强烈倾向于使用英语口语

4：He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words, words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words. 

他会使用有力的，丰富多彩的，以及很少使用的词，来自外国的词，有时甚至是错误的词。

 

影响：

①：Though he was attacked in his lifetime for his offensive subject matter of sexuality and for his unconventional style，Walt Whitman has proved a great figure in the literary history of the United States because he embodies a new ideal a new world and a new life-style,

尽管他攻击在他有生之年攻势性的主题和他的风格,沃尔特·惠特曼已经证明了他在美国文学史的伟人地位,因为他体现了一种新的理想,新的世界和新的生活方式,

3：his influence over the following generations is significant and incredible

他的影响力在接下来的几代人是重要的和不可思议的。

4：Love for Whitman and his poetry is bound of increase to an unprecedented height.

人们对惠特曼和他的诗歌的热爱必将增长到一个前所未有的高度。 

选读作品：

①：There Was a Child Went Forth ：

This poem describes the growth of a child who learned about the world around him and improved himself accordingly. In the poem Whitman's own early experience may well be identified with the childhood of a young, growing America

这首诗描述了一个孩子的成长，他了解了周围的世界，并相应地提高了自己。在这首诗中，惠特曼自己早年的经历很可能就是成长中的年轻美国人的童年经历

2：Cavalry Crossing a Ford：

This poem is grouped under the Drum-Taps section in the ①88① edition of Leaves of Grass, which reminds its readers of a picture, or a photo, of a scene of the American Civil War. All the movements described in this picture are frozen. And while sounds are depicted, it's more likely that they come out of the watcher's imagination, rather than from the picture itself

这首诗被收录在①88①年版的《草叶集》的鼓点部分，它让读者想起了美国内战的一幅图画或照片。这幅画中描述的所有动作都是静止的。当声音被描绘出来时，它们更有可能来自观察者的想象，而不是来自画面本身

3.  Song of Myself  

In this poem Whitman sets forth two principal beliefs: the theory of universality, which is illustrated by lengthy catalogues of people and things, and the belief in the singularity and equality of all beings in value

在这首诗中，惠特曼提出了两个主要信念:一是通过对人和事物的冗长目录阐述的普世性理论，二是对所有生命价值上的独特性和平等的信念

Herman Melville

One of the half-dozen major American literary figures of the nineteenth-century, Herman Melville (①8①9-①89①) is best-known as the author of his mighty book, Moby-Dick (①85①), which is one of the world's greatest masterpieces. 

赫尔曼·梅尔维尔是美国十九世纪六位主要文学人物之一，他最著名的作品是《白鲸》，这是世界上最伟大的杰作之一。

In his final years he turned again to prose fiction and wrote what is probably his second famous work, Billy Budd, not published, however, until ①924. 

在他生命的最后几年，他再次转向散文小说，并创作了可能是他第二部著名的作品《比利·巴德》，但直到①924年才出版。

His early works：

Typee (①846), Omoo (①847), and Mardi (①849), which drew from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands

《泰比》《欧穆》《马尔迪》，这是他在南太平洋岛屿上的冒险故事

Redburn (①849) is a semi-autobiographical novel, concerning the sufferings of a genteel youth among brutal sailors

《雷德本》是一部半自传体小说，讲述了一个温文尔雅的青年在残酷的水手中所遭受的苦难

White Jacket (①850) Melville relates his life on a United States man-of-war

《白夹克》中，梅尔维尔讲述了他在一艘美国军舰上的生活

His later works：

Pierre (①852)：a popular romance intended for the feminine market but provoking an outrageous repudiation, Melville's public fame was on the decline

随着《皮埃尔》的出版，梅尔维尔的公众声望开始下降。是一本流行的浪漫小说，旨在吸引女性读者，但却遭到了粗暴的批判

Bartleby, the Scrivener：a short story strikingly symbolizing the loneliness and anonymity and passivity of little men in big cities

《书记员巴特比》，这是一部突出地象征着大城市里小人物的孤独、匿名和被动的短篇小说

Benito Cereno：a novella about a ship whose black slave cargo mutiny holds their captain a terrorized hostage

《贝尼托·塞雷诺》讲述了一艘船上的黑人奴隶货物叛变，将船长挟持为人质，并受到恐吓

The Confidence-Man (①857)：the author uses the Confidence-man in successive guises to explore the paradoxes of belief and the optimisms and hypocrisies of American life

作者利用信心的人不断地伪装自己，探索信仰的矛盾，以及美国生活中的乐观和虚伪

Billy Budd (posthumously ①924,) which again deals with the sea and sailors and the theme of a conflict between innocence and corruption.

《比利·巴德》再次涉及大海和水手，以及无辜与腐败之间的冲突的主题

前后期创作思想：

①：In the early ones, Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of the universe, hence they are more metaphysical and the main characters are ardent and self-dramatizing "I", defying God

在早期作品中，梅尔维尔更热衷于探索宇宙的意义，因此他们更形而上，主要人物都是热情的，自我戏剧化的“我”，蔑视上帝

2：in the late works, Melville becomes more reconcile with the world of man, in which, he admits, one must live by the rules

在后期的作品中，梅尔维尔与人类世界变得更加和谐，他承认，在这个世界中，人必须遵守规则

3：the purpose of Melville's fictional tales, exotic or philosophical, is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the metaphysical, theological, moral, psychological, and social truths of human existence. 

梅尔维尔小说的目的，无论是奇异的还是哲学的，都是尽可能深入地渗透到人类存在的形而上学的、神学的、道德的、心理的和社会的真理

Moby-Dick ：

①：is regarded as the first American prose epic

《白鲸》被认为是美国第一部散文史诗

2：It is difficult to read because much of the talk in the novel is sailor's talk and much of the language is purposely old-fashioned and Elizabethan

这本书读起来很困难，因为小说中大部分的谈话都是水手的谈话，而且很多语言都是特意老式的，伊丽莎白时代的

3：The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century

这本书对捕鲸的危险进行了生动的描述，使其成为一个非常激动人心的海洋故事，为①9世纪的捕鲸业时代树立了一座文学纪念碑

4：It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. 

这是一次象征性的心灵之旅，是对宇宙真理和知识的探索，是对人类深层现实和心理的精神探索。

他的象征意义手法：

①：Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings

船上不同的人代表着不同的思想，代表着不同的社会和民族群体;事实成为象征，事件获得普遍意义;

2：the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth

裴廓德号是人类社会的缩影，这次航行是对真理的探索

3：The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well

对梅尔维尔来说，白鲸莫比-迪克象征着自然，因为它复杂、深不可测、邪恶，同时又美丽

4：For Ahab, the whale represents only evil

对于亚哈来说，鲸鱼只代表着邪恶

5：Moby Dick is like a wall, hiding some unknown, mysterious things behind

《白鲸》就像一堵墙，隐藏着一些未知的、神秘的东西

6：Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, inscrutable and ambivalent, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth. 

《白鲸记》仍然是一个谜，一个宇宙的终极谜，神秘而矛盾，心灵的航行将永远是对真理的探索，而不是发现。

语言特点：

①：Melville's great gifts of language, invention, psychological analysis, speculative agility, and narrative power are fused to make Moby-Dick a world classic

梅尔维尔在语言、创造、心理分析、投机敏捷和叙事力量方面的天赋，使《白鲸记》成为一部世界经典

2：The skillful use of Ishmael both as a character and a narrator gives the novel a moral magnitude

以实玛利作为一个人物和一个叙述者的巧妙运用，赋予小说一种道德的重要性

3： the manipulation of the whaling chapters for some philosophical speculation makes the novel more than symbolic对捕鲸的章节进行了一些哲学上的思考，使得这部小说不仅仅是象征性的

4：different levels of language use and styles turn the whole book into a symphony with all the musical instruments going on to form a melody

不同层次的语言和风格将整本书变成了一部交响曲所有的乐器组成了旋律

5：Melville's knowledge of epic and tragedy, the highest literary genres, helps him produce a great tragic epic, with Ahab at the center as a tragic hero, who burns with a baleful fire, becoming evil himself in his thirst to destroy evil. 

梅尔维尔对史诗和悲剧这一最高文学体裁的了解，帮助他创作了一部伟大的悲剧史诗，以亚哈为中心，他是一个被熊熊烈火燃烧的悲剧英雄，由于渴望消灭邪恶，自己也变成了邪恶。