阅读“On Affinity Between Literatures”

读王佐良的“论契合”，竟然发现要先读了下面这些背景材料，才会有更好的理解。

背景材料：

詹姆斯·赖特(James Wright, 1927-1980)：詹姆斯·赖特，二十世纪美国著名诗人、“新超现实主义”（即“深度意象”）诗歌流派主将之一，生于俄亥俄州马丁斯渡口，早年就读于肯庸学院，曾师从大诗人罗伯特·弗罗斯特，然而后来转向“新超现实主义”。五十年代末，他与罗伯特·勃莱等人一起创办诗刊《五十年代》（后依次改为《六十年代》、《七十年代》、《八十年代》……），使其成为美国战后反学院派诗歌的主要阵地。他先后出版了诗集《绿墙》(1957)、《圣犹大》(1959)、《树枝不会折断》(1963)、《我们是否在河边聚集》(1968)、《诗合集》(1971)、《两个公民》(1973)、《致一棵开花的梨树》(1977)、《这旅程》(1982)等多卷，其中《诗合集》于1972年获得普利策诗歌奖；另外他还留下了大量的散文和散文诗，散文结集为《意大利夏天的瞬间》出版。他终身在大学任教，1980年去世。

赖特以其沉思型的抒情短诗而著名于世，他热爱大自然，善于捕捉大自然景色中最有意义的细节，并将其田园式的新超现实主义建立在强有力的意象和简洁的口语之上，在总体上赋予自然景色以深层意识的暗示，试图唤起超脱现实返回大自然的欲望，从大自然中找到安宁。虽然他去世较早，但他留下的诗作却产生了较大影响，足以使他在二十世纪美国后现代诗歌中占有一席之地。





James Arlington Wright (December 13, 1927 – March 25, 1980) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet. Wright first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 with The Green Wall, a collection of formalist （形式主义）verse that was awarded the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize. But by the early 1960's, Wright, increasingly influenced by the Spanish language surrealists（超现实主义）, had dropped fixed meters. His transformation achieved its maximum expression with the publication of the seminal The Branch Will Not Break (1963), which positioned Wright as curious counterpoint to the Beats and New York schools, which predominated on the American coasts. This transformation had not come by accident, as Wright had been working for years with his friend Robert Bly, collaborating on the translation of world poets in the influential magazine The Fifties (later The Sixties). Such influences fertilized Wright's unique perspective and helped put the Midwest back on the poetic map. Wright had discovered a terse, imagistic, free verse of clarity, and power. During the next ten years Wright would go on to pen some of the most beloved and frequently anthologized masterpieces of the century, such as "A Blessing," "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio," and "I Am a Sioux Indian Brave, He Said to Me in Minneapolis." Technically, Wright was an innovator, especially in the use of his titles, first lines, and last lines, which he used to great dramatic effect in defense of the lives of the disenfranchised. He is equally well known for his tender depictions of the bleak landscapes of the post-industrial American Midwest. Since his death, Wright has developed a cult following, transforming him into a seminal （creative, highly influential in an original way） writer of ever increasing influence. Each year, hundreds of writers gather to pay tribute at the James Wright Poetry Festival in Martin's Ferry. Wright's son Franz Wright is also a poet. Together they are the only parent/child pair to have won a Pulitzer Prize in the same category (Poetry).
Life
Wright was born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, approximately 50 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is one of many steel-producing towns along the heavily industrialized Upper Ohio River Valley as it borders West Virginia and Pennsylvania. He was born in 1927, two years before the American stock market crash of 1929 to a father who worked in the Hazel-Atlas Glass factory and a mother who worked in laundry. He graduated from high school in 1946. Wright then joined the army and was stationed in Japan during the American occupation of that country. Wright later attended Kenyon College, from which he graduated cum laude in 1951, after which he received a Fulbright Fellowship and travelled to Vienna, Austria. In 1954 he went to the University of Washington where he studied with poets Theodore Roethke and Stanley Kunitz. That year, when he was still a graduate student, W. H. Auden selected Wright's manuscript for publication in the Yale Younger Poets Series. In 1957, when his book of poems, The Green Wall, was published, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota where his colleagues were Allen Tate and John Berryman. In 1959, he earned a PhD from the University of Washington with a dissertation on Charles Dickens and his second collection, Saint Judas, was published in the Wesleyan University Press series. During this period, Wright contributed poetry and book reviews to major publications like the Sewannee Review and regularly published in virtually every important journal, from The New Yorker to the New Orleans Poetry Review. Nonetheless, the University of Minnesota did not believe he had the qualifications to become a tenured professor, and Wright had to relocate to nearby Macalester College. Wright married his high school sweetheart Liberty Kardules, who was a nurse in Texas. The couple had two sons, Franz and Marshall. Wright left his wife in 1959, and they divorced in 1962. In 1966, he took a job at Hunter College in New York where he met Edith Ann Runk, the "Annie" of many of his poems. They were married shortly after his move to New York at the Riverside Church in April of 1967. Annie was very good for Wright and helped him tone down his drinking. They spent a number of summers in Italy and Paris. Wright died on March 25, 1980 shortly after being diagnosed with cancer of the tongue. His funeral was held at the same Riverside Church where he had married Annie.
Poetry
Wright's early poetry is relatively conventional in form and meter, especially compared with his later, looser poetry. His work with translations of German and South American poets, as well as the influence of Robert Bly, had considerable influence on his own poems; this is most evident in Shall We Gather at the River, which departs radically from the formal style of Wright's previous book, Saint Judas. His poetry often deals with the disenfranchised, or the outsider, American; yet it is also often inward probing. Wright suffered from depression and bipolar mood disorders and also battled alcoholism his entire life. He experienced several nervous breakdowns, was hospitalized, and was subjected to electroshock therapy. His dark moods and focus on emotional suffering were part of his life and often the focus of his poetry, although given the emotional turmoil he experienced personally, his poems are often remarkably optimistic in expressing a faith in life and human transcendence. His seminal 1963 volume The Branch Will Not Break is one example of his belief in the human spirit. His 1972 Collected Poems was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to his other awards, Wright received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Works
The Green Wall (1956)
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio (1963)
The Branch Will Not Break (1963)
Saint Judas (1959)
Shall We Gather at the River (1969)
Two Citizens (1973)
Moments of the Italian Summer (1976)
To a Blossoming Pear Tree (1977)
This Journey (1982; completed in 1980)
The Temple at Nimes (1982)
Above the River - the Complete Poems (1992)
Selected Poems (2005)
A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright (2005)


文中引用的一首诗

As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor


And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?

-- Written A.D. 819


Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What's the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,
When you were being towed up the rapids
Toward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.
You made it, I guess,
By dark.

But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,
And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.
Where is Yuan Chen, the friend you loved?
Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.
Did you find the city of isolated men beyond mountains?
Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?

James Wright
Background:

冬末跨过泥潭，想起了中国古代一位地方官
生于邪恶之世，鲜有功成。
怎能向命运祈求一丝温情？

白居易，暮年已至，
所为何来？
忽然记起
心怀忐忑
行驶在三峡中。

溯水而上
是去忠州谋职？
我猜测
船抵之时
夜已垂暮。

1960年，阳春再至
明尼波斯的巨石
筑就了我的垂垂暮色
也有纤绳和激流

你挚爱的知己元稹何在？
大海何在？
那可以吞噬中西部无边孤寂的大海呀！
明尼波斯何在？
目击之处，一片虚无。
除了那株可怕的，
经冬而愈黑的大橡树。

你可曾在山那边发现孤零人的城市？
还是
手持朽烂纤绳的那一头
千年之久？





白居易的三峡情结
虞廷

从那以后，白居易便再也没来过三峡，但他的三峡情结，却萦绕终生，难解难分。

唐代三大诗人之一的白居易青年时就仰慕三峡的美景，在他早年的名作《长恨歌》中曾热情地讴歌过“蜀江水碧蜀山青”，这里的蜀中山水，当然是应该包括三峡山水的。

连白居易本人也意想不到的是，他后来竟来到向往已久的水碧山青的巴蜀三峡地区为官两载，使他能够真切的饱览以前只能在想像中见到的美景。而且，他所感受到的，要比早年 想像中的“蜀江水碧蜀山青”还丰富和深刻得多。

白居易的官船是于唐代元和十四年(公元819年)三月进入三峡的，那时他刚卸去了江州(今江西省九江市)司马的职务，带着弟弟白行简(字退之)——也是一位著名诗人赴任忠州刺史。在西陵峡中，他意外地与顺江而下的诗人元稹(字微之)的官船相遇。他与元稹是二十多年的莫逆之交，二人共同开创一代现实主义诗风，世称“元白体”，自五年前在京城送元稹赴任通州(今四川达川市)司马后，便不曾相见。白居易不禁仰天长吟：“君还秦地辞炎徼，我向忠州入瘴烟。夷陵峡口明月夜，此地相逢是偶然!”当下白氏兄弟与元氏停舟畅叙别情，“坐从日暮唯长叹，语到天明竟未眠。”

相聚三天后，相互返送多次，“将别未忍，引舟上下者久之”，这时忽然听见江边山石间传来一阵阵叮叮咚咚的非常悦耳的泉声，于是登岸一游。他们先看到的是“石如叠如削，其怪者如引臂，如垂幢。”接着又见到“泉如泻如洒，其奇者如悬练，如不绝线。”三位诗人精神一振，唤来仆人从荒草中割出一条路，搬来船上的木梯绳索，然后倚岩攀登，先后四五次才登上去了。原来上面是一个美丽的石洞，“水石相薄，磷磷凿凿，跳珠溅玉，惊动耳目。”三位诗人徘徊其间，从未时一直到戍时(相当于现在的下午一点到七点)，不忍离去。“俄而峡山昏黑，云破月出，光气含吐，互相明灭，晶荧玲珑，象生其中，虽有敏口，不能名状。”诗人们被气象万千的峡江美景所吸引，在洞内一直盘桓到天明，慨叹道：“斯境之胜地，天地间其有几乎!”遂各赋古调诗二十韵书于石壁而去。这就是著名的“三峡洞”本事。

今日，三游洞已成为峡中旅游热点，溯其本源，实有赖白居易最早发现，并歌之咏之。白居易亦堪称远见卓识，当时即考虑到“欲将来好事者知，故备书其事”，因而给我们留下了一笔宝贵的可传万世的财富，我们真应该好好感谢他。

白居易离三游洞后继续逆江而上，他不断被三峡两岸的壮丽风光所打动，时而是“神女台云闲缭绕，使君滩水急潺湲”；时而是“巫山暮足沾花雨，陇水春多逆浪风”。他尤其惊叹三峡的险峻雄奇，而或“上有万仞山，下有千丈水。苍苍两崖间，阔狭容一苇”；而或“岩似双屏合，天如匹帛开。逆风惊浪起，拔稔暗船来。”有些时候，他几乎都感到惶骇了，因为“大石如刀剑，小石如牙齿。未夜黑岩昏，无风白浪起。一跌无完舟，吾生系于此。”经过神女庙、昭君村，他想起楚王云雨荒台和王昭君出塞的故事，特一一凭吊，赋诗咏叹：“巫女庙花红似粉，昭君村柳翠于眉。诚知老去风情少，见此争无一句诗?”进入瞿塘峡已是初夜，他仰视夔门雄姿，慨然高歌：“瞿塘天下险，夜上信难哉!”

暮春时节，白居易抵达忠州，开始了他的忠州刺史生涯。在他眼中，忠州仍是三峡地区，他在诗中称忠州为“巫峡中心郡”，“三峡南宾(即忠州)”，在任期内先后写了一百多首诗，其中有很多篇幅用来歌颂忠州的山川风物。对忠州这座峡中小城，他倾注了很多很多的爱，他在这里劝农生产、省事宽刑、怜老爱子，开山修路，植树种花，留下了千古政绩，以至在他离任返京时，再三殷勤回首，发自肺腑的吟唱：“二年留滞在江城，草树禽鱼尽有情……”

特别值得一提的是，白居易在返京途中重过三峡到达洞庭湖口时所发出的感慨，这种感慨使我们觉得，他不仅具有卓越的诗人气质，而且还具有政治家的博大胸怀。当他看到“江从西南来，浩浩无旦夕。长波逐若泻，连山凿如劈”的壮阔景象时，从心底歌颂当年大禹治水的丰功伟绩，说：“千年不壅溃，万姓无垫溺。不尔民为鱼，大哉禹之绩。”但接下来他又认为，既然大禹治水时不畏艰辛从遥远的岷江以上一直治理到了三峡，为什么不一鼓作气把洞庭湖以下直到大海的长江全部治理完呢?以至洞庭湖一带“每当秋夏时，浩大吞七泽。

混合万丈深，淼茫千里白。水族窟穴多，农人土地窄。”他为大禹不胜遗憾，“胡为不讫功，余水斯委积。帝亦无奈何，留患与今昔。”他认为“水流天地内，如身有血脉。滞则为疽疣，治之在针石。”这种观点，即使用现代科学的标准来衡量，也是正确的。他渴望“安得禹复生，为唐水官伯。手提倚天剑，重来亲指画。疏流似剪纸，决壅同裂帛，渗作膏腴田，踏平鱼鳖宅。龙宫变闾里，水府生禾麦。”他这一番治水防洪的宏论，在我们今天看来,也是极具战略眼光的。

回到京城后，白居易对三峡不能忘怀，希望有朝一日能重游三峡，这种强烈的情绪无处倾诉，只好付之于诗：“再游巫峡知何日?总是秦人说向谁?长忆小楼风月夜，红栏杆外两三枝”。春天到了，他看到宫廷里的花木一片葱茏，又想起他在忠州东坡亲手栽下的那些花木，可能也开花了吧。一天夜里，他在宫中值夜，不知不觉一梦飘然重回三峡，梦中的三峡还是记忆中的风光，“江色分明绿，猿声依旧愁。”恍惚之间，他“觅花来渡口，寻寺到山头。”感到欣慰已极。正当他举步向熟悉的忠州东楼走去时，宫中的钟声忽然把他惊醒了，他很是遗憾，叹息道：“禁钟惊睡觉，唯不上东楼。”他对三峡的眷恋之深，从兹可见一斑。从那以后，白居易便再也没来过三峡，但他的三峡情结，却萦绕终生，难解难分。


<>





冬末，越过泥潭，想起古中国的一个地 方官 白居易，落发纷纷的老政客， 何苦徒劳呢？ 我想起你 惴惴不安地进入长江三峡。 纤夫拉着你的船逆流而上， 送你去忠州城里， 混一个什么官差使。 我猜想，你达到时， 天已黑了。 但现在是1960年，又快到春天了。 明尼阿波利斯城的大石头 造成了我独有的沉沉暮色， 也有纤绳和激流。 元稹在哪里？你的好友在哪里？ 大海在哪里？ 那曾溶化了整个中西部的 无边寂寞的大海？ 明尼阿波利斯在哪里？ 我什么也看不见， 除了那株可怕的 经冬而愈黑的大橡树。 你在山那边找到孤零人的城市了吗？ 还是紧握着那条磨损了的 纤绳的一头， 一千年都没有放手？ 王佐良先生的译文


耄耋官宦，何以为用？偶念及汝，蹒履入三峡。凭他人之力溯流而上至某某处谋官职或许，成时，夜已垂暮。