Democracy and Poetry

出版者:Harvard University Press

作者:Robert Penn Warren

页数:102

出版时间:1975-1-1

价格:180.00元

isbn号码:9780674196261

具体描述

In these two essays, one of America’s most honored writers fastens on the interrelation of American democracy and poetry and the concept of selfhood vital to each. “I really don’t want to make a noise like a pundit,” Mr. Warren declares, “What I do want to do is to return us—and myself most of all—to a scrutiny of our own experience of our own world.” Indeed, Democracy and Poetry offers one of the most pertinent and strongly personal meditations on our condition to have appeared in recent letters.

Our native “poetry,” that is, literature and art, in general, is a social document, is “diagnostic,” and has often been a corrosive criticism of our democracy, Mr. Warren argues. Persuasively, and movingly, he shows that all of “art” and all that goes into the making of democracy require a free and responsible self. Yet the American experience has been one of the decay of the notion of self. Our astounding success jeopardized what we promised to create—the free man. For a century and a half the conception of the self has been dwindling, separating itself from traditional values, moral identity, and a secure relation with community. Lonely heroes in a bankrupt civilization, then protest, despair, aimlessness, and violence, have marked our literature.

The anguish of Robert Penn Warren’s own poetic vision of art and democracy is soothed only by his belief that poetry—the making of art can nourish and at least do something toward the rescue of democracy; he shows how art can be- come a healer, can be “therapeutic.” In the face of disintegrative forces set loose in a business and technetronic society, it is poetry that affirms the notion of the self. It is a model of the organized self, an emblem of the struggle for the achieving self, and of the self in a community. More and more as our modern technetronic society races toward the abolition of the self, and diverges from a culture created to enhance the notion of selfhood, poetry becomes indispensable.

Compelling, resonant, memorable, Democracy and Poetry is a major testament not only to the vitality of poetry, but also to a faith in democracy.

作者简介

Robert Penn Warren, poet, novelist, historian, biographer, is one of this nation's most eminent literary figures. He was born in Kentucky and is a graduate of Vanderbilt. He then earned a master's degree at the University of California, studied at Yale, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. From his earliest days as a writer, when he was a member of "The Fugitives"—that brilliant group of young Southerners who sparked a renascence in their regional literature—to his latest accomplishment, a book of poems, Or Else, which elicited the New York Times comment that he was "one of the fathers of American poetry," Mr. Warren has concerned himself with the many forms of literature and art as they relate to American culture and society.

Over his long and distinguished career Mr. Warren was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and held the Chair of Poetry of the Library of Congress. Of his numerous publications, All the King's Men won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (1946); Promises won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the National Book Award (1957). Mr. Warren was awarded the Bollingen Prize in Poetry for Selected Poems: New and Old, 1923-1966 (1967); in 1970 he received the National Medal for Literature.

用户评价

我对这部作品的整体印象，可以用“惊艳于其意境的空灵，却困惑于其叙事的跳脱”来概括。它最吸引我的是其中描绘自然景色的段落，那些关于山峦、河流和季节更迭的文字，简直如同油画一般，色彩饱满且富有层次感。作者似乎拥有某种魔力，能将最寻常的景象描摹出一种近乎神性的光辉。然而，一旦叙事线索开始引入人物或情节，文本的张力便迅速瓦解了。角色仿佛是符号而非血肉之躯，他们的动机模糊不清，行为逻辑也常常难以自洽。我尤其对其中几段意识流的内心独白感到困惑，它们过于碎片化，充满了意义不明的意象堆砌，读起来更像是梦境的回放，而非有目的的文学建构。我不得不承认，在某些篇章中，我感觉自己像是试图拼凑一幅被打碎的彩色玻璃画，每一块碎片都闪耀着光芒，但整体画面却始终无法完整呈现。这使得阅读体验变得非常不连贯，时而沉醉于华美的辞藻，时而又因情节的断裂而感到挫败。它更像是一本艺术家的速写集，捕捉到了许多瞬间的灵感火花，但缺乏一个强有力的骨架来支撑起整个艺术结构，导致作品的最终完成度打了折扣。

这本新近出版的文集，坦白说，初读时并未完全抓住我的心神。它更像是一座装饰繁复、细节过多的维多利亚式宅邸，初次踏入时，会被那些厚重的丝绒窗帘和雕刻精美的家具所压倒，需要时间才能分辨出哪些是珍品，哪些只是累赘的装饰。作者的语言风格极其古典，大量运用了晦涩的典故和绕口的句式，这无疑是对现代读者的一种挑战。我花了数周时间，反复咀嚼那些长达数行的句子，试图理解其内在的脉络。其中关于时间流逝和个体在历史洪流中挣扎的篇章，颇具哲学思辨的深度，但表达方式却显得过于疏离，仿佛作者是站在一个极高的瞭望塔上，冷眼旁观人世间的悲欢离合，缺乏一种直击人心的温度。有几篇尝试探讨城市变迁的散文，其结构松散，论证跳跃性极大，使得读者在跟进作者思路的过程中常常迷失方向。整体而言，它像是一份极其精美的私人日记，充满了作者个人的情结和高妙的自我对话，但如果以大众接受度来衡量，它的门槛设置得实在太高了，需要读者具备相当的文学素养和耐心去挖掘那深埋于辞藻之下的真正意图。我期待作者在未来的作品中，能尝试用更直接、更有力的笔触来触碰这些宏大的主题，而不是将自己完全包裹在华丽的辞藻迷宫中。

阅读这本书的过程，与其说是吸收知识或享受故事，不如说是一场与作者智力上的“较量”。作者似乎对传统叙事结构持有强烈的反叛态度，全书几乎找不到任何清晰的起承转合。每一章的过渡都显得异常突兀，前一秒还在描绘十九世纪的欧洲沙龙，后一秒便跳跃到了对未来科技伦理的探讨，两者之间缺乏必要的桥梁。这种结构上的大胆尝试，虽然体现了作者的先锋精神，但对于习惯了逻辑递进的读者来说，无疑是痛苦的。我发现自己不得不频繁地查阅附录和作者的后记，试图去解码那些被刻意隐藏的上下文线索。最令我欣赏的一点是，作者在探讨社会不公议题时所展现出的犀利洞察力，那种穿透表象直达核心的批判力量是毋庸置疑的。然而，这种批判性往往被包裹在过于繁复的修饰语和冗长的脚注之中，削弱了其本应有的冲击力。这本书要求读者投入极大的精力去“构建”故事，而不是被动地“接收”故事，这使得它更偏向于学术研究的文本，而非轻松的阅读材料。

我对这本书的感情是复杂的，它像一首技艺高超但旋律过于高冷的交响乐。从技术层面上讲，作者的文字功底是无可挑剔的，那些对古老语言的精准拿捏和音韵的巧妙安排，展现了其深厚的文学底蕴。然而，这部作品最致命的弱点在于其情感的缺失。它像是精密计算出的数学模型，逻辑严密，推导完美，却唯独缺少了人性的温度和情感的共振。我试图在那些关于爱与失落的篇章中寻找一点可以共鸣的泪点或笑声，但最终只收获了一片冰冷的理性。作者似乎更专注于展示自己如何驾驭语言的复杂性，而不是如何用语言来连接人与人之间的情感纽带。这使得阅读过程显得十分疏离和干燥，尽管我能理性地赞赏其文字的精妙，却无法在内心深处激起任何涟漪。我感觉自己更像是一个旁观的机械师，在仔细检查一台运转完美的机器的每一个齿轮，而不是一个沉浸在故事中的普通读者。对于渴望在文学中寻求慰藉或情感共鸣的读者来说，这本书可能是一个令人失望的选择。

坦率地说，这本书的排版和装帧设计极其精美，纸张的质感和字体的选择都透着一股奢华的古典气息，单从视觉效果来看，它无疑是值得收藏的艺术品。然而，内容的吸引力却远低于其外在的包装。书中关于历史事件的描述，虽然详尽到令人发指的程度，但作者的处理方式过于偏向于文献汇编，缺乏必要的叙事节奏和戏剧性张力。我曾试图将其当作历史读物来阅读，但它又时不时地穿插一些过于个人化、近乎呓语的哲学反思，使得历史的线索在这些穿插中变得模糊不清。它仿佛是两个截然不同的文本被强行缝合在了一起：一边是严谨而乏味的学术考据，另一边是过于私密且难以理解的内心独白。这导致了阅读体验的持续撕裂感，读者很难全身心地投入到任何一个层面。如果要推荐这本书，我只会推荐给那些对某一特定历史时期有极深研究兴趣，并且对非线性叙事抱有无限容忍度的专业人士，对于普通爱好者而言，它的阅读门槛高到令人望而却步，投入产出比极低。

The concept of self is “enormously complex and problematic”.

The concept of self is “enormously complex and problematic”.

The concept of self is “enormously complex and problematic”.

The concept of self is “enormously complex and problematic”.

The concept of self is “enormously complex and problematic”.