TheImagery of English Poetry

英诗之象

Let’s enjoy the last dimension of the beauty of Englishpoetry---imagery

If I ask you to search in your mind through all the poem we havealready covered, I guess the first thing that jumps into your mind is theimpression of your five physical senses.

Sense impressioncomes from hearing the singing birds可闻于莺声燕语

Seeing the bluesky 可见于碧空万里

Smelling the wetearth可嗅于雨后芳土

Facing the windagainst your checks可感于清风拂面

 

Imagery

Sense impressions: hearing, seeing,smelling, feeling, etc.

Imagery may be defined as “therepresentation of sense experience through language.”借助语言呈现感觉经历

 

Images can be:

Visual (seeing),

Olfactory (smelling),

Auditory (hearing),

Gustatory (tasting),

Tactile (touching).

 

Maybe this is a little bit difficult foryou to understand, but it’ll come easier after this little poem by Williamcarlos Williams(1883-1963)

 

“Poets need images as one needs blood.”

Poetry appeals to our senses indirectly: amental picture.

 

Reading 1   This Is Just to Say

William Carlos Williams (1883 -1963 )     王宏印 译

I have eaten         我吃了
the plums           冰箱
that were in         里的
the icebox           梅子

and which           那大概
you were probably    是你
saving              留的
for breakfast         早餐

Forgive me          请原谅
they were delicious   真好吃
so sweet            真甜
and so cold          真凉

Actually, from this poem, the closeness of the two people expressedthrough the delicious tasty, sweet feeling and cold touching in hot summer.Now, let’s begin to appreciate a poem to see how the images come to our mindthrough our inward eye, our minds eye.

 

Now, let’s beginto appreciate a poem to see how the images come to our mind through our inwardeye, our mind eyes. Before we appreciate the poem, I need to remind you thatNovember, early winter in northern America is somewhat like harbin in china,unlike November in chizhou. It’s cold now. What’s your impression? What’s theimages of the November in your mind? Read the poem to see whether the image ofNovember in the poem is the same as the one in our mind. 

 

Reading 2  My November Guest  深秋來客

Robert Frost  (1874 - 1963)     曹明伦译

My Sorrow. when she's here with me,       当我的忧愁来做客时，

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain       她觉得秋雨绵绵的阴天

Are beautiful as days can be;              比任何日子都更美丽；

She loves the bare, the withered tree;       她喜欢掉光叶片的枯枝，

She walks the sodden pasture lane.         她爱走湿漉漉的牧场小路。

 

Her pleasure will not let me stay.           她的快活不容我抑制。

She talks and I am fain to list:              她爱说话，我乐于倾听：

She’s glad the birds are gone away,         她喜欢鸟儿都向南飞去，

She’s glad her simple worsted grey        她喜欢她朴实的灰色毛衣

Is silver now with clinging mist.           被拂不开的薄雾染成银色。

 

The desolate, deserted trees,             她那么真切地感觉到美，

The faded earth, the heavy sky,           从地之退色，从天之阴沉,

The beauties she so truly sees,            从树之孤单，从林之荒废。

She thinks I have no eye for these,         她以为我看不出秋的秀媚,

And vexes me for reason why.             并一再追问是什么原因。

 

Not yesterday I learned to know          我并非昨天才学会领悟

The love of bare November days          但告诉她这点也于事无补,

Before the coming of the snow,           在冬天的雪花飘落之前

But it were vain to tell her so,             这萧瑟秋彔的可爱之处，

And they are better for her praise.        她的赞美使秋录更好看。

 

In the poem, we have many words and expressions to describe to helpset up the image of November, right? Can you find out those words?

  Dark days, autumn rain, bare,withered tree, sodden pasture lane, the birds are gone away, cloth you wear isgrey, mist is clinging (never go away). The trees are desolated and deserted,the earth faded, the sky heavy. In a word, November is bare, why? Because thesnow is coming. By contrast, there’s another image, what’s that? Novemberguest. What’s she like? All things are bare in November. You face all thingsbare, how do you feel? I guess the feeling is heighted in the first sentence“sorrow”. We feel so sorrowful, so sad because everything is bare in November.

Is she sorrowful? According to her, everything is beautiful.

“beautiful” and “beauty” are repeated twice, you have beauty.

The word “gold” is also repeated twice, and “love” is also twice.

The word “pleasure” the mist is like silver to her.

That’s to say, she joys all these, she loves all these.

When the snow comes, maybe if you tell her that “the snow has come”

What’s her attitude?

Maybe it’s better for her praise. That is to say, she were repraisethem more, because you can see more beautiful things in the nature which cannever be seen in other seasons, right?

Before we go with analysis of this character “she”, I want ask you aquestion. “in face of sth bare, everything in November is bare, she is in highspirt and she is in high spirits and she loves everything. Why is guest a “she”rather than a “he”?

In face of difficulty, especially in face of great difficulty,clarities and crisis, girls or women are usually more optimistic and strongerthan men. I mentioned in the first lecture, Robert Frost had been a farmer, andhis wife was the only one who supported him all the time in keeping writingpoetry. So, thanks to her, we have such a great poet as Robert Frost.

Let’s come back to the November guest, in her eyes, everything is sobeautiful, she loves everything. She is just simply romantic, optimistic, anduprising. More than that, she accepts all the changes in the nature, includingthe changes of the season, the death or whatever, very calmly with natural,state of mind. She would enjoy both bad time and good time. Maybe sometimeswith smiles, sometimes with tears, and she enjoys both of them.

 

 

Reading 3   Meeting at Night      夜里的相会

Robert Browning (1812—1889)卞之琳  译

The grey sea and the long black land;          灰色的大海，黑色的陆地：

And the yellow half-moon large and low;       黄黄的半轮月又低又大：

And the startled little waves that leap         小波浪惊失了它们的睡眠，

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,              成了一道逬火炽的发髻,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,          跳船头推进了滑溜的泥沙，

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.        平息了速度，我到了小湾里。

 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;        一英里沙滩上暖和的海香：

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;        三块田穿过了，农场才出现，

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch      窗子上敲一下，急促的刮擦,

And blue spurt of a lighted match,            擦亮的火柴开一朵蓝花，

And a voice less loud, through its joys andfears,  一个人低语，又害怕又喜欢，

Than the two hearts beating each to each.      反不及两颗心对跳得这么响！

 

 

Do you know, sometimespoems both more images, together with those images you have another piles ofother adjectives. Meeting at Night is a good example.

Just like Imentioned, this poem offers a pile of images, one after another, at the sametime, it also offers another pile of adjectives.

The grey sea, thefirst image, why it is grey?

Under themoonlight, the sea looks grey.

My love for youwill be as long as old would be forever as the sea. Grey “I’ll love you till myhair turns grey.” Actually, the feeling of this young love inside.

The long blackland, the second image. The black is understandable because it’s at night. Butwhy is the land long? Because the boy is very eager to see his love. So theboat is too slow and the land is too long.  

The moon isstill half not full moon, not a new moon, not a new moon, but a half moon, why?

This is why wehave so many images. This is also why we have so many adjectives. Because itcan be full very soon when we are together.

The waves arestartled, it means it’s already late at night, these waves are already asleep,but this boy wake them up, so that’s “startled”

Eye rhyme [prow,low]

In the firststanza, all the imageries and adjectives just want to tell us how eager,excited , anxious the boy want to see her, he will fell the journey is toolong, the boat is too slow, and I’m eager to see her.

 

Second stanza,this time, we don’t have a pile of adjective imageries, instead, we haveimageries of actions one after another.

Experiencetogether with the boy. first, a mile, Three fields, until the farmhouseappears, finally, hurry to tap at the window. Speeding(越)，crossing(穿), tapping(敲), they areall the images of actions.

The climax is inthe last several lines. This time, the focus is not on the boy on the way,instead, the focus is the girl inside the room. Hearing the tap of the boy, Atap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch, and blue spurt of a lighted match. Dothey say something to each other? We don’t know what they are talking about,because the a voice less loud, through its joys and fears. Why full of joys?What’s the fear? They run away secretly against the wishes of the family andsociety. The pleasure of meeting each other is so precious, so the only thingthey could do is to embrace each other, any only sound that can be heard is thebeating of the two hearts.

 

Reading 4 In a Station of the Metro  在一个地铁车站

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)   杜运爕 译

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;   人群中    这些面孔的鬼影；

Petals on a wet, black bough.             湿漉漉的黑色枝条上的许多花瓣。

 

 

The poem isconsidered as a representative of the imageries movement.

Try tounderstand the literal meaning of the poem.

We have 2adjectives “wet”, “black” , this is not a sentence, because we don’t have averb, we have five nouns.

“Apparition,faces, crowd, petals, bough”. We have four images: faces, crowd, petals, bough

“Apparition” means when you sth is not clear, not specific, somewhatghost like.

At the first glance，the poem is a juxta-position (并置）of images(facesand petals are put side and side; crowd and bough are in parallel ) and asuper-position (叠加）of images(the faces in the crowd, and the petals on the bough.); EzraPound also admitted that he wrote under the influence of both the Chineseculture and Japanese culture—haiku俳句

How Ezra Pound created this poem? The idea of two line poem came tohim. One day in Paris, he walked out of the station of the metro, he met abeautiful women’s face, and another women’s face, then another. Suddenly, hesaw a beautiful child face, then a beautiful women’s face, then on and on. Forthe whole day, he was trying to find a word to express his feelings, because hesaw so many beauties, beautiful faces, the feelings, but in vain. That evening,he tried again and composed a poem. But at the very beginning, the poemconsisted of 30 lines, 6 months later, 15 lines. 1 year later, 2 lines. Theprocess of appreciating the poem may be should go the other way. That is tosay, first, we see these images. Now, we go on with the next steps.

At the second sight, each image evokes feelings; what feelingsyou’ll have when you see each image? For example, when you see these beautifulfaces in the crowd, how would you feel? Maybe happy or excited for a while, butnot for long. “Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is very important part ofthis poem, petals, not flowers, flowers usually grows on the tree, they arekeep growing and developing and blossoming on what kind of trees? Green trees,trees with life. But this time, they are no longer flowers, they have alreadybecome petals, that is to say, these flowers have already shaken off by a stormor a heavy rain. That’s why it’s wet. Are these tree green with life? No, it’sblack. So when a bough or when a tree become black, what does it mean? Maybeit’s dying soon, maybe it’s been dead already. That’s the feeling it evoke.

After a deeper thought，trains of thoughts appear.

for example, on the one hand, we have beauties, beautiful faces,beautiful petals, although they are petals, they are still beautiful. But theycan’t last long, because they are going to die very soon. Because the cold andcruel existing situation.

Major characteristics of the imagist poetry:

The images itself is very important, we don’t have any words thatare not necessary.

1) direct treatment of the ‘"thing;”[Poundwant to call our attention to the cold living situation]

2) economy of words, that is, using no wordthat is unnecessary for the presentation;

3) letting the image itself be the focus ofthe poem;

Just put theimage there, and image will speak everything.

 

 

Summarize:

Different peoplehave different interpretations, maybe there’s more to come. I do hope thislectures can be a good beginning attracting you deeper into kind of world ofthe classics.

I do hope thatyou can go on searching, still achieving, still pursuing.

I do hope letthe classics be popular.

Bibliography:

Reading 1

     1. This Is Just to Say is taken from Nina Baym,gen. ed.、The NortonAnthology of    American Literature, Vo.D (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003) 1274.

     2.《留言》译本来自< http://www.en84.coni/article-9383-l.html >.

Reading 2

     1.My November Guest is taken from Robert Frost. Robert Frost's Poems.(Princelon:    Macmillan, 2002) 239-240.2)

     2. 《深秋来客》引自曹明伦译，普瓦里耶理査德，理杳森马克：《弗罗斯特集》（上）•沈阳：辽宁教育出版社，2002: 20-1 •

Reading 3

1. Meeting at Night is taken from M. H.Abrams, gen. ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vo. 2 (London: W.W. Norton, 2000) 1362.

2.《夜里的相会》引自卞之琳：《卞之琳译文集》（中卷）•合肥：安徽教育出版社，2000: 132。

Reading 4

1. In a Station of the Metro is taken fromNina Baym, gen. ed., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vo. D (NewYork: W. W. Norton, 2003) 1286.

2.《在一个地铁车站》引自袁可嘉，策衡巽，郑克再：《外国现代派作品选第一册》（上）•上海：上海文艺出版社，1980: 130,