第2章 理性时代和革命时期文学
2.1 复习笔记
I. Historical Introduction（背景介绍）
(1) As we have seen, theology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing. Politics was the next great subject to command the attention of the best minds.
(2) By the mid-eighteenth century colonial America was no longer a group of scattered, struggling settlements. It was a series of neighboring, flourishing colonies with rapidly expanding, mixed populations. The word “state”, which suggests an independent government, was beginning to replace “colony” in the people’s thinking.
(3) Native industries were sprouting everywhere.
(4) Literary activities were growing at the same time.
(5) The British government hampered colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country.
(6) Politically, the British government forced dependence by ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.
(7) In the seventies of the 18th century the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for eight years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic--the United States of America.
(8) The spiritual life in the colonies during that period was to a great degree moulded by the bourgeois Enlightenment.
（1）正如我们所看到的，神学统治了清教徒时期的美国写作。而后，政治成为作家们的主要题材。
（2）18世纪中期，殖民时代的美国不再是散乱的、相互竞争的定居点，而是人口迅速增长、不断融合的相互毗邻、繁荣的殖民地。一个象征独立政府的词语“国家”，开始在人们的思想中取代“殖民地”。
（3）民族工业正在遍地开花。
（4）同时，文学活动日益活跃。
（5）英国政府阻碍殖民地经济发展，要求美国将原料输往英国，而用高于本国生产成本的价钱购买英国产品。
（6）在政治上，英国政府迫使殖民地依赖于其统治，向殖民地征税却不给其议会代表席位。
（7）18世纪70年代，殖民地举兵反抗他们的祖国。独立战争持续了八年（1776-1783），最终建立了联合的资产阶级共和国——美利坚合众国。
（8）这一时期殖民地的精神生活很大程度上受到资产阶级启蒙思想的影响。
II. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) （本杰明·富兰克林）
1. Life（生平）
Born in Boston in 1706, Benjamin Franklin went to Philadelphia as a young man and began his career as a printer. He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital, an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania, and the American Philosophical Society. He was a preeminent scientist of his day. He signed the Declaration of Independence. He was one of the makers of the new nation. When Franklin died in 1790, at the age of eighty-four, he was an honored figure, mourned by many nations.
1706年，富兰克林出生在波士顿，青年时代前往费城成为一名出版商。他帮助建立了宾夕法尼亚大学的前身——宾夕法尼亚医学院和北美哲学学会。他也是当时著名的科学家。他签署过《独立宣言》。他是美国的缔造者之一。1790年去世时，享年84岁，作为一位备受崇敬的人物，被多国人民哀悼。
2. Literary Position（文学地位）
Franklin is the only good American author before the Revolutionary War, and he was the only one writer in the colonial period, whose works are read today.
富兰克林是美国独立战争前唯一一位优秀的美国作家，殖民时期的作家中，只有他自己的作品至今仍为世人所拜读。
3. Major Works（主要作品）
Poor Richard’s Almanac 《穷理查历书》
The Autobiography 《自传》
The Way to Wealth 《致富之道》
Collected Works 《全集》
4. Selected Works（选读作品）
◆The Autobiography 《自传》
(1) The Autobiography was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of American’s first self-made man. He represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates the fulfillment of the American dream.
(2) The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment. It is also a Puritan document. It is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrial, frugal and prudent.
(3) The style of The Autobiography reveals that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision.
（1）《自传》是自传体文学中的上乘佳作。它简明而极其引人入胜地叙述了富兰克林由穷苦卑微而跃至富有、闻名的故事。它忠实地记录了美国第一位自力更生者光辉灿烂的职业生涯。他代表着，在美国，人本质是善良自由的，拥有上帝赋予的不可剥夺的自由及追求幸福的权力。该书通过讲述自力更生而获取成功的故事，歌颂了美国梦的实现。
（2）《自传》充分说明了富兰克林是18世纪美国启蒙运动的代言人。这也是一本清教文献。它记录了清教徒的自我反省和自我完善。它也是清教徒道德原则的最好说明，即为了取得成功，人必须勤劳、简朴、谨慎。
（3）《自传》的文体体现出清教徒朴素、直率、简洁的风格。
III. Thomas Paine (1737-1809)（托马斯·佩恩）
1. Life（生平）
Thomas Paine, with his natural gift for pamphleteering and rebellion, was appropriately born into an age of revolution. At nineteen, he went to sea for perhaps two years, and then followed his father’s trade again as master staymaker in several English communities. He learned social science at first hand, seeing the hardships of the tax-burdened masses and the hopelessness of humble workers of his own class. Paine became the most articulate spokesman of the American Revolution. On May 21, 1792, Paine was indicted for treason, and he was forced to seek refuge in France. In 1802 he returned to America, only to find that his patriotic services had been forgotten in the wave of resentment against his “atheistical” beliefs and the reaction of conservatives against the French Revolution. During his remaining years, neglected by all but his vilifiers, he remained in obscurity, for the most part on his farm in New Rochelle. There he was buried in 1809, after a year of illness in New York.
托马斯·佩恩出生于美国独立战争年代，具有天生的写作才能和反叛性格。19岁时，他出海大约两年后，又回家随父亲从商，此时他已是熟练的船桅制作师傅了。他深入了解社会，目睹了重税负担下人们的疾苦和与自己同一阶层的卑微工人的无助。佩恩成为美国独立战争的最强音。1792年5月21日，佩恩被指控为叛国罪，不得不到法国避难。1802年，他回到美国，但是发现他曾经的爱国行为都被人们遗忘了。在他最后的几年里，除了他的诋毁者外，没有人再记起他，大多时候他默默无闻地生活在新罗谢尔的农场上。佩恩于1809年去世，并被安葬在新罗谢尔。
2. Major Works（主要作品）
The Case of the Officers of The Excise (1772) 《税务官的状况》
Common Sense (1776) 《常识》
American Crisis (1776-1783) 《美国危机》
Rights of Man 《人权》
The Age of Reason (1794-1795) 《理性时代》
3. Selected Work（选读作品）
◆The American Crisis 《美国危机》
The American Crisis displayed Paine’s strong deist beliefs, inciting the laity with suggestions that the British are trying to assume powers that only God should have.
Paine sees the British political and military maneuvers in America as “impious”.
Paine states that he believes God supports the American cause. He maintains a positive view overall, hoping that this American crisis can be quickly resolved.
《美国危机》表现出佩恩强烈的自然神论信仰，告知世人英国试图行使只有上帝才可行使的权利。
佩恩认为英国在美国的政治和军事行为是“不虔诚的”表现。
佩恩声明他相信上帝会支持美国的独立事业。他保持着乐观的态度，希望美国危机能够尽快解决。
IV. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)（托马斯·杰斐逊）
1. Life（生平）
Thomas Jefferson was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, April 13, 1743. This Virginian planter-aristocrat had vigorous humanitarian sympathies and he was just as much a product of the Enlightenment. His mind, ranged curiously over many fields of knowledge--law, philosophy, government, architecture, education, science, agriculture, mechanics--and whatever he touched, he enriched in some measure. In 1776, along with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, he drafted the Declaration of Independence. He won the election of 1800, and served for two terms as president. He died in 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
托马斯·杰斐逊于1743年4月13日出生在弗吉尼亚夏洛茨维尔县。这位贵族式的种植园主有着强烈的人道主义同情心，他几乎是启蒙运动的产物。他所学知识广泛，在法律、哲学、政府、建筑、教育、科学、农业，力学等方面都颇有建树。1776年，他与约翰·亚当斯、富兰克林、罗杰·谢尔曼以及罗伯特R.利文斯顿共同起草了《独立宣言》。1800年，他当选美国总统，并连任两届。杰斐逊于1826年去世，恰逢《独立宣言》签署五十周年。
2. Major Works（主要作品）
The Declaration of Independence (1776) 《独立宣言》
Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) 《弗吉尼亚日记》
3. Selected Work（选读作品）
◆The Declaration of Independence 《独立宣言》
The Declaration of Independence is often discussed as consisting of five parts: Introduction, the Preamble, the Indictment of George III, the Denunciation of the British people, and the Conclusion. It has come to be considered a major statement on human rights, particularly its second sentence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
《独立宣言》通常被认为包括五个部分：“引言”、“序文”、“对乔治三世的控告”、“对英国人的谴责”以及“总结”。它已被认为是一则重要的人权宣言。尤其是第二句话：我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的，即人人生而平等，造物主赋予他们若干不可剥夺的权利，其中包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。
V. Philip Freneau (1752-1832)（菲利普·弗瑞诺）
1. Life（生平）
Freneau was born on January 2, 1752, in New York, of French Huguenot and Scottish stock. He was tutored for Princeton where he established close friendships with a future president, James Madison, and a future novelist, Hugh Henry Brackenridge.
For a few years, writing with sporadic fluency, Freneau earned his living variously as farmer, journalist, and sea captain.
Reduced in fortune and political ambition, he settled in 1794 at his plantation homestead, Mount Pleasant, near Freehold, New Jersey, where for a time he edited a New Jersey paper. His poverty drove him at fifty to resume plowing the sea instead of his “sandy patrimony”; he was captain of coastwise trading vessels from 1803 to 1807. Again he turned to his farm for subsistence, but in 1818 his home burned down, and he gathered together the remnants of his family and possessions in a little farmhouse nearer town. Poor and nearly forgotten, he died of exposure in 1832 at the age of eighty, after losing his way in a blizzard, as he returned, it is said, from a tavern.
1752年1月2日弗瑞诺出生于纽约，有着法国胡格诺派教徒和苏格兰人的血统。他在普林斯顿大学学习时与未来的总统詹姆斯·麦迪逊以及未来的小说家休·亨利·布雷肯里奇建立了深厚的友谊。
有几年，弗瑞诺只是偶尔进行一些写作。多数时候他都是以农场主、记者或船长的身份生活。
随着财富和政治抱负的减弱，1794年，弗瑞诺到新泽西福利霍尔德附近的快乐山种植园定居，并曾为一家新泽西报社做编辑。50岁时，由于贫穷，他不得不重新过上航海生活。1803—1807年，他担任沿岸贸易船只船长一职。为了生存，他又回到了农场，1818年，他家被一场大火烧毁，他只好收拾一些所剩的家什，搬到了城镇附近的一所小农舍里。1832年，贫困潦倒的弗瑞诺默默无闻地冻死了，享年80岁。据说他是在从旅馆回家的途中，遇上暴风雪而迷失了方向。
2. Literary Achievements and Position（文学成就和地位）
(1) He was called “The poet of the Revolution”.
(2) As a poet, Freneau heralded American literary independence; his close observation of nature distinguished his treatment of indigenous wild life and other native American subjects.
(3) Freneau did not establish trends, but he represented qualities that were to be characteristic of the next half century.
(4) He has been called the “Father of American Poetry”, and it is ultimately in a historical estimate that Freneau is important.
（1）他被称为“美国革命诗人”。
（2）作为一位诗人，弗瑞诺预示了美国文学的独立；他对自然的细致观察使其对有关本土野生生命主题的处理与其他本土作家有所不同。
（3）弗瑞诺没有开创新的潮流，但是他代表了之后半个世纪的诗歌写作特点。
（4）他被称为“美国诗歌之父”，最终被认为在美国文坛上占有重要地位。
3. Major Works（主要作品）
The Power of Fancy (1770) 《想象的力量》
The Rising Glory of America (1772) 《美洲光辉的升起》
The House of Night 《夜之屋》
The Beauties of Santa Cruz 《圣诞老人之美》
The British Prison Ship (1781) 《英国囚船》
The Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During the Later War (1786) 《战争后期菲利浦-弗瑞诺主要诗歌集》
The Wild Honey Suckle 《野忍冬花》
The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人的墓地》
4. Selected Work（选读作品）
◆The Wild Honey Suckle 《野忍冬花》
“The Wild Honey Suckle” is probably Freneau’s most famous poem, and was wildly read by people. In this poem, the poet expresses a keen awareness of the loveliness and transience of nature. He has deep love for nature and pity for transience of natural beauty. However, he is optimistic overall, as he knows that life and death are inevitable law of nature.
By writing this kind of poem, Freneau also wants to state that native American writer can also find their own native writing materials.
《野忍冬花》或许是弗瑞诺最有名的一首诗，被人们广泛阅读和传诵。诗中，诗人表达了一种对自然生命的可爱和短暂易逝的深刻认识。他热爱大自然，又为大自然生命的短暂感到惋惜。然而，诗人是乐观的，因为他知道生死乃自然之道。
通过写此类诗歌，弗瑞诺也意在表明美国本土作家能够在自己的国家找到写作素材。
◆The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人的墓地》
This poem is about Indian funeral, which is very different from the white’s. The dead Indian is dressed in special cloth and buried in a sitting posture as if celebrating a happy event. Death in the Indian tradition has a different meaning. It is no longer that sad and dreadful event that everyone is afraid of. The dead person becomes a warrior to protect the land.
The rhyming scheme of the poem is abab.
这首诗写的是与白人大有不同的印第安人殡葬。死去的印第安人穿上特别的衣服，以坐姿埋葬，像是在庆祝欢庆的事。死亡在印第安人传统中具有特殊的意义，它不再是令人悲伤、恐惧的事情。去世的人成为守护大地的勇士。
这首诗的韵律是abab。
◆To a Caty-Did 《致纺织娘》
“Caty-did” is the sound of a well-known insect, when full grown, about two inches long in length, and of the exact color of a green leaf.
This poem reveals the poet’s love for nature and his keen observation of living things in nature; it also shows the mystery of nature.
“凯提-迪德”是拟声词，是一种有名的昆虫的叫声，这种昆虫长大后身长约两寸，披着绿叶般的外衣。
这首诗揭示了诗人对大自然的热爱和对自然界生物的细致观察，同时显示出了大自然的神秘之处。