Bishop's One Art 的创作问题

怀抱花朵的孩子

"丧失的艺术"几乎是Bishop的标签,她这首"One Art"也不是一般的出名.而这首诗的写作更富于戏剧性,下面这些是以前写的一些笔记,写的很简略,对于Bishop不大了解的读者可能看不大明白.现在没有时间也没有力气把他们写的更明白些,姑且把这些贴出来.最近发现自己神经有些问题,总是想这些写作的边界问题.真的有点错乱了.


One Art
  
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

这首可能是Bishop最著名的一首诗了,也因为这首诗才有著名的"The art of losing",写这首诗的时候Bishop修改了很多次,留下的手稿就达17份之多,我找到一篇关于她手稿详细描述的文章<<The Drafts of "One Art">>,里面特别提到Bishop对这首首诗的最后一段做了彻底的多次重写,当然最后一个Stanza是全诗的核心和点睛之作.在这里我想说的也是最后一段.

这首诗据说是为了悼念自己自杀的丈夫或情人而作,说法不一,Bishop一生情事不断,有好几个人为她自杀,当然这里不八卦诗人的私生活,我们需要了解的只是这首诗是为了纪念一个为诗人自杀的情人而作,说得更简单点,是为了纪念一个具体的人.

此诗采用法国villanelle诗体,villanelle最重要的特点就是格律的严格和诗句的重复,此诗里"The art of losing isn't hard to master"这句反复出现达到一种强烈的效果,诗人也是在这种古老诗体的严格格律下达到一种永恒的诗体美(Bishop好象对于这种法国古体格律诗很感兴趣,她的<<Sestina>>用了更严格的Sestina体),这种严格的格律既带来美感也带来问题,按照villanelle的体例,本诗的倒数第二句应该也是"The art of losing isn't hard to master".而最后一句应该是"I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster."之类.前面的Stanzas都在做铺垫,无论是感情上的还是诗歌氛围上的,诗人通过对于"The art of losing"的反复书写几乎达到一种胁迫的味道,但是最后一段却遇到"losing you"的问题,如果说前面的places, and names,mother's watch等都可以面对都可以说"The art of losing isn't hard to master.None of these will bring disaster".但是轮到第二人称"you"的时候却很难这样轻松,Brett Candlish Millier在<<The Drafts of "One Art">>里面提到Bishop对于最后一个Stanza作了很大的改动,比如

In the sixth draft, the final stanza reads: "The art of losing's not so hard to master / until that point & then it / fails & is disaster—." The poem bogs down here; the seventh draft stops short of the final stanza, and the eighth is sketchy, with such lines as "losses nobody can master" and "the art of losing's not impossible to master / It won't work . . ."—most of which are crossed out.

In the ninth draft Bishop develops in the last stanza a more complete version of the "lying" theme:

All that I write is false, it's evident
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
oh no.
anythng at all anything but one's love. (Say it: disaster.)

The thirteenth draft is the last that thoroughly reworks the final stanza, and it is at this point that the "gesture" becomes a "special voice," then a "funny voice," and finally the "joking voice." There are two tentative versions of the ending. First:

And losing you now (a special voice, a gesture)
Doesn’t mean I’ve lied. It’s evident
the loss of love is possible to master,
even if this looks like (Write it!) like disaster.

这里面的过程过于复杂,<<The Drafts of "One Art">>里有详细的记录,我只想说的是Bishop在开始写"the last stanza"的时候对于"The art of losing"是完全持否定甚至绝望态度的,只是经过不断的修改重写才达到现在的效果,她不但打破了villanelle的限制也打破了一般诗的常规,用了两个括号,第一个括号还是断行.这首诗确实是villanelle里面写的最有特色也是最有张力的一首.

这里我不想讨论细节问题.我一直对于Bishop不的这种反复书写和表达方式心存困惑,你在这种写作中得到什么呢?或者更应该说在这种写作过程中得到什么?当然这首诗本身写的就是没有答案的问题,但是我一直在想写作是一种什么样的存在,写作的边界在哪里.

[ 本帖最后由 怀抱花朵的孩子 于 2006-11-4 08:55 AM 编辑 ]