艾略特：《传统与个人才能》读书笔记

【诗人与历史意识】“在英文著述中我们不常说起传统，虽然有时候也用它的名字来惋惜它的缺乏。”【1】（In English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence p.13.）强调的是诗人与前人的异点，是其最个人的部分，传统自然不足称道。【2】但艾略特却强调传统中所包含的历史意识，“我们可以说这对于任何想在二十五岁以上还要继续作诗人的人，差不多是不可缺少的；历史的意识又含有一种领悟，不但要理解过去的过去性，而且还要理解过去的现存性，历史的意识不但使人写作时有他自己那一代的背景，而且还要感到从荷马以来欧洲整个的文学及其本国整个的文学有一个同时的存在，组成一个同时的局面。这个历史的意识是对于永久的意识，也是对于暂时的意识，也是对于永久和暂时结合起来的意识。就是这个意识使一个作家成为传统性的。同时也就是这个意识使一个作家最敏锐地意识到自己在时间中的地位，自己和当代的关系。”【3】（the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same rime what makes a writer most acutely conscious ofhis place in time, of his own contemporaneity. p.14.）“诗人，任何艺术的艺术家，谁也不能单独具有他完全的意义。他的重要性以及我们对他的鉴赏，就是鉴赏他和已往诗人以及艺术家的关系。你不能把他单独评价；你得把他放在前人之间来对照，来比较。我认为这不仅是一个历史的批评原则，也是一个美学的批评原则。”【3】（No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. HIs sIgnificance, ,his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetIc, not merely historical, critIcism. p.15.）现存艺术经典构成一个理想的秩序，由新作品北街号进来而发生变化，新与旧的适应。艾略特吉尼布解释诗人对于过去的关系。艺术从不会进步，必须明了欧洲的心灵、本国的心灵是一种会变化的心灵。【4】强调“诗人必须获得或发展对于过去的意识，也必须在他的毕生事业中继续发展这个意识。”【5】“于是他就得随时不断地放弃当前的自己，归附更有价值的东西，一个艺术家的前进是不断地牺牲自己，不断地消灭自己的个性。”【5-6】“要做到消灭个性这一点，艺术才可以说大道科学的地步了。”【6】（What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice , a continual extinction of personahty. …There remains to define this process of depersonalization and Its relation to the sense of traditIon. It is in tlus depersonahzatlon that art may be said to approach the condltlon of science. p17.）

【诗与诗人/作者的关系】 “诚实的批评和敏感的鉴赏，并不注意诗人，而注意诗。”【6】（Honest criticism and sensitive apprecIation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. p.17,）艾略特认为诗自古以来一切诗的有机整体，而非个人的理论；其另一面就是诗与作者的关系。【6】（I have tried to pomt out the importance of the relatIon of the poem to other poems by other authors, and suggested tne conceptIon of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been wntten. The other aspect of this Impersonal theory of poetry is the relatIon of the poem to its author. pp.17-8.）成熟诗人的心灵与未成熟诗人的心灵所不同的地方并非在于“个性”，也非“更富有涵义”，而是哪个是更完美的工具，可以让特殊的或颇多变化的特种情感，能在其中自由组成新的结合。【6】“崇高”的半伦理批评标准并不中肯。[诗之所以有价值，并不在于感情的“伟大”与强烈，不是由于这些成分，而在于艺术作用的强烈，也可以说是结合时所加压力的强烈。] 在他看来，“诗人没有什么个性可以表现，只有一个特殊的工具，只是工具，不是个性，使种种印象和经验在这个工具里用种种特别的意想不到的方式来相互结合。对于诗人具有重要意义的印象和经验，而在他的诗里可能并不占优地位；而在他的诗里是很重要的印象和经验，对于诗人本身，对于个性，却可能并没有什么作用。”【8】（The point of view whIch I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to tne metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for m.y meaning is, that the poet has not: a 'personahty' to express, but: a partiIcular lllechum, which is only a medimn and not a personalIty, In which impressions and experiences combine ill pecuhar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are Important for the lllan may take no place in the poetry, and those wluch becollle important in the poetry may play quite aneghgible part in the man, the personahty. pp.19-20.）以图尔纳《复仇者的悲剧》第3幕第5场为例，诗人之所以令人感兴趣，并非是由于他个人的感情。“诗不是放纵感情，而是逃避感情，不是表现个性，而是逃避个性。自然，只有有个性和感情的人才会知道要逃避这种东西是什么意义。”【10-11】（Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; It is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personahty and emotions know what It means to want to escape from these things. p.21.）艾略特总结道：“大多数人只在诗里鉴赏真挚的感情的表现，一部分人能鉴赏技巧的卓越。但很少有人知道什么时候有重大意义的感情的表现。这种感情的生命是在诗中，不是在诗人的历史中。艺术的感情是非个人的。诗人若不整个地把自己交付给他所从事的工作，就不能达到非个人的地步。他也不会知道应当做什么工作，除非他所生活于其中的不但是现在而且是过去的时刻，除非他所意识到的不是死的，而是早已活着的东西”【11】There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion In verse, and there is a smaller number of people who can appreciate techrucal excellence. Bnt very few know when there is an expression of significant enlorion, emotion which has its lIfe in the poem and not in the lnstory of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonahty without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not hkely to know what is to be done unless he hves in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living. p.22.