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• Lucida (2008-8-03 22:58:03)

  17世纪，玄学派诗歌异军突起。这派诗人虽然继承了伊丽莎白时代诗歌复杂精妙的语言特色，却尽弃那一时代甜腻空乏，故作优雅的文风。他们的诗歌较口语化；韵脚复杂，不规则；思辨性强，涵盖面广，天文、地理、哲学、物理皆可入诗；充满了奇思妙想（conceit）,将各种看似毫不相干的意象冶于一炉。塞缪尔•约翰逊博士（Samuel Johnson,1709～1784）批评这派诗人将杂七杂八的思想拉到一处，全凭蛮力（The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.）虽然玄学派诗人的确有卖弄学问之嫌，喜欢语出惊人，但是，约翰逊博士所指的“蛮力”（violence），恰恰揭示出这类诗作里隐藏着裹挟一切的巨大能量；那些看似庞杂无章的意象恰恰是这个动荡混乱的时代的一种反映。玄学派诗人正是通过复杂的哲学思辨试图对复杂的现实社会加以再现。难怪他们的作品在20世纪初同样身处动荡时代的现代派诗人中找到了共鸣。玄学派诗人中的佼佼者是约翰•多恩（John Donne,1572～1631）,他们创作《歌与短歌》（Songs and Sonnets）和《圣十四行诗》（Holy Sonnets）闻名于世。乔治•赫伯特（George Herbert,1593～1633）被誉为“玄学派诗圣”，他的诗歌带有强烈的宗教色彩，代表作是《圣殿》（The Temple）.安德鲁•马维尔（Andrew Marvell,1621～1678）的“花园”（The Garden）和“致他羞怯的女友”（To His Coy Mistress）都是英国是个不可多得的精品。虽然马维尔的想象没有多恩那么瑰丽突兀，但他的诗风平静清新，有一种庄严典雅之美。

   

   

  这一时期另一个主要诗歌流派以本•琼生（Ben Jonson,1573～1637）为领袖，人们称他们为The Tribe of Ben.因为这派诗人（Sons of Ben）多是乡绅出身，有保皇倾向，又称“骑士派诗人”（the Cavalier Poets）。他们的诗歌追循古典主义原则，推崇理性和谐和规律，讲究古典精炼的形式和严格的韵脚，对其后兴起的新古典主义（Neo-Classism）诗歌，尤其是德莱顿（John Dryden）和蒲伯（Alexander Pope）的作品，产生了重大影响。其代表人物本•琼生的诗歌简洁明快，表达干净洗练，说理确切有力。他的继承者罗伯特•赫里克（Robert Herrick,1591～1674），约翰•塞克林（John Suckling,1609～1641）和理查德•勒夫莱斯（Richard Lovelace,1618～1657）则文风优雅，措辞精妙。他们的作品流露出一种贵族式的淡然，缺少了琼生的严肃，却完整保留了琼生讲究琢磨，推崇精细的特色。

• Lucida (2008-8-03 22:59:19)

  Sir John Suckling (February 10, 1609 – June 1, 1642) was an English Cavalier poet whose best known poem may be "Ballad Upon a Wedding". He is well known as a Carpe Diem or Cavalier poet. He was born at Whitton, in the parish of Twickenham, Middlesex, and baptized there on February 10, 1609. His father was Sir William Suckling, a courtier and his mother was Elizabeth Cranfield, sister of Sir Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex. The poet inherited his father's estate at the age of eighteen. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1623, and was enrolled at Gray's Inn in 1627. He was intimate with Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Nabbes and especially with John Hales and Sir William Davenant, who later furnished John Aubrey with information about his friend. In 1628 he left London to travel in France and Italy, returning before the autumn of 1630, when he was knighted. In 1631 he volunteered for the force raised by the marquess of Hamilton to serve under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. He was back at Whitehall in May 1632; but during his short service he had been present at the Battle of Breitenfeld and in many sieges. His poetic talent was only one of many accomplishments, but it commended him especially to Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria. He says of himself ("A Sessions of the Poets") that he "prized black eyes or a lucky hit at bowls above all the trophies of wit." He was the best card-player and the best bowler at court. Aubrey says that he invented the game of cribbage, and relates that his sisters came weeping to the bowling green at Piccadilly to dissuade him from play, fearing that he would lose their portions. In 1634 great avalanche was caused in his old circle by a beating which he received at the hands of Sir John , a rival suitor for the hand of the daughter of Sir John Willoughby; and it has been suggested that this incident, which is narrated at length in a letter (November 10, 1634) from George Garrard to Strafford, had something to do with his beginning to seek more serious society. In 1635 he retired to his country estates in obedience to the proclamation of June 20, 1632 enforced by the Star Chamber against absentee landlordism, and employed his leisure in literary pursuits. In 1637 "A Sessions of the Poets" was circulated in manuscript, and about the same time he wrote a tract on Socinianism entitled An Account of Religion by Reason (pr. 1646). As a dramatist Suckling is noteworthy as having applied to regular drama the accessories already used in the production of masques. His Aglaura (pr. 1638) was produced at his own expense with elaborate scenery. Even the lace on the actors' coats was of real gold and silver. The play, in spite of its felicity of diction, lacks dramatic interest, and the criticism of Richard Flecknoe (Short Discourse of the English Stage), that it seemed "full of flowers, but rather stuck in than growing there," is not altogether unjustified. The Goblins (1638, pr. 1646) has some reminiscences of The Tempest; Brennoralt, or the Discontented Colonel (1639, pr. 1646) is a satire on the Scots, who are the Lithuanian rebels of the play; a fourth play, The Sad One, was left unfinished owing to the outbreak of the Civil War. Suckling raised a troop of a hundred horse, at a cost of £12,000, and accompanied Charles on the Scottish expedition of 1639. He shared in the earl of Holland's retreat before Duns, and was ridiculed in an amusing ballad (pr. 1656), in Musarum deliciae, "on Sir John Suckling's most warlike preparations for the Scottish war." He was elected as member for Bramber for the opening session (1640) of the Long Parliament; and in that winter he drew up a letter addressed to Henry Jermyn, afterwards earl of St Albans, advising the king to disconcert the opposition leaders by making more concessions than they asked for. In May of the following year he was implicated in an attempt to rescue Strafford (Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford?) from the Tower and to bring in French troops to the king's aid. The plot was exposed by the evidence of Colonel George Goring, and Suckling fled beyond the seas. The circumstances of his short exile are obscure. He was certainly in Paris in the summer of 1641. One pamphlet related a story of his elopement with a lady to Spain, where he fell into the hands of the Inquisition. The manner of his death is uncertain, but Aubrey's statement that he put an end to his life by poison in May or June 1642 in fear of poverty is generally accepted. Suckling's reputation as a poet depends on his minor pieces. They have wit and fancy, and at times exquisite felicity of expression. "Easy, natural Suckling," Millamant's comment in Congreve's The Way of the World (Act iv., sc. i.) is a just tribute to their spontaneous quality. Among the best known of them are the "Ballade upon a Wedding," on the occasion of the marriage of Roger Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, and Lady Margaret Howard, "I prithee, send me back my heart," "Out upon it, I have loved three whole days together," and "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" from Aglaura. "A Sessions of the Poets," describing a meeting of the contemporary versifiers under the presidency of Apollo to decide who should wear the laurel wreath, is the prototype of many later satires. A collection of Suckling's poems was first published in 1646 as Fragmenta aurea. The so-called Selections (1836) published by the Rev. Alfred Inigo Suckling (author of the History and Antiquities of Suffolk [1846–1848] with Memoirs based on original authorities and a portrait after Van Dyck) is really a complete edition of his works, of which WC Hazlitt's edition (1874; revised ed., 1892) is little more than a reprint with some additions. The Poems and Songs of Sir John Suckling, edited by John Gray and decorated with woodcut border and initials by Charles Ricketts, was artistically printed at the Ballantyne Press in 1896. In 1910 Suckling's works in prose and verse were edited by A. Hamilton Thompson. For anecdotes of Suckling's life see John Aubrey's Brief Lives (Clarendon Press ed., ii.242).