An introduction to the Gawain-poet
An introduction to the Gawain-poet
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高文诗人简介
作者：
A. Putter
约翰·M·鲍尔斯，加文诗人导论。中世纪文学的新视角。盖恩斯维尔：佛罗里达大学出版社，2012年。PP。第十七号，205号。ISBN：978-0-8130-4015-8。在这本生动的关于加文诗人的书中，约翰·鲍尔斯对这位诗人的作品进行了发人深省的介绍。市场上有各种各样的竞争对手，但尽管鲍尔斯很好地利用了之前的学术成就，但他的介绍绝非“大同小异”。首先，鲍尔斯的方法带有明显的历史决定论色彩，任何熟悉他早期著作《珍珠的政治》(The Politics of‘珍珠’，2001)的人都可能预料到这一点。在迈克尔·J·班尼特的带领下，鲍尔斯从柴郡和理查德二世之间的政治联系中找到了这位诗人所关注的问题(例如他对礼貌的兴趣)。鲍尔斯选择将圣埃尔肯沃尔德纳入其中也是创新之举，他认为这是加文诗人的贡献。这首诗也是用柴郡方言写的；它与科顿·尼禄的诗歌在语言上有相似之处；所有这些诗歌对形式的关注提供了另一种相似之处。与耐心和干净一样，圣埃尔肯瓦尔德也是用四行划线写成的；大写字母的位置--一个在诗的开头，一个在第177行--恰好把诗(352行)一分为二。然而，我不相信(起源于罗素·佩克的)数字8提供了圣埃尔肯瓦尔德的数字钥匙。科顿尼禄的诗显然是命理上的，珀尔和加文爵士以及绿骑士，非常明确地说明了他们的行动数字(分别为12和5x5)，但圣埃尔肯瓦尔德没有把数字8。(没错，这首诗和其中的几节可以被八整除，但在一首用四行诗节写成的诗中，这并不是什么了不起的事情。)鲍尔斯暗示圣埃尔肯沃尔德借鉴了《福音书》--耐心和清洁当然是这样--或许可以提供缺失的命理动机(因为有八个福音书)，但由于埃尔肯瓦尔德主教和异教法官都没有遭受迫害，我看不出这首诗是如何从《为了正义而遭受迫害的人是有福的》发展出其主题核心的，我也听不到第340行‘另一个对福音书的回响’(第88页)。尽管如此，共同作者的问题是一个开放的问题，很高兴看到圣埃尔肯瓦尔德被包括在讨论中。在专门介绍了这位诗人的生平的一章之后(必须基于有限的内部证据)，鲍尔斯从加文爵士和绿衣骑士开始。他的讨论将让学生对这首诗和围绕它的关键批评性辩论有一个很好的了解。多年来教授这首诗的经验闪耀着光芒；例如，鲍尔斯评论说，Gawain在课堂上表现得如此出色，部分原因是它只涉及一件事--学生和老师都能理解--考试。加文和其他诗歌也通过与其他英国文学经典的比较而变得容易理解。例如，《城堡的夫人》显然读过很多侠义小说，她被比作简·奥斯汀的《诺桑觉寺》中的凯瑟琳·莫兰：和她一样，她也是一名女性读者，熟悉她所塑造的文学类型(第39页)。鲍尔斯评论说，珀尔是18世纪托马斯·格雷在乡村墓地写的挽歌所普及的墓地学派的先驱。不同的是，墓地从来没有被承认为墓地。关于清洁、耐心、圣埃尔肯瓦尔德和珀尔的章节同样引人入胜。对文学、历史和神学背景进行了阐述，但诙谐的观察淡化了基调。…
John m. bowers, An Introduction to the Gawain Poet. New Perspectives on Medieval Literature. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. pp. xvii, 205. isbn: 978- 0-8130-4015-8. $69.95In this lively book on the Gawain poet, John Bowers provides a thought-provoking introduction to the poet's works. There are various rivals on the market, but while Bowers makes good use of previous scholarship, his introduction is by no means 'more of the same.' In the first place, Bowers' approach is distinctively historicist, as anyone familiar with his earlier book, The Politics of 'Pearl' (2001), might have expected. Taking his lead from Michael J. Bennett, Bowers finds a context for the poet's concerns (such as his interest in courtliness) in the political ties between Cheshire and King Richard II. Also innovative is Bowers' choice to include St. Erkenwald which he attributes to the Gawain poet. This poem, too, is in the Cheshire dialect; there are suggestive verbal similarities between it and the Cotton Nero poems; and the attention paid to form in all these poems offers another parallel. Like Patience and Cleanness, St. Erkenwald is written in four-line strophes; the placement of large capital letters-one at the start of the poem and one at line 177-divides the poem (of 352 lines) exactly in half. I am not convinced, however, by the idea (originating with Russell Peck) that the number eight offers a numerological key to St. Erkenwald. The Cotton Nero poems which clearly are numerological, Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, are very explicit about their operative numbers (12 and 5x5 respectively), but St. Erkenwald makes nothing of the number eight. (True, the poem and sections of it are divisible by eight, but in a poem written in four-line stanzas, that is hardly remarkable.) Bowers' suggestion that St. Erkenwald draws on the Beatitudes-as Patience and Cleanness certainly do-could perhaps supply the missing numerological motive (for there are eight Beatitudes), but since neither Bishop Erkenwald nor the Pagan Judge suffer persecution I fail to see how the poem 'develops its thematic core' from 'Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake,' nor can I hear in line 340 'another echo of the Beatitudes' (p. 88). That said, the question of common authorship is an open one, and it is good to see St. Erkenwald included in the discussion.After a chapter devoted to the life of the poet (necessarily based on limited internal evidence), Bowers begins with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. His discussion will give students a good sense of both the poem and the key critical debates that surround it. Years of experience of teaching this poem shine through; for example, Bowers comments that 'Gawain works so well in the classroom partly because it is about one thing that students and teachers all understand-tests' (p. 49). Gawain and the other poems are also made accessible through comparisons with other classics of English literature. For instance, the Lady of the Castle, who has obviously read a good many chivalric romances, is likened to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: like her, she is a 'female reader familiar with the literary genre in which she casts herself ' (p. 39). And Pearl, Bowers remarks, 'stands as a forerunner of the Graveyard School popularized in the eighteenth century by Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. The difference is that the burial ground is never acknowledged as a burial ground' (p. 109).The chapters on Cleanness, Patience, St. Erkenwald, and Pearl are similarly engaging. Literary, historical, and theological contexts are explicated, but witty observations lighten the tone. …