旅行的藝術(shù):風(fēng)景 Ⅴ 鄉(xiāng)村與城市-3

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威廉·華茲華斯1770年生于“湖區(qū)”北方邊緣的一個小鎮(zhèn)——科克茅斯。他自稱“童年中有一半的時光是在山野中奔跑嬉戲”。他生命的大部分時間在“湖區(qū)”度過，但也間斷地在倫敦和劍橋住過，并且到過歐洲旅行。他最早住在格拉斯米爾村莊里一棟簡樸的兩層樓房里，房子用石頭砌成，名為“鴿舍”。后來他漸漸有了名聲后，便搬到附近的賴德爾，住進了較為充裕的寓所。

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in the small town of Cockermouth, on the northern edge of the Lake District. He spent, in his words, 'half his boyhood in running wild among the Mountains' and, aside from interludes in London and Cambridge and travels around Europe, lived his whole life in the Lake District: first in a modest two-storeyed stone dwelling, Dove Cottage, in the village of Grasmere, and then, as his fame increased, in a more substantial home in nearby Rydal.

他幾乎每天都要在山間或湖畔步行一段很長的距離。即使是下起雨來他也并不在乎。他坦言落在湖區(qū)的雨“有一股氣勢和韌勁，讓失意的旅人想到了落在阿比西尼亞山區(qū)、成為尼羅河終年源頭的豪雨”。華茲華斯的友人托馬斯·德奎恩斯估計，詩人一生中走了175000至180000英里的路程。德奎恩斯認為基于華茲華斯的體格，這是非常難得的。他說：“華茲華斯的身體并不算強健。所有我知道的女士腿評專家，都一致尖酸刻薄地嘲諷華茲華斯這方面的缺陷。”德奎恩斯認為更遺憾的是：“當(dāng)他行走時，華茲華斯的姿勢很糟糕。根據(jù)很多鄉(xiāng)下人的說法，‘他走起路來十足像一只大谷盜蟲。’那是一種斜著行走的昆蟲。”

And almost every day, he went on a long walk in the mountains or along the lakeshores. He was unbothered by the rain, which, as he admitted, tended to fall in the Lake District 'with a vigour and perseverance that may remind the disappointed traveller of those deluges of rain which fall among the Abyssinian mountains for the annual supply of the Nile'. His acquaintance Thomas de Quincey estimated that Wordsworth had walked 175,000 to 180,000 miles in his life-all the more remarkable, added De Quincey, given his physique: 'For Wordsworth was, upon the whole, not a well-made man. His legs were pointedly condemned by all the female connoisseurs in legs that I ever heard lecture upon the topic.' Sadly, continued De Quincey, 'the total effect of Wordsworth's person was always worst in a state of motion, for, according to the remark I have heard from many country people, “he walked like a cade”-a cade being some sort of insect which advances by an oblique motion'.

在別人眼中如此別扭的行走，卻給詩人帶來了靈感，成就了他關(guān)于大自然的詩作，如《致蝴蝶》、《致布谷鳥》、《致云雀》、《致雛菊》和《致小小的白屈菜》。以前，詩人不過是很隨意或習(xí)慣性地看待自然現(xiàn)象，但是它們在華茲華斯筆下卻成了最偉大的主題。根據(jù)華茲華斯的妹妹多蘿茜的日記（這本日記記錄了華茲華斯在湖區(qū)的活動）記載，華茲華斯1802年3月16日這天在帕特代爾溪谷附近一個湖畔散步。這個湖叫做“兄弟湖”，湖面非常平靜。他走過湖上一座橋，便坐下來寫了以下的詩句：

It was during his cadeish walks that Wordsworth derived the inspiration for many of his poems, including To a Butterfly, To the Cuckoo, To a Skylark, To the Daisy and To the Small Celandine -poems about natural phenomena which poets had hitherto looked at casually or ritualistically, but which Wordsworth now declared to be the noblest subjects of his craft. On 16 March 1802-according to the journal of his sister Dorothy, a record of her sibling's movements around the Lake District-Wordsworth walked across a bridge at Brothers Water, a placid lake near Patterdale, then sat down to write the following:

公雞啼鳴

The cock is crowing

小溪流淌

The stream is flowing

小鳥啁啾，

The small birds twitter,

湖水閃耀著波光……

The lake doth glitter …

山林中充滿快樂

There's joy in the mountains；

噴泉中充滿活力

There's life in the fountains;

云兒飄蕩

Small clouds are sailing,

天空屬于蔚藍

Blue sky prevailing

過了幾個星期，詩人被美麗的雀巢所感動，于是又提筆寫道：

A few weeks afterwards, the poet found himself moved to write by the beauty of a sparrow's nest:

瞧，五顆藍色的蛋正在那里閃爍！

Look, five blue eggs are gleaming there!

這么簡單的畫面

Few visions have I seen more fair,

卻少有景象比它悅目，

Nor many prospects of delight

也少有盼望的喜悅

More pleasing than that simple sight!

比它更令人神往！

幾年后的一個夏天，他聽見夜鶯的鳴唱，又覺得有必要把心中的喜悅表達出來，于是寫了以下詩句：

A need to express joy that he experienced again a few summers later on hearing the sound of a nightingale:

夜鶯啊！你美麗的歌吟

O Nightingale! thou surely art

必定出自一顆熾熱的心——

A creature of a fiery heart

你唱得如此嘹亮

Thou sing'st as if the god of wine

仿佛酒神

Had help'd thee to a Valentine.

已為你找到了情人

這些詩句并不是偶發(fā)的喜悅之聲。它們背后有一套完善的自然哲學(xué)理論。這套哲學(xué)具有獨創(chuàng)性，闡述了獲得幸福的條件以及我們不幸福的緣由。它貫穿華茲華斯的所有作品，并且在西方思想中有著相當(dāng)?shù)挠绊?。詩人解釋說，大自然中的各種現(xiàn)象，包括小鳥、小溪、水仙和綿羊，都是不可或缺的，因為它們能矯正和治療城市人倍感困頓的心靈。

They were not haphazard articulations of pleasure. Behind them lay a well-developed philosophy of nature, which-infusing all of Wordsworth's work-made an original and, in the history of Western thought, hugely influential claim about our requirements for happiness and the origins of our unhappiness. The poet proposed that Nature, which he took to comprise, among other elements, birds, streams, daffodils and sheep, was an indispensable corrective to the psychological damage inflicted by life in the city.

華茲華斯的主張一開始便遭受到可怕的阻力。拜倫1807年為華茲華斯《詩歌二卷》所作的評論中提到，他對于一個成年人把花兒或動物看得那么高貴感到困惑。他說：“幼兒園的讀者對于這樣矯飾、浮華的作品會怎么看哪？……難道是為模仿吟游詩人，以緩解搖籃里嬰兒的啼哭嗎？”《愛丁堡評論》語調(diào)同情地斷言華茲華斯的詩歌是“幼稚、荒謬之作品”，并懷疑或許是詩人本身想刻意讓自己成為笑柄。《愛丁堡評論》指出：“一把鏟子或一個雀巢或許真的能給華茲華斯留下一系列深刻的印象……然而可以肯定的是，這樣的聯(lián)想在大多數(shù)人看來似乎是被迫、生硬和不自然的。所有世人都取笑以下的作品：《挽歌·致吃奶的小豬》、《洗衣日圣歌》、《獻給老奶奶的十四行詩》、《醋栗派頌》。但是，要讓華茲華斯先生相信這一點卻是非常困難的。”

The message met with vicious initial resistance. Lord Byron, reviewing Wordsworth's Poems in Two Volumes in 1807, was bewildered at how a grown man could make such claims on behalf of flowers and animals. 'What will any reader out of the nursery say to such namby-pamby … an imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle?' The Edinburgh Review sympathized, declaring Wordsworth's poetry 'a piece of babyish absurdity', and wondered whether it was not a deliberate attempt by the author to turn himself into a laughing stock. 'It is possible that the sight of a garden spade or a sparrow's nest might really have suggested to Wordsworth a train of powerful impressions … but it is certain that to most minds, such associations will always appear forced, strained and unnatural. All the world laughs at Elegiac stanzas to a Sucking-pig, A Hymn on Washing-day, Sonnets to one's Grandmother, or Pindaric odes on Gooseberry-pie; and yet, it seems, it is not easy to convince Mr Wordsworth of this.'

許多文學(xué)刊物中開始出現(xiàn)嘲仿華茲華斯此種風(fēng)格的拙作：
Parodies of the poet's work began to circulate in the literary journals:

When I see a cloud,

一朵云

I think out loud,

讓我的心

How lovely it is,

贊嘆，這樣的藍天

To see the sky like this

真惹人愛憐

ran one.

又如：

Was it a robin that I saw?

我看見的是知更鳥嗎？

Was it a pigeon or a daw?

還是鴿子或穴鳥？

ran another.

然而華茲華斯卻絲毫不為之動搖。他奉勸博蒙特夫人“不要因為這些詩歌目前受到的評論而煩惱”。他解釋說：“這個時刻與它們將來能發(fā)揮使命時相比算得了什么？我相信我的詩歌之使命便是安慰受苦者；使開心的人更加快樂，好讓白天的陽光更明媚；教導(dǎo)年幼者及各年齡層有仁愛之心的人學(xué)會真正的觀察、思考和感受，讓他們在行動和心靈上更有德性。這就是它們的職責(zé)，我相信在我們作古多年后，它們?nèi)詴覍嵉赝瓿蛇@個使命。”

Wordsworth was stoic. 'Trouble not yourself upon the present reception of these poems,' he advised Lady Beaumont. 'Of what moment is that when compared with what I trust is their destiny, to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous; this is their office, which I trust they will faithfully perform long after we (that is, all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves.'

他惟一的錯是在時間判斷上。德奎恩斯解釋：“1820年以前，華茲華斯的名聲被踐踏。1820至1830年期間，褒貶互見；到了1830至1835年，勝利降臨了。”人們的品位經(jīng)歷了緩慢卻鮮明的轉(zhuǎn)變。讀者群逐漸停止嘲諷，他們開始欣賞、甚至背誦這些關(guān)于蝴蝶或白屈菜的贊歌。游客們因為受華茲華斯詩作的感染而來到他獲取靈感的地方觀光。于是，溫德米爾、賴德爾及格拉斯米爾開始出現(xiàn)新的旅館。到了1845年，前來“湖區(qū)”觀光的游客估計比這里的綿羊還多。他們在位于賴德爾的華茲華斯庭院里瞥見詩人的影子，并且在詩人描述過的山坡和湖畔尋找自然界的力量。當(dāng)騷塞 [3] 于1843年辭世時，華茲華斯被授予桂冠詩人的榮譽。一批追隨者甚至籌劃將“湖區(qū)”命名為華茲華斯郡。

He was wrong only about how long it would take. 'Up to 1820, the name of Wordsworth was trampled under foot,' explained De Quincey, 'from 1820 to 1830 it was militant; and from 1830 to 1835 it has been triumphant.' Taste underwent a slow but radical transformation. The reading public gradually ceased guffawing and learnt to be charmed and even recite by heart hymns to butterflies and sonnets on celandines. Wordsworth's poetry attracted tourists to the places that had inspired it. New hotels were opened in Windermere, Rydal and Grasmere. By 1845, it was estimated that there were more tourists in the Lake District than sheep. They prized glimpses of the cadeish creature in his garden in Rydal, and on hillsides and lakeshores sought out the sites whose power he had described in verse. On the death of Southey in 1843, Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate. Plans were drawn up by a group of well-wishers in London to have the Lake District renamed Wordsworthshire.

當(dāng)80高齡的華茲華斯1850年與世長辭時（這時英格蘭和威爾士有半數(shù)的人口過著都市生活），許多嚴肅的評論大都傾向于認同華茲華斯的看法，贊同他的這個立場：時常走訪大自然是解除城市生活中罪惡的必要良方。

By the time of the poet's death at the age of eighty in 1850 (by which year half of the population of England and Wales was urban), serious critical opinion seemed almost universally sympathetic to his suggestion that regular travel through nature was a necessary antidote to the evils of the city.