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（Hi I am Lisa An, 首先，向大家表示抱歉，因为我工作忙碌，不能做到每日更新内容。因为我会按照主题去选择每期内容，并且亲自写一小段对文章的理解……原谅我的自恋，所以每次会花不少时间。很难做到每日更新。所以非常欢迎大家参与到本主页的资料编辑哦，可以留言联系^^……还有，如果有信息错误的地方，也欢迎提出！Your feedback matters a lot! ） 约翰.弥尔顿John Milton(1608-1674)生活在腥风血雨，骚动变革的17世纪。当时的英国中产阶级已经在社会上有重大的影响力，他们不甘于受到到国王的种种控制，于是他们组建了议会parliament，反对专制，提倡共和，掀起了一场空前的革命bourgeois revolution/ puritan revolution(中产阶级革命或清教革命)。以克伦威尔Cromwell为首的中产阶级势力最终战胜了保皇派，这场政变以查尔斯一世Charles I (英国王室似乎很喜欢查尔斯，詹姆斯，亨利，威廉等等这些名字，所以就会出现一世，二世，甚至八世这样的说法)被砍头终结。当然，这场革命也打着宗教的大旗，中产阶级很大部分是清教徒puritans，他们认为英国国教过于奢华腐败，于是想要净化教堂。他们倡导清修，自立和禁欲的生活（后来，王权复辟restoration，议会把流亡的查尔斯二世Charles II请回来当政，很多清教徒因此遭到报复迫害。有一部分人逃到了美洲，现在的新英格兰地区New England，清教徒的思想也在新大陆开枝散叶。受到美洲土著帮忙，于是有了感恩节Thanksgiving Day。任何事物都有两面性，清教徒们也有保守和虚伪的一面。大家如果读过美国作家霍桑的《红字》便知道，那个故事就发生在新英格兰地区，女主人公因为偷情adultery而怀孕，差点被清教徒们处死。） 我们回到作家弥尔顿的生平，他就生在一个中产阶级小康之家，爸爸是抄写员，拟合同，放贷，家里条件很好。所以作者从小就接受极好的古典教育。他熟读古典名著，通晓希伯来语Hebrew，希腊语Greek，拉丁语Latin，意大利语Italian，法语French等等，注意，他是通晓master这些语言！！！现在的学霸和他比起来都弱爆了吧。。。剑桥毕业之后，他考虑过作牧师minister，想成为上帝的诗人god’s poet。但是当时的英国政治和社会情形很混乱，于是他做了一个决定，回到父亲的乡村别墅，继续读书！据说，在乡村生活的6年间，弥尔顿读遍了世界上所有他能读的书。这段时间他创作了好多有名的诗歌，比如“Lycidas” “L’Allegro” 等等。 接下来他去欧洲大陆旅行了两年，还拜访了天文学家伽利略Galileo。 也就在这个时候，在欧洲大陆的他听说了英国爆发的清教革命。支持清教徒和怀着共和思想的他迫不及待的回到英国，用一支笔来为这场伟大革命辩护，批判英国国教的主教bishops们对教会的控制。 1649年，克伦威尔Cromwell被弥尔顿的才华和勇气深深震撼，任命他为外交部部长Secretary of State of Foreign Tongues,这个工作要求弥尔顿把政治文件翻译成拉丁文，并且写文章plitical pamphlets为新政府辩护，正名。 就是因为这个工作，弥尔顿双目失明了！ 更糟糕的在后面! 1660年，王权复辟，52岁，双目失明的弥尔顿被送到监牢，而且财产全部被没收。（后来据说是诗人的朋友，Andrew Marvell把他解救出来。） 失明，贫穷，落魄！ 伟大的灵魂总是格外受到命运的嘲弄！ 此时的弥尔顿没有沉沦，没有绝望，他退居到文字的王国，那里，他是不折不扣的王。在黑暗中，他向女儿口述，用10年的时间，铸就了英国最伟大的史诗，《失乐园》Paradise Lost！ Milton is one of the very few truly great English writers who is also a prominent figure in politics, and who is both a great poet and an important prose writer. The two most essential things to be remembered about him are his Puritanism and his republicanism. Milton wrote many different types of poetry. He is especially a great master of blank verse. He learned much from Shakespeare and first used blank verse in non-dramatic works. Milton is a great stylist. He is famous for his grand style noted for its dignity and polis, which is the result of his life-long classical and biblical study. Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of . In his life, Milton shows himself a real revolutionary, a master poet and a great prose writer. He fought for freedom in all aspects as a Christian humanist, while his achievements in literature make him tower over all the other English writers of his time and exert a great influence over later ones, such as William Blake, John Keats as well as the novelist George Eliot. Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse(unrhymed iambic pentameter无韵体) by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books; a second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil's Aeneid-罗马诗人维吉尔的史诗《埃涅伊德》) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. Milton had long cherished the ambition to write the definitive English epic, to do for the English language what Homer and Virgil had done for Greek and Latin, and what Dante had done for Italian. He had originally planned to base his epic on the Arthurian legends亚瑟王的传说, which were the foundational myths for English nationalism, but later turned his attention to more universal questions. He decided to focus on the foundational myth of humanity itself, the Genesis 《圣经》的第一部分，“创世记”，account of creation and fall. It was an ambitious project, for Milton was determined to attempt ''things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme,'' and his success is indicated by the esteem in which the poem is held to this day. The poem concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man; the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to 'justify the ways of God to men' and elucidate the conflict between God's eternal foresight and free will. (敬请关注下期，我们一起赏析《失乐园》原文选段) |
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