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如果说近30年来普拉斯对国内女性的写作有深远的影响，史蒂文斯则对大批男性诗人的写作有广泛的影响。史蒂文森的影响或是在对物和世界的抽象把握，或是在对意象与语言的解放和新生命的赋予，而我对这两种影响都有疑虑。抽象是否企及它的崇高和力量？什么样的哲思和历史的思辨支撑这抽象？语言与意象的新生是否创造了象征的多重意义，还是停留在难以穿透的语言的表层？读詹姆士· 梅瑞尔这篇史蒂文森百年诞辰的纪念短文，多少纠正了我的疑虑和妄见。（导读原本就有） 史蒂文斯百年诞辰上的讲话
文/詹姆士·梅瑞尔
我开始接触史蒂文森的作品是在那些举足轻重的人开始极其认真看待他的作品的时候。我的意见无足轻重——我19岁——不管怎么说我还是告诉你我当时是什么感受。他的书到我手里的第一本不是“风琴”，而是卡明顿出版社(Cummington Press)那一版可爱的“最高虚构的笔记”。在其中我发现了一种交替着不可抗拒地华艳和不可抗拒地抽象的词汇。无需假设去猜想这首诗或那个诗节意味着什么，我发现自己沐浴在一种普鲁斯特可能成为“自然而然的哲学”中的一种的气氛里。一个如画的特别物的世界——室内，项链，锡兰的大象——变得，仅仅不过是翻动书页，便注入了崭新的意义；或者是潜在地注入了它们；或是交替注入了思想（由语言的魅力）要不然就是从思想中解脱。我立刻开始写多彩的景象焕发对现实的本质的问题的诗。让我给你读其中一篇。
绿色的眼睛
来吧，孩子， 用你一道阳光的注视
将绿分派给果园作为沉思的
一个隐喻，为了要宣称
不管你是以绿去指定
果园的阳光、花、树皮或叶子的绿
还是一种想象的生命的绿。
所有可能的绿的马赛克
在你眼中成了一个前提，由此酸橙
作为酸橙而绿在午夜前才隐约知晓。
像一场风暴中的树叶，像贫瘠的乡野
水果的梦；声言
果园是绿的一个隐喻。
意识到变化并非晴雨表
你可能会随意判定天气；
感觉的光谱可以企及
如果脑海中的果园能在
它们的山坡上快乐地保存原初。
今天换一种方式进入果园：
当在这里你带着你最初的悲剧，
你的金鱼，在水族箱里仰面朝天
僵硬地漂浮在水草上，
绿不是你全景的悲伤
它的雨滴微笑，消融而淡漠，
在你来到时授予一种不寻常的明亮：
一种眼睛之外的变化的明亮，
一个浮在可能是什么的边缘上的问题，
由一个新的，无动于衷的绿陪护。
金鱼死在酸橙挂着变黄的地方
是更多不可置信的事物的隐喻，
你将生活于其中的事物，看见的事物，知道的事物。
The Green Eye by James Merrill
Come, child, and with your sunbeam gaze assign
Green to the orchard as a metaphor
For contemplation, seeking to declare
Whether by green you specify the green
Of orchard sunlight, blossom, bark, or leaf,
Or green of an imaginary life.
A mosaic of all possible greens becomes
A premise in your eye, whereby the limes
Are green as limes faintly by midnight known,
As foliage in a thunderstorm, as dreams
Of fruit in barren countries; claims
The orchard as a metaphor of green.
Aware of change as no barometer
You may determine climates at your will;
Spectrums of feeling are accessible
If orchards in the mind will preserve
On their hillsides original with joy.
Enter the orchard differently today:
When here you bring your earliest tragedy,
Your goldfish, upside-down and rigidly
Floating on weeds in the aquarium,
Green is no panorama for your grief
Whose raindrop smile, dissolving and aloof,
Ordains an unusual brightness as you come:
The brightness of a change outside the eye,
A question on the brim of what may be,
Attended by a new, impersonal green.
The goldfish dead where limes hang yellowing
Is metaphor for more incredible things,
Things you shall live among, things seen, things known.
From 1951 “First Poems”
译注：有些英文词总是译的不舒服，比如这个Accessible
这首“绿眼睛”可能受史蒂文森的“精致的游牧人”的影响。史蒂文森的诗集读了好几年了，读得很慢，现在还只是读了一小部分。这仅是个人猜测。
精致的游牧人
华莱士·史蒂文森
当佛罗里达巨大的露水
带来
大鳍掌的棕榈叶
绿色的藤蔓怒欲着生命，
当佛罗里达巨大的露水
从瞩目的人那里
带来一首首颂歌，
看见所有这些绿色的一面
和绿色一面上的金色一面，
还有受祝福的早晨；
闪电的颜色
因此，我这里，急纵而来
形式，火苗，和火苗的飞花。
Nomad Exquisite by Wallace Stevens
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,
And blessed mornings,
Meet for the eye of the younger alligator,
And lightning colors
So, in me, come flinging
Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.
在史蒂文森的手下，这种方式显得奇妙地文明化了。用鲜明的语言的阳伞和读者平衡，就很少有从辩论的高空钢丝上坠落的危险，像在艾略特那儿一样。又比在庞德那儿有更大的可能性——至少在他的“诗章”中的很多篇——避免了庞德为了更宏大的视角竭尽所能记录的竞技场。不管是庞德还是艾略特都没有在他们的诗中通过人给出什么预示。一边里你有像可怜的Fraulein von Kulp（艾略特Gerontion一诗中的人物，参见附录全诗）一样的人物，永远冰塑在一个单一的，讲述的手势里，而另一边，哦，约翰·亚当斯像裹在一千个股票磁带统计里的木乃伊一样。像佛罗斯特一样用人是另一回事。一个年轻的诗人会很容易被以最微不足道的权威性阐释“真实的生活”所需的那种纯粹的人生经验吓到。感谢史蒂文森的先例，这种压力可以推迟到合适的时候。他的人物不像其他任何人的。轻盈地象征，却又自有气质，他们被妥帖地放进诗中，像维亚尔（Vuillard，法国画家）的人物一样。想法在头脑里进入和离去都很轻易，词语到了他们唇边，给一个段落一个要点却没有淹没它或把它降低成一个小插曲。他们服务于他们的诗人却又可以离开他不受他的拘禁。我接着试我的作品。
着火的查尔斯
又一个晚上我们伸着腿脚讨论
外表。一致同意的是
当非同寻常的肉体的好看
持续煽火一个人，和以前一样，而在生命里
（在它飘渺的漩涡和虚假的宣称中），
仍然，像我们中一个叨叨进他的胡子里，
“没有你智识和精神的
价值，伙计，你就朽了。”没人反对只是
方正了他们自己的不可爱之肩。
一直受罪的查尔斯，为我们做饭并上菜，
现在拿出了精美蚀刻的小酒杯
他倒上琥珀色的酒并递过来。
“据说，”同一个年轻男子说，“在巴黎，法国，
他们这样弄：”——他跳起来
将一根点着的火柴触向我们的主人的满杯。
一道蓝色的火焰，柔和，美丽，出现了，游走
在杯面上。在落下的寂静中
我们听到容器裂了。里面的酒流干了
像是谁会从一个水晶马车走下走下。
幽灵的管家，查尔斯闪亮的手
突然套进了古怪。
那一刻过去了。他飞快地抹了两下
手又成了肉。“它可极为重要，“
他说道，可是带着一种受惊的，下意识的一瞥
看到镜子里。发现什么都没改变，
他新到了一杯，在我们中间坐下来。
Charles on Fire by James Merrill
Another evening we sprawled about discussing
Appearances. And it was the consensus
That while uncommon physical good looks
Continued to launch one, as before, in life
(Among its vaporous eddies and false claims),
Still, as one of us said into his beard,
'Without your intellectual and spiritual
Values, man, you are sunk.' No one but squared
The shoulders of their own unlovliness.
Long-suffering Charles, having cooked and served the meal,
Now brought out little tumblers finely etched
He filled with amber liquor and then passed.
'Say,' said the same young man, 'in Paris, France,
They do it this way'--bounding to his feet
And touching a lit match to our host's full glass.
A blue flame, gentle, beautiful, came, went
Above the surface. In a hush that fell
We heard the vessel crack. The contents drained
As who should step down from a crystal coach.
Steward of spirits, Charles's glistening hand
All at once gloved itself in eeriness.
The moment passed. He made two quick sweeps and
Was flesh again. 'It couldn't matter less,'
He said, but with a shocked, unconscious glance
Into the mirror. Finding nothing changed,
He filled a fresh glass and sank down among us.
From “Nights and Days” (1966)
最后，就是在1945年，我也为史蒂文森如此自然地处理他对艺术与诗的理解而吃惊，美学的表演，“比喻的剧场”。没有尴尬——没有在那个时代所谓的作为小说家的艺术家所伴随的香烟、威士忌和女人——他似乎信赖他的文本坚守一个世界以抵抗它揭示的世界，作为那个世界的一部分。当我们在一首小诗中读到月亮跟随太阳跨过天空“像对一个俄国诗人的法语翻译”，我们点着头认识到一个创造的神话，在其中神和诗人共同构思。总而言之，在我们的世纪他比任何人都指向了也仍然在指向的更高。被他的室内情娘（史蒂文森的一首诗，参见：http://www.douban.com/note/125113269/）点亮的蜡烛，对我来说，通常不是照着艾略特的“文化”或是庞德的“历史”，甚至时不时，照着佛罗斯特的平常感。而这一切他都平和亲切地达到，没有不必要的令人畏惧，因此年轻的实践者可以寻找到他自己的信念，在他自己的时间，并到达（运气好的话）他自己的人性。
选译自《宣叙调：读詹姆士· 梅瑞尔散文选》（Recitative）
Gerontion by Thomas Stearns Eliot
Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
y was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsch, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fougth.
My house is a decayed house,
And the Jew squats on the window-sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
In an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.
Signs are taken for wonders. 'We wouldsee a sign!'
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silveo
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;
By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the ind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draugthy house
Under a windy knoob.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives whn our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confussions
That the giving famisches the craving. Gives too late
Whats's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thoght can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage save us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tyger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils.
I would meet you upon this hnestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To sleepy corner
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dray season.
[Poems 1920]
这首诗的注解可以看：http://rpo.library./poem/777.html
（本文来自豆瓣Adieudusk）
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