2020年经济学人 爱尔兰女诗人伊万·博兰德(1)

Eavan Boland, poet, died on April 27th, aged¹ 75

诗人伊万·博兰德于4月27日去世，享年75岁。

When summernights were warm, Eavan Boland liked to stand in the front doorway² of her small suburban³ house in Dun- drum, outside Dublin. She would look at the buddleia, and at the lamplight glossing⁴ the leaves of the hedge. Yet these things were not simply visible to her. She saw them with her body. It was as if she was part of some great continuum, or stood in a place of myth, like the women singers she imagined in the hard west of Ireland whose mouths were filled with "Atlantic storms and clouded-over stars/and exhausted⁵ birds".

在温暖的夏夜，伊万·博兰德喜欢站在她位于都柏林郊外顿鼓镇的小房子的门口。她常常会看着醉鱼草，还有照着树篱叶子的灯光。然而，她不仅仅是看到了这些东西。伊万是全身心地感受到了它们。伊万就好像是一个伟大的连续体的一部分，或者是处在一个神话之境，就像她想象中的爱尔兰西部的女歌手一样，他们总是歌唱着“大西洋风暴和乌云遮住的星星以及疲惫的鸟儿”。

This sense of communality⁶, which led her to be one of Ireland's finest poets, was essentially⁷ a woman's feeling. And it was missing almost entirely⁸ from Irish poetry. There the voice was male, bardic⁹, authoritative¹⁰, grown sweet and self-confident on the flattery of princes. It was "I", not "we". The poet was a hero, a seer, a towering figure (Yeats above all), whose themes were history, epic¹¹ and elegy¹². This was not a world for women.

这种集体的感觉本质上就是女性的感觉，它让伊万成为了爱尔兰最好的诗人之一。而且它几乎不存在于爱尔兰诗歌中。爱尔兰诗歌中全是男性的、吟游诗人的、权威的声音，在王子们的奉承下变得和谐而自信。它关乎于“自我”，而不是“我们”。诗人是英雄，是先知，也是豪杰（尤其是耶茨），他们创作的主题是历史，史诗和挽歌。这不是一个女性的世界。

When they featured in the work they were mostly objectified, passive and silent. No page recorded "the low music/of our outrage¹³". Their own poems were not encouraged, as if they were women's-magazine things that would defile¹⁴ the pure, visionary flow. If she were to write in the men's style, with their assurance, she would fit right in, as she fitted into the clever literary conversations in the pubs round St Stephen's Green when she was at Trinity College.

当女性出现在诗歌里，她们通常会被客观化，被动而沉默。没有描写“低微的声音或我们的愤怒”的内容。人们不鼓励女性写诗，把她们写的诗当做是女性杂志里面的东西，这些东西会玷污诗意的纯洁和远见。如果伊万按照男性的风格写作，带着男性的自信，那她会完美融入他们，就像她在三一学院的圣斯蒂芬格林酒店附近的酒吧里，融入了那些睿智的文学对话一样。

1 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

2 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

3 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

4 glossing   

v.注解( gloss的现在分词 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去

参考例句：

• The rights and wrongs in any controversy should be clarified without compromise or glossing over. 有争论的问题，要把是非弄明白，不要调和敷衍。 来自互联网

5 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

6 communality   

公社性，集体性，团结

参考例句：

7 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

8 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

9 bardic   

adj.吟游诗人的

参考例句：

• It encourages the would-be American poet to rely too exclusively on a rapt and bardic intuition. 它鼓励未来的美国诗人完全依靠发狂似的诗人的直觉。 来自辞典例句
• They began to write for record, to help and fix their bardic tradition. 他们开始为记事而书写，助长并固定了他们的诗歌传统。 来自辞典例句

10 authoritative   

adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的

参考例句：

• David speaks in an authoritative tone.大卫以命令的口吻说话。
• Her smile was warm but authoritative.她的笑容很和蔼，同时又透着威严。

11 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

12 elegy   

n.哀歌，挽歌

参考例句：

• Good heavens,what would be more tragic than that elegy!天哪，还有什么比那首挽歌更悲伤的呢！
• His book is not intended to be a complete history but a personal elegy.他的书与其说是一部完整的历史，更像是一篇个人挽歌。

13 outrage   

n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒

参考例句：

• When he heard the news he reacted with a sense of outrage.他得悉此事时义愤填膺。
• We should never forget the outrage committed by the Japanese invaders.我们永远都不应该忘记日本侵略者犯下的暴行。

14 defile   

v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道

参考例句：

• Don't defile the land of our ancestors!再不要污染我们先祖们的大地！
• We respect the faith of Islam, even as we fight those whose actions defile that faith.我们尊重伊斯兰教的信仰，并与玷污伊斯兰教的信仰的行为作斗争。