Miniver Cheevy赏析

米尼弗

.

契维，傲世的青年，

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日瘦一日，因为他愤世嫉俗，

他痛哭，为什么降生人间，

他理由十足。

米尼弗爱的是上古旧世，

那时有骏骥奔腾，剑光闪耀，

他一想到武士的纠纠雄姿

就手舞足蹈。

米尼弗叹息的是盛世难逢，

一日劳作之余，颠倒梦魂，

他梦到梯比斯城，卡美洛宫，

普里安的邻人。

米尼弗古人声望显隆，

使那么多名字百世遗芳，

而如今罗曼斯乞讨为生，

艺术颠沛流浪。

米尼弗倾心的是美第齐家族，

虽然他从来没有见过一个人。

要是他成了一个美第齐，

定会做恶无穷。

米尼弗诅咒芸芸众生，

瞅着军装他心里难受

他向往中世纪的铁衣甲胄，

多潇洒风流。

米尼弗瞧不起他追求的金子，

没金子又叫他耿耿于怀，

米尼弗冥思苦想，苦想冥思，

成天想不开。

米尼弗

.

契 维生不逢时，

整日价搔脑袋想个不休。

他咳嗽，却自认命该如此，

只好借酒浇愁。

on

的又一首小城人物肖像诗。

作者忠于生活的本来面目，

再现了破落青年充满怨恨的心灵。

生活是复杂的，

人的感情也是复杂的。诗中青年

Cheevy

正是如此。

Miniver Cheevy

生活在

19

世纪后半叶拜金主义猖獗的美国，他一方面贪恋金钱和物质，另一方面又向往古人的 高尚

精神。他是在浑浑噩噩中尚有独清独醒特点的美国人的典型。

Cheevy

抱怨自己生不逢时，在苦酒中寻求慰藉。他前途

未卜，走的似乎是一条通向失败的黑暗道路，但他具备一种

“

绝 望中的勇气

”

，他虽借酒浇愁，却仍在思索着寻找出路。

他的生活无疑是失意的，但那似乎是一种让人尊敬和惋惜的失意。

Ro binson

力求在诗中表达这种失意的神秘性。

Miniver Cheevy

夸张的

humor. The character that the

poem displays is a figure of fun. However, the humor is wry

扭

曲

的

; we can laugh at the drunkard who drinks to escape, only as long as we ignore his p

light. There is more than a him of self-portraiture in Miniver's deluded enchantment wit

h a past that never was. The poem suggests, in a comic way, what Eugene O'Neill portra

ys in The Iceman Cometh; the survival value for the unsuccessful of delusion plus drink

; for those who, like Cory, face up to the truth of things, a bullet may be inevitable.

Type of Work

Edwin Arlington Robinson's ―Miniver Cheevy‖ is a dramatic lyric poem centering on a twentieth

-century misfit who dreams of

living in the heroic age of sword and horse

. Charles Scribner’s Sons published it in 1910 as part of a collection entitl

ed

Town

Down the River

.

Setting

Although the poem mentions no specific locale, readers of Robinson’s poetry know that Miniver Cheevy lives in fictional

Town, a community modeled on Robinson’s hometown of Gardiner, Maine. Gardiner is on the Kennebe

c River in

Maine a few miles south of the state capital, Augusta. Robinson used Tilbury Town as the setting of many of his poems,

including the highly popular

Richard Cory

, although his poems seldom mention the town by name.

Title Meaning

―Miniver Cheevy‖ is an unusual but apt name for the poem and its

misfit dreamer. Consider that Miniver is the name of a white

or gray fur used in earlier times to trim the ceremonial robes of royals and nobles. In his dreams about the past, Mr. Cheevy

perhaps sees himself in such fine robes as an important person at the court of a king

—

or as the king himself.

Consider, too, that

Cheevy

resembles words derived from the French noun

cheval

(

horse

) to identify gallant knights

and their code of honor (chivalry). The name of game lands near the border of Scotland and England was Chevy Chase (or

Chace) to refer to hunts there by nobles on horseback. A famous poem,

1388 battle at the site between Englishmen and Scots after the latter mistook an English hunting party for an invasion force. Of

course, Miniver Cheevy can also be a coinage derived from the term

mini

mum a

chieve

r

, a lab

el that sums up Mr. Cheevy’s

meager abilities in the modern workaday world.

Structure

The structure of

对称性

, containing eight four-line stanzas (quatrains). The first and

third lines of each stanza have masculine end rhyme, and the second and fourth lines have feminine end rhyme.

Masculine rhyme occurs when the final syllable of a line rhymes with the final syllable of another line.

Feminine rhyme occurs when the final two syllables of a line rhyme with the final two syllables of another line.

Robinson begins the first line of each stanza with

Miniver

and the third line of each stanza with either

he

or

Miniver

. He also

lengthens the second line of each stanza and shortens the last line of each stanza, enabling him to present the long and the

short of Miniver's misery.

In addition, he rhetorically parallels the openings of the second, third, and fourth stanzas with the openings of the fifth, sixth,

and seventh stanzas. The opening line of the eighth stanza then rhetorically parallels the opening line of the first stanza.

Following is an illustration of this pattern:

Stanza 1, line 1: Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,

Stanza 8, line 1: Miniver Cheevy, born too late,

Comment

: Notice that lines 1 and 8 resemble each other grammatically: In each case, a proper noun is

followed by a parenthetical expression. Notice also that these are the only two lines in the poem that

begin with the first and last names of Cheevy.

Stanza 2, line 1: Miniver loved the days of old

Stanza 3, line 1: Miniver sighed for what was not

Stanza 4, line 1: Miniver mourned the ripe renown

Stanza 5, line 1: Miniver loved the Medici

Stanza 6, line 1: Miniver cursed the commonplace

Stanza 7, line 1: Miniver scorned the gold he sought

Comment

: Notice the pattern: (1) Miniver loved, Miniver sighed, Miniver mourned; (2) Miniver loved,

Miniver cursed, Miniver scorned.

.

.

Miniver's Fixation

What accounts for Miniver Cheevy’s fixation on the past?

Mr. Cheevy would tell you that he cannot abide the workaday world around him, for it is humdrum and bourgeois, lacking the

heroic spirit and aesthetic taste of ages past. Miniver himself has the required gallantry and refinement, he would assure you,

but cannot use these qualities because he was born in the wrong century in the wrong place. If he could go back in time

—

to

Arthur’s Camelot, for example—

what wonders he would work. Riding a horse and wielding a sword, he would lead knights in a

charge, lay siege to castles, and carry home vast treasures. Minstrels would sing of his valor; fair maidens would swoon at his

smile.

What Miniver would not tell you, however, is the truth about his own past. Early in life, he was a ―child of scorn‖ (line 1)

because his parents and the community in which he lived did not accept him for what he was. Was he disfigured, awkward,

peevish, incorrigible

–

or perhaps illegitimate? It does not matter. What matters is that he protected himself by escaping into

books and living vicariously in their stories. He became Achilles at Troy, Alexander at Thebes, Gawain at Camelot. Over the

years, he became so fixated on his dream world that he neglected to develop the social and vocational skills needed to cope

with the real world.

Consequently, he became a misfit and ne’er

-do-well. But rather than blame himself and his shortcomings

for his failures, he blamed the world around him. He was too good for it. Fate had fixed him in the wrong century.