修辞手法角度奥登在《西班牙》中对人类历史困境的思索

菜单

Auden’s Reflection on the Historical Difficulty of Human Beings in Spain——From the Perspective of Rhetorics Abstract Spain, as one of W. H. Auden’s famous works, describes the history that led up to the Spanish Civil War. Auden, like so many young men of the Left in the 1930s, decided to volunteer for service in the Spain Civil War. Though Auden didn’t come to the fore himself, he wrote this splendid poem to show his reflection on the war. Auden stressed in the poem that what has been done is tomorrow’s history, human beings should shoulder the responsibility at the presence of war and act today because history has no way to change. This thesis analyzes the historical difficulty of human being in the poem. What is more, this thesis further explores Auden’s reflection on this historical difficulty of human being. Finally, this paper is intended to strengthen the understanding of Spain by making a analysis of it and shows the readers a much more well-organized and attracting poem and a different author.47587

Keywords: Auden; Spain; reflection; historical difficulty; rhetorics

奥登在《西班牙》中对人类历史困境的思索—— 从修辞手法角度分析

摘要《西班牙》作为威斯坦·休·奥登的代表作之一，描写的是西班牙内战时期的历史。在西班牙内战时期，奥登当然不会对战争漠然视之，同20世纪30年代的无数左翼青年一样，奥登决定作为一名志愿者为西班牙战线服务。虽然奥登并没有亲自登上前线，但是他写下这首诗歌来传达他对于这场战争的思考。奥登在诗中强调今天的所作所为会成为明天的历史，他呼吁人们面对战争需要肩负起责任，当下做出行动，否则历史在成为历史之后便再也无力改变。本论文主要分析的是这首诗歌中人类遭遇怎么样的历史困境。本论文还将进一步探究奥登对人们遇到的历史困境的思索，旨在加深对《西班牙》的理解，向读者展示一首经过精心组织从而引人入胜的诗歌以及在这首《西班牙》中的奥登。

毕业论文关键词：奥登；《西班牙》；思索；历史困境；修辞手法

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 About the author and his relevant life experiences on his Spain writing. 1

1.2 About Spain 1

2. The historical difficulty of human beings in Spain 6

2.1 Hope on history 6

2.2 Fantasies of future 6

2.3 Turning away from the reality 6

3. Auden’s reflection from the perspective of rhetorics 7

3.1 From the perspective of images 7

3.2 From the perspective of irony 8

3.3 From the perspective of metaphor. 8

4. Conclusions 10

References 11

1. Introduction

Spain is one of the most enduring and popular poem by W. H. Auden. It is popular not only because the poem itself is thought-provoking, but also because of Auden’s unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form. The poems shows Auden’s reflection vigorously by its technical achievement. There were already many researches about Spain. Like George Orwell, who was there at the same time, he experienced an inevitable disappointment with the Republican government and came away from his experience viewing the Spanish conflict now as primarily a fight against fascism rather than a fight for revolution(Jenkins, 88). For Samuel Hynes, it is an “extraordinary war-poem” with a peculiar approach: “diagnostic, abstract, detached, lacking all the particularities and feelings that defined the genre in the First World War . . . It is a pitiless poem: the poetry is in the pitilessness.” Hynes sees Spain as ultimately psychological in tenor, not political, an observation that echoes leftist reactions to the poem at the time it was published(Samuel, 254). Compared to the continuing flourishing researches on Auden’s works in the United States and the United Kingdom, researches in China are still not that plentiful. Zha Liangzheng(1918-1977), also called Mudan, a great translator and poet, was heavily affected by Auden and his poems. He translated 55 poems of Auden, including Spain. He noted “ Fair and unfair struggles messed in the Spanish Civil War and all are up to today’s struggle. The deterioration of society or the progress of society is made by human beings themselves”. This paper is intended as a contribution to further understanding Auden’s famous work, Spain, in which we can clearly and fully enjoy the poet’s poetic charm and know his opinion about the historical difficulty of human beings in this poem.