第11章 乔纳森•斯威夫特
11.1 复习笔记
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) (乔纳森·斯威夫特)
1．Life (生平)
Jonathan Swift was a satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric. He was born of poor English parents in Dublin. At Dublin University, he detested the curriculum, reading only what appealed to his own nature. After graduation, he worked for a distant relative, Sir William Temple, a statesman and diplomat. He spent ten best years of his life in Moor Park, where he read and studied widely. Well aware of his literary superiority and unbearable of his being looked down upon, Swift left his patron, entered the Church of England, and later settled in a little church in Ireland.
Then he gradually developed his satiric talent, gave up his church to enter the strife of party politics. He became a dictator in the literature field. Later he became the Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, where he stayed with the Irish in their fight for improving their lot. Swift had been afflicted from his earliest youth with a brain disease which caused him intense pain. Finally his disease ended in madness, and after suffering great pain, he died in utter misery in 1745. In his will, he bequeathed all his property to the building of a madhouse in Dublin. It is now still there, called “Dr. Swift’s Madhouse”.
乔纳森·斯威夫特是一位讽刺作家、散文家、政治宣传者，诗人和圣职人员。他生于都柏林一个贫穷家庭，父母是英格兰人。在都柏林大学时，他十分厌恶课程，只读自己感兴趣的书。毕业后，他在一个远亲威廉·坦普尔爵士手下工作，坦普尔爵士是政治家和外交官。斯威夫特在摩尔公园度过了人生最美好的十年，博览群书。然而，他很清楚自己比雇主更有文学才能，且忍受不了被轻视，他辞了职，加入英国国教，之后在爱尔兰的一个小教堂任职。
他的讽刺才华日渐成熟，便辞去神职，投身党派政治斗争，成为文学界的领导者。后来他成为都柏林圣帕特里克教堂的教长，期间他和爱尔兰人民一起为他们的权利而战。斯威夫特一直受年轻时就患有的脑疾困扰。最后疾病导致他的精神失常，在承受巨大痛苦之后，斯威夫特于1745年在极度痛苦中死去。在遗嘱中，他捐赠全部财产在都柏林建立一所精神病院，现在这所医院仍存。
2．Writing Style (写作风格)
(1) Swift is one of the greatest masters of English prose. His language is simple, clear and vigorous. He said, “Proper words in proper places, makes the true definition of a style.”
(2) He is a master satirist, and his irony is deadly. But his satire is masked by an outward gravity, and an apparent calmness conceals his bitter irony.
（1）斯威夫特是最伟大的英国散文家之一。他的语言简洁明了，充满活力。他说，在恰当的地方放上恰当的词，这就是风格的真正含义。
（2）他是位讽刺大师，讽刺一针见血。但是他的嘲讽却总是隐藏于表面的严肃之后，不动声色的平静下面潜伏着辛辣的讽刺。
3．Major Works (主要作品)
The Battle of the Books (1704)《书战》
A Tale of a Tub (1704)《一只桶的故事》
Bickerstaff Almanac (1708)《比克斯塔福历书》
Gulliver’s Travels (1726)《格列佛游记》
Drapier’s Letters (1726)《布商来信》
A Modest Proposal (1729)《一个温和的建议》
4．Selected Works (选读作品)
◆Gulliver’s Travels《格列佛游记》
The book describes the extraordinary adventures of Doctor Lemuel Gulliver, with depictions of fantastic lands visited by him, their social systems, ways and customs of inhabitants. The story is divided into four parts.
In the first part,Gulliver dscribes his shipwreck in Lilliput where the tallest people were six inches high. In his account of two parties in the country, distinguished by the use of high and low heels, Swift satirizes the Tories and the Whigs in England. Religious disputes were laughed at in an account of a problem which divided the Lilliputians: “ Should eggs be broken at the big end or the little end？”
The second part is about the voyage to Brobdingnag. The King of Brobdingnag often consults Gulliver on European affairs, and Gulliver’s answers are a biting satire on contemporary politics.
The third part depicts the odd phenomenon on the flying island of Laputa: people are obsessed with abstract speculations. It is a irony on scholastics and philosophers.
In the last part, Gulliver’s satire is of the bitterest. Swift typifies the bourgeois world in the repellent images of man-like creatures--Yahoos. He also drew ruthless pictures of the depraved aristocracy and satirically portrayed the whole of the English state system.
这本书讲述了格列佛医生非凡的冒险经历，描写了他所到的许多奇幻岛屿，其社会体系，居民的生活方式和风俗。故事分成四部分。
在第一部分格列佛描述了在一个叫利立浦特的地方海船失事。这儿的人最高的只有六英尺高。这个国家有两党，根据鞋跟高低来划分，以此讽刺英国的托利党和辉格党。利立浦特的划分是根据鸡蛋应该在大头儿砸开还是小头儿砸开，以此讽刺英国的宗教纷争。
第二部分是关于到大人国的旅行。大人国国王经常询问格列佛对欧洲事务的看法，格列佛的回答是对当代政治的辛辣讽刺。
第三部分描述了拉普他岛上的怪异现象，居民都沉迷于不切实际的空想，讽刺了学者和哲学家。
在最后一部分，格列佛的讽刺最严厉。斯威夫特将资产阶级世界形象化为令人讨厌的人型状的动物——野胡。他无情地鞭笞了堕落的贵族，讽刺了整个英国国家系统。
◆A Modest Proposal《一个温和的建议》
“A Modest Proposal” is one of Swift’s most important pamphlets on Ireland. In the essay, Swift first described the miserable living conditions of the poor people in Ireland. Then he proposed a scheme to solve the problem that poor people should sell their babies at one year old to the rich as delicious food. The essay is full of bitter irony, and in fact Swift is saying “the English are devouring the Irish”. This essay expresses Swift’s indignation towards the terrible oppression and exploitation of the Irish people by the English ruling class, especially of the poor Irish peasants by the rich English absentee landlords.
《一个温和的建议》是斯威夫特关于爱尔兰的最重要的小册子之一。本文首先描写了爱尔兰穷苦人民的悲惨生活。然后他建议要解决这一问题，可以让穷人出售自己一岁大的孩子给富人当作一道美味佳肴。斯威夫特通过尖锐的讽刺，实际上是在表明“英格兰人正在吞噬爱尔兰人”。本文强烈谴责了英国统治阶层对爱尔兰人民的残酷压迫和剥削，尤其是那些英国富人地主阶层对爱尔兰穷苦农民的压榨。