第5单元 赫尔曼•梅尔维尔
5.1 复习笔记
I. Introduction to author（作者简介）
Herman Melville（1819-1891）is a famous novelist and poet in American literature.
赫尔曼·麦尔维尔（1819-1891）是美国著名的小说家和诗人。
1Life（生平）
Melville had little education and began to work after stopped schooling. There are three things which deserve mention about his life: going out to sea, his marriage and his friendship with Hawthorne. His experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him with abundant material for fiction. Melville had to do hackwork for the money he needed to keep his wife in her extravagant style. Melville saw in Hawthorne the one American who was expressively aware of the evil at the core of American life. He found Hawthorne’s understanding of evil, that blackness of vision, unusually fascinating. A significant change came about in the original design of his masterpiece Moby Dick when the two men met, and the novel was rewritten into the world classic that we read today.
麦尔维尔接受的教育有限，辍学之后即开始工作。影响他一生的事件有三：出海，他的婚姻及其与霍桑的友谊。他在海上的经历和冒险为他的小说创作提供了丰富的素材。在婚姻生活上，麦尔维尔不得不创作劣质作品以满足妻子的奢华生活。麦尔维尔意识到霍桑已洞察到美国社会生活中存在着的恶。他觉得霍桑所理解的恶和视角的黑暗不同寻常。当两个人相会后，麦尔维尔的代表作《白鲸》的创作意图发生了重大改变。改写后的作品成为当今世界的文学经典。
2Major works（主要作品）
Typee《泰比》
Omoo《欧穆》
Mardi《玛地》
Redburn《雷得本》
White Jacket《白外衣》
Moby Dick《白鲸》
The Confidence Man《骗子的化装表演》
Battle Pieces《战事集》
Clarel《克拉瑞尔》
John Marr and Other Sailors《约翰·玛尔和其他水手》
Timoleon《梯摩里昂》
Billy Budd《比利·巴德》
II. Selected works（作品选读）
◆Moby Dick《白鲸》
1Main content（主要内容）
Captain Ahab, who, having lost a leg in an earlier battle with White Whale called Moby Dick, is determined to catch the beast and destroy it. After the relentless voyage of Ahab and his crew, they finally met the giant whale. They had a heavy fight for three days. At last, Ahab killed the whale but Ahab drowned together with Moby Dick. Only one sailor survived and he told the story to other people.
船长埃哈伯在与一群鲸鱼搏斗时，被叫做莫比·狄克的鲸鱼咬掉了一条腿，所以他下定决心找到莫比·狄克并将他杀死。经过长途航行，埃哈伯与他的船员终于遇到了大白鲸。他们殊死搏斗了2天。最终，埃哈伯杀死了白鲸但也葬送了自己的性命。全船只有一名水手生还，他向其他人讲述了这个故事。
2Analysis（作品分析）
(1) Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West were expressed in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great.
(2) One of the major themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melville on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest”.
(3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing.
(4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple view of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised.
(1) 《白鲸》代表了麦尔维尔对他所生活的时代悲凉的世界观。这里没有上帝也毫无意义可言。西方现代生活中信仰的丢失、无用感及无意义等淋漓尽致地表现在梅尔维尔的这部作品中，因此20世纪人们发现它伟大且引人入胜。
(2) 该小说的主题是疏离。疏离存在于麦尔维尔生活时代的不同层面，如人与人之间，人与社会之间，以及人与自然之间。麦尔维尔同时对新英格兰超验主义过度强调个人主义和超灵进行了批判。该小说的另外一个主题是拒绝与追寻。
(3) 该小说富有象征意义。航行本身是探索和发现，寻求最终真相的隐喻。莫比·迪克是全书中最明显的象征，它可以有多种解释。有人认为它代表邪恶，有人认为它代表了善良，也有人认为它二者兼有。它的白色是自相矛盾的颜色，既代表了死亡和腐朽，又代表了纯洁、天真和青春。它代表了宇宙的最终奥秘，人最好别去求甚解。
(4) 麦尔维尔通过运用多重视角的技巧以实现模棱两可的效果。他倾向于写掉尾句。他富有韵律的散文和诗意被大众评论和赞美。