Image selection is one of the most remarkable artistic features of Eliot's poems. In the choice of images, Eliot shows great differences from traditional poets. He often introduces images that used to be considered unattractive, ugly, boring and trivial into his poems. For example, we can see from the first three lines of his early work The Love Song of Alfred Pruefer Locke.
Let's go, you and me
When the night unfolds against the sky
Just like a patient being anesthetized on the operating table; (L. 1 ~ 3) Then let's go, you and I, just as dusk slowly spread to the sky, as if the patient was anesthetized on the operating table; [3]
Dusk itself is just a natural phenomenon, and people are used to it. However, as an image, because of its special metaphorical and associative functions, it often produces certain artistic effects. In traditional British and American literature, dusk is often regarded as a beautiful image. For example, the American poet Robert Frost (1874- 1963) wrote a short poem "Stop by the Woods on a Snowy Night". The submission date is 2000- 10- 14.
About the author: Jin Ming (196 1-), male, from Changshu, Jiangsu, associate professor, engaged in translation and research of British and American literature.
(Stop on a snowy night by Woods) Scene 1 of the last section: The forest is lovely, dark and deep (the forest is dark, deep and lovely). The "dusk" image here has a lot of room for interpretation and may have multiple meanings, but no matter how it is explained, it is undoubtedly beautiful as an image. However, in Eliot's modernist poem Love Song of Pruefer Locke, the situation is quite different. Dusk is compared to "a patient lying on the operating table like an anesthetic". Readers' expectations were broken, and it was disgusting to be associated with patients lying on the operating table under anesthesia at dusk. The reader seems to smell the anesthetic and blood in the hospital, which may be the purpose of Eliot's choice of these images. The life of modern people is ugly, numb and empty. The following images in this poem can really illustrate this point: "semi-deserted street", "cheap restaurant for one night" and "sa wdust restaurant". Through these trivial and mediocre images, we feel the fragmentation, blindness and lack of real purpose of modern life.
In his masterpiece The Waste Land, Eliot even applied terrible images such as "white bones" and "dead bodies" to his poems:
The apple tree you planted in the garden last year,
Has it started to sprout? ..... (L.7 1 ~ 72) Did the corpse you planted in your garden germinate last year? Can it blossom this year? The white body was lying naked on the ground of lo w dam, but in the cold wind behind me, I heard the bones being thrown around in a small low Dr Y pavilion, colliding with the bones, and the smug laughter spread from ear to ear. Year after year, only the feet of mice rattled. (l . 193~ 195)
A mouse crawled across the grass and dragged its wet belly across the river bank.
I can't see a corpse planted in the garden, let it sprout and bloom, and I can't hear the image of bones colliding in the cold wind. The flowers in the garden are in full bloom, fragrant and pleasant, which makes people relax, entertain and rest. This is the expectation of ordinary readers. However, in Eliot's poems, the image of the garden has lost its traditional associative meaning, and has been endowed with the anti-traditional and anti-rational connotation characteristics of modernist poetry. Such an image is not so much a portrayal of objective things as a projection of the poet's subjective thoughts. The objective reality is distorted by the poet's subjective consciousness, which makes people feel shocked or frightened, or forces people to reflect on reality. This may be the intention of modernist writers. Eliot's images selected here can be said to be descendants of many images in Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, from which we can see the influence of French symbolist poets such as Baudelaire on Eliot.
In addition, Eliot is also good at juxtaposing some images showing the decline, decadence and pollution in modern civilization with the prosperous and luxurious images in the heyday of western civilization, thus creating a strong artistic effect. For example, in the third part of The Waste Land, the first sermon, we found two completely different images. On the one hand, the Thames is polluted by modern people, and on the other hand, Queen Elizabeth I and Earl of Leicester visit the Thames.
As a symbol of the evolution of human civilization, rivers carry far-reaching cultural connotations. Like the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Egypt and the Nile in Mesopotamia, the Thames is a symbol of British civilization. Eliot's message to people through the juxtaposition of images can be said to be obvious: rivers are polluting, civilization is declining, and human beings are in danger of self-destruction. Eliot chose these images to express his feelings about the outside world, which was obviously influenced by imagist poets such as Hume and Pound. As an artistic technique of modernist poetry, imagism is a resistance to the unrestrained exaggeration and self-expression of romanticism. Imagist poets try to unify their inner feelings and external objects through "vivid, appropriate, solid and concise images", and try to "capture and create an aesthetic image system with subjective agreement, blending of mind and matter, and unity of spirit and matter to express the author's thoughts, feelings and mentality" [4]. Eliot obviously succeeded in choosing the right image, which made the subjective fit and the mind and matter blend. Therefore, we think that image selection is the art of Eliot's poetry.
One of the characteristics of surgery.
Second, symbolism.
The use of symbols is not the original creation of modernism. As early as in ancient Greek and Roman literature or the Bible, the use of symbols is not uncommon. But symbolism, as a literary genre, began in France in the late19th century, and symbolism emphasized intuition and inner feelings. In poetry creation, symbolist writers usually use hints, rendering and other techniques. "Symbolic poems are circuitous poems, and objective objects usually rely on hints rather than direct ones, or are mainly used to arouse certain emotions. The concept may be very important, but it is always displayed in a roundabout way through a series of symbolic means, mainly by intuition and emotion. "
Eliot became interested in the poems of French symbolist writers as early as when he was studying at Harvard (1906- 10). From these poets, he saw "how to make an image accurately refer to the objective object, but at the same time, it can gain infinite implied meaning through association with other images" [6]. French poet Lafore Gaye's poems are concise, pungent and symbolic, which inspired him greatly. For example, in the first part of The Waste Land, "The Funeral of the Dead", the poet adopted a series of symbolic images.
For example, "water" is not only a material form, but also an objective existence, which is more symbolic. In "The Drowning Phoenician Sailor" and "Be careful to die in the water", on the one hand, the poet literally described the Phoenician sailor who drowned in the water on the card, and warned others not to die in the water through the mouth of the fortune teller Mrs. Sosotos, but on the other hand, he had a deeper meaning. Throughout the poem "The Waste Land", we find that "dry stones don't make the sound of running water" (line 25 of the original text), "there is stone here without water" (line 332) and "only dry thunder doesn't rain" (line 342). Obviously, the "water" here has exceeded its.
[6] Literal meaning is given symbolic meaning: it symbolizes the "purification", "baptism" and "moistening" of the soul.
We find that in these dozens of poems, the objective objects Eliot chooses not only express their literal reference relationship, but also are often endowed with symbolic significance. For example, "the locks" means "church" on the one hand and "dry locks" on the other. The wheel symbolizes the wheel of fortune. The "hanged man" on Tar ok symbolizes "self-sacrifice" and "God of fertility". In addition, "the man with three sticks" is a symbol of vitality, and Eliot associated it with King Fisher. The "one-eyed businessman" on the card implies Mr Eugenide described in the poem, who is engaged in selling raisins. His image symbolizes "evil", "treachery" or "pirates"
[6] behavior.
However, we should also note that different nationalities have different historical and cultural traditions, so there are bound to be many differences in the use and understanding of symbols. Some archetypal images have been deeply buried in the deep psychological structure of various nationalities, and the symbolic meaning expressed by these images can only be fully understood in their cultural background. Therefore, when we study the symbolic meanings in Eliot's poems, we should put them in the whole western cultural tradition, so as to truly appreciate their profound connotations.
At the same time, we should also pay attention to the symbolic meaning in Eliot's poems, so we should be especially careful that the symbolic system he created often has a strong personal subjective color, and sometimes it does not fully represent the true western historical and cultural traditions. "Because the poet doubts whether he and his public have inherited the same cultural tradition and have the same understanding of past works, so
[6] In such a cultural atmosphere, Eliot felt that he had to establish his own literary frame of reference. In fact, this is also Ye Zhi.
(W.B. Ye Zhi), ezra pound and other modernist poets all have one characteristic. [5]
Third, language variation.
In poetry creation, poets often break through the convention of language use for various purposes, which is called "deviation"
This change can be varied. In phonetics, sometimes syllables of some words are added or omitted because of rhyme or rhythm, such as o, er, tis, call éd, circleéd, etc. And sometimes there are words with stress transfer and even vowel changes. In terms of vocabulary, changing parts of speech, creating new words and giving ordinary words fresh and strange meanings can all be regarded as language variation. Grammatically, the inversion of word order, the form, tense, article and other usages of negative sentences will all vary. Through mutation, we can achieve the goal of "outstanding". Generally speaking, variation is the means and foregrounding is the purpose. "... the variation of language phenomenon is like a prominent part [in painting]. When readers see an unusual language phenomenon, they are always attracted by it, pay more attention to it, and even ponder and ponder its meaning. This shows that mutation has a prominent role. ”[7]
Language variation is a major feature of poetry creation. However, which parts are mutated and which parts are "outstanding" vary from time to time and from writer to writer. As far as Eliot's poems are concerned, language variation is often manifested in vocabulary and syntactic structure.
1, lexical variation
Eliot used a lot of historical allusions in his poetry creation, especially in his early works such as The Waste Land, or quoted other important European literary works. Sometimes, in order to avoid direct quotation, or slightly distort some famous sayings, it produces some ironic, humorous, grotesque and other dramatic effects, such as "Madames SOS Ostris, the famous clairvoyance" (line 43 of the wasteland); Sosolis here is a variant of Sosolis. Belladonna (line 49) consists of Belle+Madonna. The Virgin Mary can refer to the "Virgin Mary" in Christianity, but when it is combined with belle (beautiful in English), it has the associative meaning of "the beautiful lady of the situation". This variation often appears in Eliot's poems, and its function is often to highlight contradictions or disharmonies in certain things.
2. Changes in syntactic structure
As a modernist poet, Eliot tried to express the confusion and confusion of modern people's inner world. In writing techniques, he sometimes adopts the method of stream of consciousness, and in language expression, he often jumps over the concept of time and logical relationship, giving people an abrupt feeling. For example, in lines 133 to 142 of The Waste Land, there are at least three kinds of voices, the words of two talking women (including the inner monologue of one of them) and the urging voice of the hotel owner. Poetry has not only leaps in grammatical tense, but also ellipsis in syntax. Hot water at ten o'clock If it rains, close the car at four o'clock. /We want to play a game of chess, press our eyelids and wait for knocking at the door (hot water at ten o'clock. If it rains, take a covered car at four o'clock. /Let's play a game of chess, rub our eyes and knock on the door. ) These three English sentences not only jump tensely, but also violate normal syntactic rules and lack subjects and predicate verbs. Poets use the change of syntactic structure to express the activities and changes of the inner world of the characters more directly. This technique is also one of the artistic features of Eliot's poems.