内容简介
Moby-Dick is at once a thrilling adventure tale, a timeless allegory, and an epic saga of heroic determination and conflict. At its heart is the powerful, unknowable sea?and Captain Ahab, a brooding, one-legged fanatic who has sworn vengeance on the mammoth white whale that crippled him. Narrated by Ishmael, a wayfarer who joins the crew of Ahab’s whaling ship, this is the story of that hair-raising voyage, and of the men who embraced hardship and nameless horrors as they dared to challenge God’s most dreaded creation and death itself for a chance at immortality.
A novel that delves with astonishing vigor into the complex souls of men, Moby-Dick is an impassioned drama of the ultimate human struggle that the Atlantic Monthly called ?the greatest of American novels.”
With an Introduction by Elizabeth Renker and a New Afterword
作者简介
HERMAN MELVILLE was born in New York in 1819. His father’s bankruptcy and death in 1832 deprived him of higher educational opportunities and alienated him forever from a conventional view of life. He taught school, sailed to Liverpool and back, then shipped before the mast on a Pacific whaling voyage. He deserted at the Marquesas Islands, living for a month among the cannibal Typee natives. An Australian whaleship then took him to Tahiti, where he was jailed for mutiny, but he escaped and spent some months as a beachcomber. A third whaleship took him to Hawaii where he lived briefly before sailing home with the crew of the frigate United States. From these adventures came his popular and increasingly imaginative travel romances: Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), the allegorical Mardi (1849), Redburn (1849), White-Jacket (1850), and his masterpiece, Moby-Dick (1851). Melville married in 1847. His later works of fiction were not sea romances and sold poorly. He gave up professional writing and for twenty years served as a customs inspector in New York, where he died in 1891. Billy Budd, written in his last years, was published for the first time in 1924, on the crest of a Melville revival that began about 1920 and continues to the present day?a revival that has established him among the greatest American writers.
ELIZABETH RENKER is professor of English at Ohio State University. Among her books are Strike through the Mask: Herman Melville and the Scene of Writing and The Origins of American Literature Studies: An Institutional History.
前言/序言
《简·爱》(Jane Eyre) 艾米莉·勃朗特经典代表作,一个关于独立、激情与自我发现的永恒故事 《简·爱》是维多利亚时代英国文学史上最璀璨的明珠之一,由女作家夏洛蒂·勃朗特于1847年首次出版。这部小说以其深刻的心理洞察力、强烈的女性主义视角以及对社会阶层和道德规范的毫不妥协的批判,自问世以来便震撼了整个文学界。它不仅仅是一部爱情小说,更是一部关于个人尊严、精神自由与自我实现的长篇史诗。 故事梗概: 小说的主人公简·爱,以第一人称“我”的视角,向读者娓娓道来她曲折而充满磨难的一生。她自幼父母双亡,寄居在刻薄的里德舅妈家中,遭受着冷遇与欺凌。童年的痛苦经历塑造了她坚韧而敏感的性格,让她早早认识到世界的不公与人性的凉薄。 随后,她被送入饱受虐待和精神压抑的洛伍德教会学校。尽管环境恶劣,生活清苦,但简·爱在简妮·欧尔芙和海伦·伯恩斯等人物身上找到了友爱与精神力量,同时也磨砺了她追求知识与真理的决心。离开学校后,她成为了一名家庭教师,渴望在独立劳动中找到生活的意义和归属感。 命运的转折点出现在她被聘往古老而神秘的桑菲尔德庄园,担任罗彻斯特先生的女儿阿黛尔的家庭教师。罗彻斯特先生是一个富有魅力、性格复杂、充满谜团的贵族。他粗犷、愤世嫉俗,却又被简·爱身上那股不卑不亢、充满智慧的内在光芒所吸引。两人之间逐渐发展出一段超越传统身份与年龄界限的深刻情感交流。 简·爱在罗彻斯特身边找到了久违的理解与尊重,她渴望成为他的一部分,分享他的生活,并成为他的精神伴侣。然而,桑菲尔德庄园中隐藏的巨大秘密——那个关于“疯女人”的恐怖传闻——如同达摩克利斯之剑般悬在两人的头顶。 在婚礼当天,简·爱终于知道了真相:罗彻斯特先生已有一位患有精神疾病的妻子贝莎·梅森被囚禁在庄园顶楼。这一残酷的事实,使得简·爱不得不直面她与罗彻斯特之间的爱情与道德责任之间的尖锐冲突。她深知,没有平等的婚姻是无法维系的,她宁愿选择孤独与贫困,也不愿成为一个被背叛和欺骗的“秘密情妇”。 带着破碎的心,简·爱毅然决然地离开了她视为天堂的桑菲尔德。接下来的流浪生活将她带入饥饿、绝望的深渊,直到她被林顿家族收留。在那里,她不仅收获了表兄妹的亲情和一笔意外的遗产,更重要的是,她重新认识了自我价值,获得了经济上的独立。 最终,当她以一个真正平等、拥有独立人格的女性身份重返罗彻斯特身边时,她发现罗彻斯特因一场大火而失去了视力,失去了财富,也失去了庄园中所有旧有的束缚。此时的罗彻斯特,褪去了曾经的傲慢与神秘,成了一个需要被引导和安慰的“残缺”之人。简·爱选择留下,不是因为她必须依附于他,而是因为她终于找到了一个能够与之灵魂共鸣、建立在真正相互尊重与无私之爱基础上的伴侣。 主题深度剖析: 《简·爱》的伟大之处在于它对多个核心主题的精妙探讨: 1. 女性的独立与自尊: 简·爱一生都在为争取“自由”和“平等”而抗争。她对罗彻斯特的爱是真挚的,但她对自我尊严的维护更加坚定。她拒绝成为任何人的附属品,无论是里德太太的“累赘”、洛伍德的“孤儿”,还是罗彻斯特的“情人”。她对罗彻斯特说:“我爱你,但我更爱我自己。”这句宣言,在当时社会背景下,无疑是对父权社会对女性压制的强有力控诉。 2. 激情与理智的平衡: 简·爱体内燃烧着强烈的激情(象征着她与罗彻斯特的爱),但她的道德指南针和强大的内在理性(以海伦·伯恩斯和她自身的良知为代表)始终引导着她不偏离正轨。小说探讨了如何在充满诱惑的世界中,保持心灵的纯净与行为的合乎道德。 3. 社会阶层与偏见: 小说无情地揭示了维多利亚时代僵化的社会等级制度。简·爱作为一个贫穷的孤女,她所受的歧视无处不在。勃朗特通过简·爱与罗彻斯特(贵族)、布兰奇·英格拉姆(上流社会小姐)之间的对比,强调了内在的品格远胜于外在的财富与头衔。 4. 宗教与灵性: 宗教在小说中扮演了复杂角色。洛伍德的布道者布罗克赫斯特先生象征着虚伪、压抑的宗教教条;而海伦·伯恩斯则代表了基督式的宽容与忍耐。简·爱最终找到了属于自己的、基于爱与实践的、更为人性化的灵性世界。 艺术特色: 夏洛蒂·勃朗特运用了极具感染力的哥特式元素,如桑菲尔德庄园的怪异声响、暴风雨夜的恐怖气氛,以及“疯女人”的谜团,为故事增添了紧张感和戏剧性。 第一人称叙事使得读者得以深入简·爱的内心世界,体验她的痛苦、挣扎和狂喜,增强了故事的真实感和情感冲击力。叙事风格时而内敛沉思,时而又如火山爆发般激烈,完美地反映了主人公复杂的心灵状态。 《简·爱》自诞生以来,便成为了世界文学中关于女性觉醒、爱情真谛以及精神自由探索的经典范本,其影响力至今未减,持续激励着一代又一代的读者。这部作品值得每一个追求独立与真爱的人反复品读。