具体描述
内容简介
With sure and subtle touch, Eliot paints a luminous and spacious landscape of life in a provincial town, interweaving her themes with a proliferation of characters: an innocent idealist; a self-defeated young doctor; a naive young woman; and a cold man, who "lives too much with the dead". 作者简介
Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, at Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England, the last child of an estate agent. During her girlhood, she went through a phase of evangelical piety, but her strong interest in philosophy and her friendship with religious freethinkers led to a break with orthodox religion. When one of these friends married in 1843, Mary Ann took over from his wife the task of translating D.F. Strauss’s The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1846), a work that had deep effect on English rationalism. After her father’s death she settled in London and from 1851 to 1854 she served as a writer and editor of the Westminster Review, the organ of the Radical party. In London she met she met George Henry Lewes, a journalist and advanced thinker. Lewes was separated from his wife, who had had two sons by another man, but had been unable to obtain a divorce. In a step daring for Victorian times, Mary Ann Evans began living openly with Lewes in 1854, in a union they both considered as sacred as a legal marriage and one that lasted until his death in 1878.
With Lewes’s encouragement, Mary Ann Evans wrote her first fictional work, “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” for Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857; it was followed by two more stories published under the pseudonym George Elliot–“George” because it was Lewes’s name and “Eliot” because, she said, it was good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word.” At the age of thirty-nine she used her memories of Warwickshire to write her first long novel, Adam Bede (1859), a book that established her as the foremost woman novelist in her day. Then came The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Romola (1863). Her masterpiece and one of the greatest English novels, Middlemarch, was published in 1871-72. Her last work was Daniel Deronda (1876). After Lewes’s death George Eliot married John Walter Cross. He was forty; she was sixty-one. Before her death on December 22, 1880, she had been recognized by her contemporaries as the greatest living writer of English fiction.
From the Paperback edition.,,, 精彩书评
"No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative."
--V. S. Pritchett
From the Trade Paperback edition.
好的,这是一部关于维多利亚时代英格兰乡村生活的鸿篇巨制。 《柳岸风云》(Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life) 作者:乔治·艾略特(George Eliot) 版本信息:英文原版 [精装] --- 内容提要: 《柳岸风云》是文学巨匠乔治·艾略特最负盛名、被广泛认为是英语小说巅峰之作的史诗级作品。这部小说深入细致地描绘了19世纪中期英格兰一座虚构的、正处于变革前夜的集镇——柳岸(Middlemarch)的社会图景和复杂人性。它不仅仅是一部关于个人情感纠葛的爱情故事,更是一部宏大而精确的“地方社会研究”,探讨了理想主义在现实面前的挣扎、社会进步的阻力、知识分子的困境,以及个体在庞大社会结构中的责任与局限。 故事围绕着几条主要人物的命运线索交织展开,呈现了一幅广阔而深刻的人性画卷。 核心人物与情节线索: 多罗西娅·布鲁克(Dorothea Brooke): 小说的核心人物,一位拥有非凡智慧、热切渴望为人类福祉做出重大贡献的年轻贵族女性。她拥有崇高的道德理想和对知识的强烈渴求,但却缺乏对现实世界的深刻洞察力。多罗西娅不顾世俗的眼光,冲动地嫁给了年长她许多、痴迷于神学和古代文献的学者——詹姆斯·卡苏本(James Casaubon) 先生。这段婚姻迅速暴露了其本质:枯燥的学术追求和情感上的巨大鸿沟,使多罗西娅的宏大抱负被困于无望的境地。小说细致地展现了她在婚姻失望中对自我价值和人生方向的艰难探索。 特伦伯·利德盖特(Tertius Lydgate): 一位受过良好教育、充满改革精神的年轻医生,怀揣着将现代科学引入保守的柳岸镇的雄心壮志。他渴望通过科学研究来提升当地的医疗水平,摆脱陈旧的医学实践。利德盖特娶了美丽、热衷于交际和物质享受的罗莎蒙德·文西(Rosamond Vincy)。这段结合象征着理想与世俗享乐的冲突。罗莎蒙德的虚荣心和对舒适生活的追求,以及她对利德盖特科学抱负的漠视,最终将他拖入了无法摆脱的经济困境和社交压力中,扼杀了他的职业理想。 弗雷德·文西(Fred Vincy)与玛丽·加斯科因(Mary Garth): 弗雷德是一个性情温和、但缺乏责任感的年轻绅士,他被美丽的表妹罗莎蒙德所吸引,并因此背负了沉重的债务。他的命运与务实、智慧且坚守原则的乡村姑娘玛丽紧密相连。玛丽代表着朴素的道德力量和对真正价值的坚持。他们的故事线索,展现了从轻浮走向成熟、从依赖走向自我实现的心路历程。 威廉·威洛比·卡斯伯特(Will Ladislaw): 多罗西娅的远房表弟,一位拥有艺术气质和自由思想的年轻人,他对卡苏本先生的学术抱负持怀疑态度。他与多罗西娅之间逐渐产生了一种基于精神契合的深厚理解和情感联系,这种联系挑战了多罗西娅在婚姻中的承诺与束缚。 社会背景与主题深度: 《柳岸风云》的卓越之处在于其对“省会生活”的全面扫描。艾略特利用柳岸这个缩影,探讨了维多利亚时代社会正在经历的剧变: 1. 改革与反动: 小说背景正值1832年英国议会改革法案前后,社会各阶层对进步的期待与既得利益者的顽固抵抗形成了鲜明的对比。镇上的政治角力,如报纸的创办和地方选举,都反映了这种时代的张力。 2. 婚姻的真相: 艾略特对婚姻的探讨超越了浪漫主义的窠臼。她揭示了婚姻如何成为理想主义者(如多罗西娅)和雄心家(如利德盖特)的“坟墓”,探讨了情感的误判、经济压力以及性格不合如何无情地腐蚀亲密关系。 3. 知识与实践的脱节: 小说尖锐地批评了学术研究如果脱离实际生活和大众需求,将变得何等空虚无用(卡苏本先生的“古老典籍研究”即是例证),同时也展示了实践者(利德盖特)如何在缺乏社会支持和资金的情况下被体制所吞噬。 4. 道德的复杂性: 没有绝对的英雄或恶棍。每个角色都受制于自身的局限、时代的要求以及环境的压力。小说的叙事者以近乎全知的视角,冷静而富有同情地剖析了人物动机的细微差别,使得他们的错误和牺牲都显得既悲剧又真实。 文学价值: 《柳岸风云》在文学史上占有不可撼动的地位,主要归功于其精妙的心理描写和宏大的叙事结构。艾略特运用一种深刻的、哲理性的散文风格,将人物的内心世界与外部世界的社会环境完美地融合在一起。小说不仅关注了那些在历史长河中留下印记的伟人,更专注于那些“未能留下名字”的普通人——那些默默地在家庭、社区中做出牺牲和贡献的“凡人”,他们的日常生活和微妙的情感波动,构成了历史的真正底色。 这部作品是一次对人性和社会机制的全面而深刻的考察,阅读它,如同置身于一个活生生的19世纪英国乡村,体验那里的希望、幻灭、责任与爱。它要求读者带着耐心与深度去品味,并最终给予深刻的回报。