Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,—
The mountains its columns be.
The landscape fairly quotes Shelley at you. This sea with its luminous14 calms and sudden tempests, these dim blue islands hull15 down on the horizon, these mountains and their marvellous clouds, these rivers and woodlands are the very substance of his poetry. Live on this coast for a little and you will find yourself constantly thinking of that lovely, that strangely childish poetry, that beautiful and child-like man. Perhaps his spirit haunts the coast. It was in this sea that he sailed his flimsy boat, steering16 with one hand and holding in the other his little volume of ?schylus. You picture him so on the days of calm. And on the days of sudden violent storm you think of him, too. The lightnings cut across the sky, the thunders are like terrible explosions overhead, the squall comes down with a fury. What news of the flimsy boat? None, save only that a few days after the storm a young body is washed ashore17, battered18, unrecognizable; 11the little ?schylus in the coat pocket is all that tells us that this was Shelley.
I have been spending the summer on this haunted coast. That must be my excuse for mentioning in so self-absorbed a world as is ours the name of a poet who has been dead these hundred years. But be reassured19. I have no intention of writing an article about the ineffectual angel beating in the void his something-or-other wings in vain. I do not mean to add my croak20 to the mellifluous21 chorus of centenary-celebrators. No; the ghost of Shelley, who walks in Versilia and the Lunigia, by the shores of the Gulf22 of Spezia and below Pisa where Arno disembogues, this ghost with whom I have shaken hands and talked, incites23 me, not to add a supererogatory and impertinent encomium24, but rather to protest against the outpourings of the other encomiasts, of the honey-voiced centenary-chanters.
The cooing of these persons, ordinarily a specific against insomnia25, is in this case an irritant; it rouses, it exacerbates26. For annoying and disgusting it certainly is, this spectacle of a rebellious27 youth praised to fulsomeness28, a hundred years after his death, by people who would hate him and be horrified29 by him, if he were alive, as much as the Scotch30 reviewers hated and were horrified 12by Shelley. How would these persons treat a young contemporary who, not content with being a literary innovator31, should use his talent to assault religion and the established order, should blaspheme against plutocracy32 and patriotism33, should proclaim himself a Bolshevik, an internationalist, a pacifist, a conscientious34 objector? They would say of him that he was a dangerous young man who ought to be put in his place; and they would either disparage35 and denigrate36 his talent, or else—if they were a little more subtly respectable—they would never allow his name to get into print in any of the periodicals which they controlled. But seeing that Shelley was safely burnt on the sands of Viareggio a hundred years ago, seeing that he is no longer a live dangerous man but only a dead classic, these respectable supporters of established literature and established society join in chorus to praise him, and explain his meaning, and preach sermons over him. The mellifluous cooing is accompanied by a snuffle, and there hangs over these centenary celebrations a genial37 miasma38 of hypocrisy39 and insincerity. The effect of these festal anniversaries in England is not to rekindle40 life in the great dead; a centenary is rather a second burial, a reaffirmation of deadness. A spirit that was once alive is 13fossilized and, in the midst of solemn and funereal41 ceremonies, the petrified42 classic is duly niched in the temple of respectability.
How much better they order these things in Italy! In that country—which one must ever admire more the more one sees of it—they duly celebrate their great men; but celebrate them not with a snuffle, not in black clothes, not with prayer-books in their hands, crape round their hats and a hatred43, in their hearts, of all that has to do with life and vigour44. No, no; they make their dead an excuse for quickening life among the living; they get fun out of their centenaries.
Last year the Italians were celebrating the six hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death. Now, imagine what this celebration would have been like in England. All the oldest critics and all the young men who aspire45 to be old would have written long articles in all the literary papers. That would have set the tone. After that some noble lord, or even a Prince of the Blood, would have unveiled a monument designed by Frampton or some other monumental mason of the Academy. Imbecile speeches in words of not more than two syllables46 would then have been pronounced over the ashes of the world’s most intelligent poet. To his intelligence no reference would, of course, be made; but his 14character, ah! his character would get a glowing press. The most fiery47 and bitter of men would be held up as an example to all Sunday-school children.
After this display of reverence48, we should have had a lovely historical pageant49 in the rain. A young female dressed in white bunting would have represented Beatrice, and for the Poet himself some actor manager with a profile and a voice would have been found. Guelfs and Ghibellines in fancy dress of the period would go splashing about in the mud, and a great many verses by Louis Napoleon Parker would be declaimed. And at the end we should all go home with colds in our heads and suffering from septic ennui50, but with, at the same time, a pleasant feeling of virtuousness51, as though we had been at church.
See now what happens in Italy. The principal event in the Dante celebration is an enormous military review. Hundreds of thousands of wiry little brown men parade the streets of Florence. Young officers of a fabulous52 elegance53 clank along in superbly tailored riding breeches and glittering top-boots. The whole female population palpitates. It is an excellent beginning. Speeches are then made, as only in Italy they can be made—round, rumbling54, sonorous55 15speeches, all about Dante the Italianissimous poet, Dante the irredentist, Dante the prophet of Greater Italy, Dante the scourge56 of Jugo-Slavs and Serbs. Immense enthusiasm. Never having read a line of his works, we feel that Dante is our personal friend, a brother Fascist57.
After that the real fun begins; we have the manifestazioni sportive of the centenary celebrations. Innumerable bicycle races are organized. Fierce young Fascisti with the faces of Roman heroes pay their homage58 to the Poet by doing a hundred and eighty kilometres to the hour round the Circuit of Milan. High speed Fiats59 and Ansaldos and Lancias race one another across the Apennines and round the bastions of the Alps. Pigeons are shot, horses gallop61, football is played under the broiling62 sun. Long live Dante!
How infinitely63 preferable this is to the stuffiness64 and the snuffle of an English centenary! Poetry, after all, is life, not death. Bicycle races may not have very much to do with Dante—though I can fancy him, his thin face set like metal, whizzing down the spirals of Hell on a pair of twinkling wheels or climbing laboriously65 the one-in-three gradients of Purgatory66 Mountain on the back of his trusty Sunbeam. No, they may 16not have much to do with Dante; but pageants67 in Anglican cathedral closes, boring articles by old men who would hate and fear him if he were alive, speeches by noble lords over monuments made by Royal Academicians—these, surely, have even less to do with the author of the Inferno68.
It is not merely their great dead whom the Italians celebrate in this gloriously living fashion. Even their religious festivals have the same jovial69 warm-blooded character. This summer, for example, a great feast took place at Loreto to celebrate the arrival of a new image of the Virgin70 to replace the old one which was burnt some little while ago. The excitement started in Rome, where the image, after being blessed by the Pope, was taken in a motor-car to the station amid cheering crowds who shouted, “Evviva Maria” as the Fiat60 and its sacred burden rolled past. The arrival of the Virgin in Loreto was the signal for a tremendous outburst of jollification. The usual bicycle races took place; there were football matches and pigeon-shooting competitions and Olympic games. The fun lasted for days. At the end of the festivities two cardinals71 went up in aeroplanes and blessed the assembled multitudes—an incident of which the Pope is said to have remarked that the blessing72, 17in this case, did indeed come from heaven.
Rare people! If only we Anglo-Saxons could borrow from the Italians some of their realism, their love of life for its own sake, of palpable, solid, immediate73 things. In this dim land of ours we are accustomed to pay too much respect to fictitious74 values; we worship invisibilities and in our enjoyment75 of immediate life we are restrained by imaginary inhibitions. We think too much of the past, of metaphysics, of tradition, of the ideal future, of decorum and good form; too little of life and the glittering noisy moment. The Italians are born Futurists. It did not need Marinetti to persuade them to celebrate Dante with bicycle races; they would have done it naturally, spontaneously, if no Futurist propaganda had ever been issued. Marinetti is the product of modern Italy, not modern Italy of Marinetti. They are all Futurists in that burningly living Italy where we from the North seek only an escape into the past. Or rather, they are not Futurists: Marinetti’s label was badly chosen. They are Presentists. The early Christians76 preoccupied77 with nothing but the welfare of their souls in the life to come were Futurists, if you like.
We shall do well to learn something of 18their lively Presentism. Let us hope that our great-grandchildren will celebrate the next centenary of Shelley’s death by aerial regattas and hydroplane races. The living will be amused and the dead worthily78 commemorated79. The spirit of the man who delighted, during life, in wind and clouds, in mountain-tops and waters, in the flight of birds and the gliding80 of ships, will be rejoiced when young men celebrate his memory by flying through the air or skimming, like alighting swans, over the surface of the sea.
The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars;
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it.
The man who wrote this is surely more suitably celebrated84 by aeroplane or even bicycle races than by seven-column articles from the pens of Messrs.—well, perhaps we had better mention no names. Let us take a leaf out of the Italian book.
点击收听单词发音
1 smoothly | |
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地 | |
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2 coastal | |
adj.海岸的,沿海的,沿岸的 | |
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3 plantations | |
n.种植园,大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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4 interspersed | |
adj.[医]散开的;点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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5 sodden | |
adj.浑身湿透的;v.使浸透;使呆头呆脑 | |
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6 crests | |
v.到达山顶(或浪峰)( crest的第三人称单数 );到达洪峰,达到顶点 | |
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7 limestone | |
n.石灰石 | |
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8 streaked | |
adj.有条斑纹的,不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 );使布满条纹 | |
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9 scooped | |
v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 );(敏捷地)抱起;抢先获得;用铲[勺]等挖(洞等) | |
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10 chestnut | |
n.栗树,栗子 | |
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11 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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12 cape | |
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风 | |
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13 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
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14 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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15 hull | |
n.船身;(果、实等的)外壳;vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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16 steering | |
n.操舵装置 | |
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17 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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18 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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19 reassured | |
adj.使消除疑虑的;使放心的v.再保证,恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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20 croak | |
vi.嘎嘎叫,发牢骚 | |
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21 mellifluous | |
adj.(音乐等)柔美流畅的 | |
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22 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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23 incites | |
刺激,激励,煽动( incite的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24 encomium | |
n.赞颂;颂词 | |
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25 insomnia | |
n.失眠,失眠症 | |
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26 exacerbates | |
n.使恶化,使加重( exacerbate的名词复数 )v.使恶化,使加重( exacerbate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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27 rebellious | |
adj.造反的,反抗的,难控制的 | |
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28 fulsomeness | |
n.虚情,谄媚 | |
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29 horrified | |
a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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30 scotch | |
n.伤口,刻痕;苏格兰威士忌酒;v.粉碎,消灭,阻止;adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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31 innovator | |
n.改革者;创新者 | |
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32 plutocracy | |
n.富豪统治 | |
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33 patriotism | |
n.爱国精神,爱国心,爱国主义 | |
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34 conscientious | |
adj.审慎正直的,认真的,本着良心的 | |
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35 disparage | |
v.贬抑,轻蔑 | |
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36 denigrate | |
v.诬蔑,诽谤 | |
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37 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
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38 miasma | |
n.毒气;不良气氛 | |
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39 hypocrisy | |
n.伪善,虚伪 | |
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40 rekindle | |
v.使再振作;再点火 | |
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41 funereal | |
adj.悲哀的;送葬的 | |
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42 petrified | |
adj.惊呆的;目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆,使惊呆;变僵硬;使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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43 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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44 vigour | |
(=vigor)n.智力,体力,精力 | |
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45 aspire | |
vi.(to,after)渴望,追求,有志于 | |
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46 syllables | |
n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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47 fiery | |
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的 | |
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48 reverence | |
n.敬畏,尊敬,尊严;Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称;v.尊敬,敬畏,崇敬 | |
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49 pageant | |
n.壮观的游行;露天历史剧 | |
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50 ennui | |
n.怠倦,无聊 | |
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51 virtuousness | |
贞德,高洁 | |
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52 fabulous | |
adj.极好的;极为巨大的;寓言中的,传说中的 | |
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53 elegance | |
n.优雅;优美,雅致;精致,巧妙 | |
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54 rumbling | |
n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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55 sonorous | |
adj.响亮的,回响的;adv.圆润低沉地;感人地;n.感人,堂皇 | |
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56 scourge | |
n.灾难,祸害;v.蹂躏 | |
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57 fascist | |
adj.法西斯主义的;法西斯党的;n.法西斯主义者,法西斯分子 | |
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58 homage | |
n.尊敬,敬意,崇敬 | |
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59 fiats | |
n.命令,许可( fiat的名词复数 );菲亚特汽车(意大利品牌) | |
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60 fiat | |
n.命令,法令,批准;vt.批准,颁布 | |
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61 gallop | |
v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔;飞速发展 | |
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62 broiling | |
adj.酷热的,炽热的,似烧的v.(用火)烤(焙、炙等)( broil的现在分词 );使卷入争吵;使混乱;被烤(或炙) | |
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63 infinitely | |
adv.无限地,无穷地 | |
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64 stuffiness | |
n.不通风,闷热;不通气 | |
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65 laboriously | |
adv.艰苦地;费力地;辛勤地;(文体等)佶屈聱牙地 | |
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66 purgatory | |
n.炼狱;苦难;adj.净化的,清洗的 | |
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67 pageants | |
n.盛装的游行( pageant的名词复数 );穿古代服装的游行;再现历史场景的娱乐活动;盛会 | |
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68 inferno | |
n.火海;地狱般的场所 | |
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69 jovial | |
adj.快乐的,好交际的 | |
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70 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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71 cardinals | |
红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 ); 红衣凤头鸟(见于北美,雄鸟为鲜红色); 基数 | |
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72 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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73 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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74 fictitious | |
adj.虚构的,假设的;空头的 | |
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75 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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76 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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77 preoccupied | |
adj.全神贯注的,入神的;被抢先占有的;心事重重的v.占据(某人)思想,使对…全神贯注,使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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78 worthily | |
重要地,可敬地,正当地 | |
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79 commemorated | |
v.纪念,庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80 gliding | |
v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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81 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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82 trample | |
vt.踩,践踏;无视,伤害,侵犯 | |
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83 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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84 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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