《我听见美国在歌唱》和《春望》之比较

2010 年 8 月Overseas English 海外英语The Comparison between "I Hear America Singing" and "春望"余爽爽（南阳理工学院，河南 南阳 473000 ）Abstract: Through the introduction of the American poem "I Hear America Singing" and its writer Walt Whitman, the Chinese poem "春望 "and its writer: 杜甫 , and the comparison of these two poems in prosody, language, contents and emotion, writing techniques, politicalviews field, etc, this essay analyses further some poetic phenomenon, and also draws a vivid picture of America in 19 century and China in 8 century. Key words: I hear America singing; 春望 ; China; America; comparison; writer中图分类号：I106 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-5039(2010)08-0219-021 The two poems I will talk about in the paper and their poets are famous and great in Chinese and American history.In the poem" I hear America singing", Walt Whitman,the great poet, caroled throughout his verse.Whitman portrayed different common but proud American citizens with different songs in the poems. But the description of this beautiful 'concert' was not his main purpose. Just as he said," I sing … the body electric, a song of myself, a song of joys, a song of occupations, a song of prudence, a song of the answer, a song of the broad — axe, a song of the rolling earth, a song of the universal … " Whitman, the best and most influential poet in the nineteenth century, was born in Long Island, New York. His first edition of 'leaves of grass", consisting of twelve poems, came out in 1855. He developed, it's also his great legacy, a truly American free verse. His open, inclusive, and optimistic poems are written in long, sprawling lines and span an astonishing variety of subject matter and points of view, embodying the democratic spirit of his new America. He uses a number of literary devices to accomplish his works. For example, free verse and anaphora are his main achievements. The second poem is " 春 望 " ， written by the well -known Chinese bard ---Du Fu( 杜 甫 ). " 春 望 "unrolls around the character " 望 ".The first four lines connect landscape and feelings, express his feeling by scenery. Du Fu wrote the flourishing grass and trees, thin population in Chang An ( 长安 )city to protrude the broken nation. In the last four lines, he wrote that for the instability and series of war, and family separation, it was especially precious to receive letters. The lines also indicated the big pain that war bought to the people in an indirect way. In the final ,hefound that his grey hair was too thin for his pin to hold it together--telling us his deep worries and anger. It's a typical representative of Du Fu's works, who is a great realistic bard in Chinese history. Du Fu lived in Tang Dynasty, and all his life, especially after middle -aged, was in the lower status of society. Because he experienced the cruelty of war and bitterness of poverty, he had more knowledge of people's pain and he put all of these into his poems--which is called "poetic history" by the later generation. It becomes a mirror for Tang dynasty changing from the strong to the weak. He has a depressed writing style and made a great contribution to the maturity of Chinese poem's " 五言 "and " 七言 " artistic technique.2 Differences between these two poems2.1 the sameness of the two verses The reason that the two poems "I Hear America Singing", and " 春望 " can be put together and made a comparison is mainly because they are both with deep patriotic feelings. These two ones both show the writers'great love to their countries and people. 2.2 differences between these two poems 1) differences of the prosody Despite its sameness, the two poems are different in many other parts. For example, the prosody. "I Hear America singing" is a free verse. It's the kind of poetic style that without rhyme or a fixed rhythm but distinguished by exotic and vulgar language and impressive repetition. Walt Whitman has developed the unique style and his departure from poetic convention, at that time , earned his works such census as "poetry of barbarism" .In the " I hear America singing", there is really no evident or fixed收稿日期：2010-05-13修回日期：2010-06-21作者简介：余爽爽（1981- ），女 ，河南南阳人，本科，现就职于河南省南阳理工学院教育学院，主要研究方向为英美文学。

本栏目责任编辑：梁 书中外文学文化研究219Overseas English 海外英语2010 年 8 月 er patiently listed the songs sang by all kinds of people. "The carpenter's" song was "blithe and strong", the "mother", "young wife", and "the girl sewing or washing's" songs were "delicious", and "young fellow's" songs were "melodious". And also the songs of the mason, boatman, shoemaker … Oh, it was like a real concert! We can touch the excitement that Whitman revealed from his stomach through his lines. But Du Fu gave us another or nearly opposite world. In his lines, he portrayed the scenery of the broken country and barren cities, sighed in regret the current situation and worries about his country. Also, he expressed his pain that lose contact with family, which was too strong that his gray hair became thinner. There's no evident character to show his disconsolate feeling, but every reader can clearly feel it through the landscape and objects he provided. In brief, the two poems, although both show the patriotism and were written at the unpeaceful time, are so different in contents and emotions. One gives us a singing picture and is in high spirits, while the other painted the decline picture for us and is in low spirits. Those are because of the era that the poets was in. 4) Differences of writing techniques and the social background that they were formed. In Du Fu's " 春望 ", through the image of the writer and the views he was seeing, he expressed the emotions in that typical landscape. He used the popular Chinese writing methods. But Whitman concentrated not on the natural scenery but on the common people and the individual. The contrast between those two poems is in fact not an exceptional example. In Chinese poems, especially for the ancient Chinese poems, scenery ones occupy a large parts. But western poems are mostly about people's feeling and thoughts, especially love. In chinese scenery poem, the real aim is to express their feelings, moods, or explain one reason. For example, in Li Bai's " 黄 鹤 楼 送 孟 浩 然之广陵 ",the poet wrote " 孤帆远影碧空尽， 唯见长江天际流 ".rhyme, but the repetition of the words or phrases such as " singing" "the+n.". The free verse broke the limitation of the traditional poetic requirements such as metre, rhyme, making the poets easier to express their feeling freely. But the era for the Chinese poem " 春 望 "was still in the early Tang Dynasty, the summit of Chinese ancient poetry. It still firmly conforms to the requirements that the old style poetry would have — using the rhyme, pausing, certain line -length, etc. It's a " 五 言 " (five — characters line) and " 三 顿 "(three pausing ) poem. In one word, this popular practice of " 五 言 三 顿 " can be understood as to make two medial caesuras and one end-up in reading a verse of five characters. On the poetic rhyme, it follows the rhyme — the four ending characters are " 深 " ，" 心 " ，" 金 " and " 簪 " 。