TheNewWomaninW.B.Yeats’“WhenYouAreOld”

【摘要】“当你年老时”是爱尔兰诗人叶芝的代表作之一，也是他献给爱尔兰独立运动女战士茅德·冈的一首爱情诗。在诗中，叶芝塑造了一个有别于英国维多利亚时期女性的新女性形象。这种新女性相对独立，受过良好的教育，不囿于家庭生活，更注重积极的社会生活。叶芝借助此诗表明了他对这种强有力的新女性气质的推崇以及对她们朝圣者式灵魂的认同。

【关键词】叶芝“当你年老时”女性气质 新女性 朝圣者式灵魂

【Abstract】“When You Are Old” is one of the representative works of Irish poet W.B.Yeats.It is also a love poem he dedicates to his beloved one Maud Gonne who is a famous activist in the Irish nationalist movement.In this poem， Yeats projects an image of the New Woman which is a reversal of the Victorian one.The New Women are relatively independent and well-educated.Instead of just focusing on the domestic life， they want to play an active role on the public stage.Yeats shows his admiration for this powerful femininity and identification with their pilgrim souls.

【Key words】Yeats； “When You Are Old”； femininity； New Woman； pilgrim soul

When You Are Old（1）

当你年老时（傅浩译）

When you are old and gray and full of sleep

当你年老，鬓斑，睡意昏沉，

And nodding by the fire， take down this book，

在炉旁打盹时，取下这本书，

And slowly read， and dream of the soft look

慢慢诵读，梦忆从前你双眸

Your eyes had once， and of their shadows deep；

神色柔和，眼波中倒影深深；

How many loved your moments of glad grace，

多少人爱你风韵妩媚的时光，

And loved your beauty with love false or true；

爱你的美丽出自假意或真情，

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you，

而惟有一人爱你灵魂的至诚，

And loved the sorrows of your changing face；

爱你渐衰的脸上愁苦的风霜；

And bending down beside the glowing bars，

然后垂着头，在炽燃的炉边，

Murmur， a little sadly， how Love fled

忧伤地低诉：爱神如何逃走，

And paced upon the mountains overhead，

在头顶上的群山巅漫步闲游，

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

把他的面孔隐没在繁星中间。

T.S.Eliot once regarded W.B.Yeats as “the greatest poet of our time”.The greatest one or not， it is true that Yeats， the Irish poet and dramatist， is one of the foremost figures of twentieth century literature and one of the most brilliant modernists.His modernity can be detected from many aspects， for example， his attitude toward woman.It seems that Yeats is “an exemplary instance of the undecidably contradictory juxtaposition of a fearful misogynist response to the New Woman with an identificatory admiration.”（2） His feminine identification “produced empowering representations of womens presences and voices in the great body of love poetry inspired by Maud Gonne.As Cullingford argues， ‘Yeats loved， liked， collaborated with， and respected women—most of the time”（3）.

The poem “When You Are Old” is a typical example which shows Yeats identification with femininity or the New Woman.His representation of woman and adoption of woman as the acceptor， listener or audience of his poem which makes her an absent heroine， are all evidence of the influence of the gender problem on the male writer.While some of his poems such as “Prayer for My daughter” and “Leda and the Swan” show his masculine misogyny， this poem on the other hand reveals his “fascination and strong identification with the empowered feminine”.

At first sight， “When You Are Old” is a love poem dedicated to his beloved one Maud Gonne.But further reading and thinking proves it not to be so personal.It is also a poem dedicated to all the New Woman jumping to the scene at the turn of the century； a poem shows his admiration for if not agreement with the womans “pilgrim soul”.

In this poem， Yeats projects an image of the New Woman which is a reversal of the Victorian one.The real woman behind the poem and the heroine in the poem live a separate life with her distinct personality.She is independent， without being obedient to the male-dominance.She owns the right to make her own choice about love， marriage and life.Instead of just focusing on the domestic life or the private sector， she is bold enough to go out and play an active role on the public stage.She belongs to the group of New Woman who are “independent， educated， （relatively） sexually liberated， oriented more toward productive life in the public sphere than toward reproductive life in the home”（4）.These women are dedicated to “the murder of the ‘Angel in the house”； to the “Victorian nurturant-domestic femininity”（5）.

Although this woman is different from the then prevailing idealized Victorian women， Yeats does not hesitate to show his loyalty to the woman with “pilgrim soul”； he does not feel ashamed to let her be the dominating one in his life：

How many loved your moments of glad grace，

多少人爱你风韵妩媚的时光，

And loved your beauty with love false or true；

爱你的美丽出自假意或真情，

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you，

而惟有一人爱你灵魂的至诚，

And loved the sorrows of your changing face；

爱你渐衰的脸上愁苦的风霜；

Beauty and youth are not the deciding factors in his love.The poets love is directed more towards the soul rather than the body.Ii is said that Yeats is at first skeptical of the heroines passion for the Irish nationalism， but it does not make less his worship for her.Like his contemporary female writers such as Virginia Woolf， Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman， Yeats shows his concern for and appreciation of the spiritual awareness and growth of the female， although sometimes he can not fully understand it.

Yeats not only shows his admiration， but also his steadfast love for this non-Victorian woman：

And bending down beside the glowing bars，

然后垂着头，在炽燃的炉边，

Murmur， a little sadly， how Love fled

忧伤地低诉：爱神如何逃走，

And paced upon the mountains overhead，

在头顶上的群山巅漫步闲游，

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

把他的面孔隐没在繁星中间。

In these last 4 lines， Yeats imagines that his beloved one then an old woman is “bending down beside the glowing bars”， feeling sadly that the god of “Love” Jupiter has “fled”.He “paced upon the mountains overhead” and “hid his face amid a crowd of stars”.From human being to god， from the earth to heaven， the integration of these four elements creates a sense of eternity.In a way， this ending has the same effect as the ending of the 18th sonnet of Shakespeare：（6）

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade

死神夸不着你在他影子里踟蹰，

When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

你将在不朽的诗中与时间同长。

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see，

只要人类在呼吸，眼睛看得见，

So long lives this， and this gives life to thee.

我这诗就活着，使你的生命绵延。

Like Shakespeare， Yeats tries to ensure in his poem that beauty never fades.He wants to keep his beloved one forever alive and his love for her an everlasting one.He wants to prove the power of the woman， a power leading to his life-long regret for the unrequited love， and a power giving rise to his creative writing， especially in poems.

No wonder it is his love for Maud Gonne that makes him identified with this “powerful femininity”， but it is also due to the influence of the “first wave of feminism” on his mind.This “wave” arouses the awareness of the gender problem not only in the female writers but also the male ones.Just as Marianne Dekoven claims in “Modernism and Gender”： “shifts in gender relations at the turn of the century were a key factor in the emergence of Modernism”（7）.

Generally speaking， in the poem “When You Are Old”， Yeats depicts himself as the “one man loved the pilgrim soul” in his heroine.This “one man” is different from the earlier “realist”， rather， it stands for the “modernist”.Being a modernist， Yeats， together with his female contemporaries， shows his preoccupation with gender and his identification with the “powerful femininity” or the New Woman.

References：

[1]傅浩.《当你年老时》：五种读法[J].外国文学.2002（5）.

[2]Dekoven， Marianne： “Modernism and Gender”， The Cambridge Companion to Modernism[C].Levenson， Michael ed.， Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2006， p.177.

[3]黄海容.方汉泉.论叶芝的“现代浪漫主义”[J].天津外国语学院学报， 1999（4）：44-49.

[4]李战子.第二人称在自传中的人际功能[J].外国语，2000 （6）：51-56.

[5]李战子.功能语法中的人际意义框架的扩展[J].外语研究， 2001（1）：48-54.

[6]李战子.话语的人际意义研究[M].上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002.

[7]区鉷.蒲度戎.《当你年老》译文比较研究[J].外语与外语教学，2005（6）：51-54.

作者简介：

黄春燕（1972年2月），女，上海人，北京物资学院外语系副教授，南京大学外国语学院博士，主要研究方向为英美文学和英语教学。