アメリカ文学史へのアプローチ : 作品100選
著者 多田 敏男, 中山 喜代市, 谷口 義朗
発行年 1995‑03‑28
URL http://hdl.handle.net/10112/00020091
143
第
1 9
章 アメリカ演劇アメリカ演劇はユージーン・オニール(EugeneO'Neill, 1888‑1953)で始まっ たといわれる。これまではアメリカに名優はいたが、めぼしい劇作家は誕生し なかった。劇場で演じられたものは勧善懲悪といったお決まりのメロドラマか、
娯楽ものでしかなかった。オニール自身の父親は俳優であったが、明けても暮 れても「モンテ・クリスト伯」の主役を演じることに生涯を費やしたといわれ ている。オニールはそんな父親を思い出しながら、「子供時代に父親を通じて劇 場を知って私は、そんな劇場に背を向けるようになった。古くさい、わざとら しい、甘い芝居を見ていると、劇場に対して軽蔑の感情しか沸いてこなかった」
と述べている。
またヨーロッパで始まった「小劇場運動」が約4半世紀遅れて1910年代のは じめ頃にアメリカに入ってきたことも、オニールが劇作家として登場するのに 幸いしたかも知れない。彼の処女作「東へ向かってカーデイフヘ』 (BoundEast for Cardiff, 1916)はそうした小劇場の一つで初めて上演され、それがアメリカ
における近代劇の皮切りとなるのである。
一般に処女作をみればその作家のすべてが分かるとよくいわれるが、オニー ルの場合その言葉がどうしてもあまりうまく当てはまらない。それほどに彼の 作品には一度使った素材が繰り返されることがなく、ー作ごとになにか新たな ことが試みられるのである。フロイトの心理学や意識の流れの手法を取り入れ ようとした作品や、伝記的な家庭劇があるかと思えば、ギリシア悲劇の技巧を 用いた作品もみられるといった調子で、その跡をたどればなかなか興味深い作 家といえるであろう。さらに数多い作品が20年代から30年代にほとんど集中 していることも驚異であり、その時代はアメリカの演劇にとって華やかな一つ の頂点を示す時代であった。オニールの後に有望な劇作家が次々と現れるよう になったが、そのなかで新しい手法を示す『わが町』 (OurTown, 1938)など を書いたソーントン・ワイルダー (ThorntonWilder, 1897‑1975)などは、留意 しておかねばならない。
1940年代のはじめ頃の演劇界にはこれといった成果はみられないが、40年代 も半ば頃になると、ちょうど第二次世界大戦が終わるころだが、そこに華々し く登場するのがテネシー・ウィリアムズ (TennesseeWilliams, 1911‑83)とアー サー・ミラー (ArthurMiller, 1915‑ )である。ウィリアムズは南部作家特有の 不合理な、しかしながら繊細な詩的感受性の豊かな作家で、あやしい美といっ た特徴が作品の端ばしに窺われる。有名な「ガラスの動物園』 (TheGlass Menagerie, 1944)や「欲望という名の電車』 (AStreetcar Named Desire, 1947) の舞台を観るのは無理としても、後者の映画化されたのを見た人は少なくない であろう。そしてその暗い美しさに感動した人も多いにちがいない。ミラーの ほうは、ウィリアムズが詩的表現を得意とするのに対して、より理性的な言葉 を使っているが、そのー語ー語には過去のアメリカの歴史の重みが充填されて いるといえよう。日本でも大いに評判になった『セールスマンの死」 (Deathof a Salesman, 1949)は主人公の一日を描いたものに過ぎないが、その一日には
アメリカの神話といっていい「アメリカの夢」の批判が盛り込まれているので ある。
テネシー・ウィリアムズとアーサー・ミラーはアメリカの演劇を大いに前進 せしめたが、彼らの最盛期も峠を越したころ、オフ・プロードウェイに『動物 園物語』 (TheZoo Story, 1958)を引っさげてエドワード・オルビー (Edward Albee, 1928‑ )が登場し、先輩作家たちに続く新星として迎えられた。その
『ヴァージニア・ウルフなんかこわくない』 (Who'sAfraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1962)は有名だが、彼は明らかに反体制の旗手であり、また不条理の作家の一 人と見なされ、観客に慰みを与える代わりに、不安と苛立ちを突きつけるので あった。
ところで、最初にアメリカの演劇がその小劇場運動から育っていったように 述べてきたが、その小劇場運動はやがて、オフ・プロードウェイ、そしてさら に、オフ・オフ・プロードウェイに進展し、その間にさまざまな劇作家が活躍 してきたし、今もなお活躍しているのが現状である。そのような複雑な状況を 捉えたり予測したりすることはそんなに容易なことではない。
Eugene O'Neill (1888‑1953)
O'Neill was born in New York, the younger son of James O'Neill, a popular actor. 心
a child he toured with his father, and attended a Catholic boarding school and a preparatory school in Connecticut. He enrolled at Princeton University for a year (1906‑ 7), then held a series of jobs including prospecting for gold, several months as a seaman on a Norwegian freighter and a brief spell as a journalist in Connecticut. His involvement with the Provincetown Players brought him, and the company, to the attention of the New York public, initially with a sequence of plays about the SS Glencatrn and its crew: Bound F.astfor Cardif/(1916), In the Zone (1917), 乃eLong Voyage Home (1917) and 1be Moon of the Caribees 0918). Two other plays, not in the Glencairn cycle but drawing on his memories of life at sea, won the Pulitzer Prize: Beyond the Horizon (1920) and Anna Cbristie(l92l; first produced as Chris in 1920).
O'Neill went on to become a major influence on the development of the modern American theatre, exploring difficult subjects and experimenting with a variety of dramatic styles. Black Americans made up the cast of乃eDreamy Kid (1919); an interracial marriage is the subject of All God'.s Cbillun Got Wings (1924); and in乃eEmperor Jones (1920) a black actor dominates the stage in the central role. The expressionism of乃e Emperor Jones is further developed in乃eHatryApe(l922),and in the mask‑drama 1be Great God Brown (1926). Strange Jnterlude(1928), which won O'Neill a third Pulitzer Prize, portrays the life of its central character, Nina Leeds. O'Neill's interest in the familial patterns of Greek tragedy and in Nietzsche's opposition of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is evident in the grim New England tragedy Desire under the Elms (1924), and is the motive force behind Mourning Becomes Electra 0931), a reworking of Aeschylus'Oresteia in the context of the American Civil War.
After the failure of Days without End 0934), O'Neill, suffering from increasing ill health maintained a long theatrical silence, unbroken by the award of the Nobel Prize in 1936. 乃eIceman Cometh (1946), his first new play to be performed for 12 years, is set in a Bowery bar. Long Day'.sjourney into Ntght(ftrst performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957) is a tortured but compassionate portrait of his own family. Of a projected 11‑play
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cycle which was to trace the fortunes of an American family from the 18th to the 20th centuries, only A Touch of the Poet (first performed 1957) and the incomplete More Stately Mansions (first performed 1962) were actually written. Hughie, the single play of another projected series, was first performed in 1958.
Desire Under the Elms
Simeon - (suddenly turns to Eben) Looky here! Ye'd oughtn't t' said that, Eben.
Peter - 'Twa'n't righteous.
Eben-What?
Simeon - Ye prayed he'd died.
Eben - Waal - don't yew pray it? (a pause) Peter - He's our Paw.
Eben - (violently) Not mine!
Simeon - (dryly) Ye'd not let no one else say that about yer Maw! Ha! (He gives one abrupt sardonic guffaw. Peter grins.)
Eben - (very pale) I meant - I hain't his'n - I hain't like him - he hain't me!
Peter - (dryly) Wait till ye've growed his age!
Eben - (intensely) I'm Maw - every drop o' blood! (A pause. They stare at him with indifferent curiosity.)
Peter - (reminiscently) She was good t' Sim 'n' me. A good Step-maw's sclirse.
Simeon - She was good t' everyone.
Eben - (greatly moved, gets to bis feet and makes an awkward bow to each of them - stammering) I be thankful t' ye. I'm her - her heir. (He sits down in confusion.)
Peter - (after a pause - judicially) She was good even t' him.
Eben - (fiercely) An' fur thanks he killed her!
Simeon - (after a pause) No one never kills nobody. It's allus somethin'. That's the murderer.
Eben - Didn't he slave Maw t' death?
Peter - He's slaved himself t' death. He's slaved Sim 'n' me 'n' yew t' death - on'y none o' us hain't died - yit.
(Act. 1, Scene 2) Looky here!= Look here!
1
j31,,J / Ye'd oughtn't t' said that= You had ought not to said that. :iE L<
Ii You ought not to have said that. / 'Twa'n't = It wasn't. / Ye prayed he'd died= You prayed he had died. 'he' li~JIJA~t.:i:,0)5(:tll,0 / Waal = Well. / I hain't his'n = I am not his. / he hain't me = he is not Clike) me. / o' = of. / t' Sim 'n' me = to Simeon and me. / A good Step-maw's scurse = A good Step-mother is scarce. / allus = always. / on'y = only. / yit = yet.Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)
Born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Calvinist parents, he attended missionary schools from 1905 to 1909. He completed high school in California, then attended Oberlin College, Yale, and Princeton.
His early writing included a series of 'three-minute' plays, 16 of which he later published in The Angel That Troubled the Water.s (1928). His first publication, however, was the full-length play The Trumpet Shall Sound, which appeared serially in The Yale Literary Magazine in 1919. His first novel, The Cabala, was published in 1926. Two years later he won a Pulitzer Prize for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), a complex study of the role of destiny, or providence, in the death of five travellers when the bridge near Lima, Peru, collapses in 1714. A third novel, The Woman of Andros (1930), set in ancient Greece, provoked an attack by critics who felt that Wilder was ignoring the bitter realities of contemporary American life.
During the 1930s Wilder chose to concentrate most of his energies on the theatre.
The six one-act sketches in The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays (1931) mingle realism and experimental modes, notably expressionism, designed to 'shake up' the American theatre. He received his second Pulitzer Prize for Our Town (1938), a drama set in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, and played without scenery.
The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), also awarded the Pulitzer, is an expressionistic play about mankind's precarious survival.
Our Town Stages manager:
This play is called "Our Town". It was written by Thornton Wilder; produced and directed by A .... (or: produced by A .... ; directed by B .... ). In it you will see Miss C .... ; Miss D .... ; Miss E .... ; and Mr. F .... ; Mr. G .... ; Mr. H .... ; and many others.
The name of the town is Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, - just across the Massachusetts line: latitude 42 degrees 40 minutes; longitude 70 degrees 37 minutes. The First Act shows a day in our town. The day is May 7, 1901. The time is just before dawn.
A rooster crows.
The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount'in.
The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go, - doesn't it?
He stares at it for a moment, then goes upstage.
Well, I'd better show you how our town lies. Up here - Tbat is: parallel with the back wall.
is Main Street. Way back there is the railway station; tracks go that way. Polish Town's across the tracks and some Canuck families.
Toward the left.
Over there is the Congregational Church; across the street's the Presbyterian.
Methodist and Unitarian are over there.
Baptist is down in the holla' by the river.
Catholic Church is over beyond the tracks.
Here's the Town Hall and Post Office combined; jail's in the basement.
Bryan once made a speech from these very steps here.
Along here's a row of stores.
147
wonderful= wonderfully. / Way back 'way'= far. / Canuck = Canadian. / Congregational Church
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Bryan William Jenning Bryan (1860-1925)*OOQ)i&ffi*o 1~-m-t.di!Hr*"t"m:HJ:ilirmt!&A.1:ti°-?
t::.oTennessee Williams (1911-83)
Born in Columbus, Mississippi, he graduated from the University of Iowa in 1938.
His first plays were one-act pieces given in amateur and student performances between 1936 and 1940. They are partially collected in the volume 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other One-Act Plays (1946; augmented 1953) and Dragon Country: A Book of Plays (1970).
His reputation was established by The Glass Menagerie (1944) and further enhanced by A Streetcar Named Destre (1947). Both plays show Williams's sympathy for the lost and self-punishing individual, a characteristic of many of his subsequent dramas, such as Summer and Smoke (1947; revised as The Eccentrlctttes of a Ntghttngale, 1964). His gift for comedy, often an undercurrent of his more serious dramas, is evident in The Rose Tattoo (1951). After the experimental Camino Real(l953), poorly received by the critics, he returned to the more familiar themes of the intricacies of Southern families and Southern culture with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(l955), Sweet Btrd of Youth (1956) and
The Night of the Iguana (1959; revised 1961).
His Memoirs, published in 1975, present an account of a life consumed with guilt, anger and a sense of failure, themes which are frequently associated with the major characters in his dramas.
A Streetcar Named Desire Eunice [finally]: What's the matter, honey? Are you lost?
Blanche [ with faintly hysterical humour]: They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!
Eunice: That's where you are now.
Blanche: At Elysian Fields?
Eunice: This here is Elysian Fields.
Blanche: They mustn't have - understood - what number I wanted ...
Eunice: What number you lookin' for?
Blanche wearily refers to the slip of paper.
Blanche: Six thirty-two
Eunice: You don't have to look no further.
Blanche: [uncomprehendingly]: I'm looking for my sister, Stella DuBois. I mean - Mrs. Stanley Kowalski.
Eunice: That's the party. - You just did miss her, though.
Blanche: This - can this be - her home?
Eunice: She's got the downstairs here and I got the up.
Blanche: Oh. She's - out?
Eunice: You noticed that bowling alley around the corner?
Blanche: I'm - not sure I did.
Eunice: Well, that's where she's at, watchin' her husband bowl. [There is a pause.]
You want to leave your suitcase here an' go find her?
Blanche: No.
Negro Woman: I'll go tell her you come.
Blanche: Thanks.
Negro Woman: You welcome. [She goes out.]
Eunice: She wasn't expecting you?
Blanche: No. No, not tonight.
Eunice: Well, why don't you just go in and make yourself at home till they get back.
Blanche: How could I - do that?
Eunice: We own this place so I can let you in.
Cemeteries
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Arthur Miller (1915- )
Born in New York, the son of a Jewish manufacturer whose business failed during the Depression, he studied journalism at the University of Michigan. His first Broadway play, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), closed after only four performances but his next four plays were enthusiastically received. His concern with conflict between the generations informed All My Sons (1947), and Death of a Salesman (1949), still his most famous play, about the unsuccessful salesman Willy Loman. Like Ibsen, whose An Enemy of the People he translated in 1950, Miller often explores the origins and consequences of shameful actions. The Crucible (1953) connects the Salem witi;h trials with the McCarthyite era. A Vtew from the Bridge (1955, revised 1956) examines the tragic consequence's passion for his niece Catherine.
After an eight-year absence Miller returned to the New York stage with After the Fall (1964), a semi-autobiographical play with obvious references to his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Incident at Vichy (1964) deals directly with the Nazi persecution of the Jews, an undercurrent in much of his work. The Price (1968), his last international success,
149
again examines the issues of family conflict and filial disloyalty. Subsequent plays include The Creatton of the World and Other Business (1972), Up from Paradise Cl 974), The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977) and The American Clock (1980). His Theatre Essays (1971) contain the well-known 'Tragedy and the Common Man' (1949).
Death of a Salesman
Linda, bearing Willy outside the bedroom, calls with some trepidation: Willy!
Willy: It's all right. I came back.
Linda: Why? What happened? Slight pause. Did something happen, Willy?
Willy: No, nothing happened.
Linda: You didn't smash the car, did you?
Willy, with casual irritation: l said nothing happened. Didn't you hear me?
Linda: Don't you feel well?
Willy: I'm tired to the death. The flute bas Jaded away. He sits on the bed beside her, a little numb. I couldn't make it. I just couldn't make it, Linda.
Linda, very carefully, deltcately: Where were you all day? You look terrible.
Willy: I got as far as a little above Yonkers. I stopped for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the coffee.
Linda: What?
Willy, after a pause: l suddenly couldn't drive any more. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, y'know?
Linda, helpfully: Oh. Maybe it was the steering again. I don't think Angelo knows the Studebaker.
Willy: No, it's me, it's me. Suddenly I realize I'm goin' sixty miles an hour and I don't remember the last five minutes. I'm - I can't seem to - keep my mind to it.
Linda: Maybe it's your glasses. You never went for your new glasses.
Willy: No, I see everything. I came back ten miles an hour. It took me nearly four hours from Yonkers.
Linda, resigned: Well, you'll just have to take a rest, Willy, you can't continue this way.
Willy: I just got back from Florida.
Linda: But you didn't rest your mind. Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear.
Willy: I'll start out in the morning. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning. She ts taktng off bts shoes. These goddam arch supports are killing me.
Linda: Take an aspirin. Should I get you an aspirin? It'll soothe you.
make it I'? ;I:
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Yonkers .::. :i. - 3 - 7 rfi1~r• ",/
::,,iRJlll!j!i;ryffil1po / the Studebaker E1tlJ.$i;ry:tfrio / arch supports 1(ffti;,J/l€1:J,.:tt.±fl\U-f>a:-::t;U,)li'.U
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Edward Albee (1928- )
Born in Washington, DC, he was adopted by the owner of a chain of vaudeville theatres. He rose to prominence with four one-act plays, The Zoo Story Cl 959), 7be Death of Bessie Smith (1960), The Sandbox (1960) and The American Dream (1961), angrily disenchanted with American middle-class values and influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd. His reputation was confirmed by Who '.5 Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), an account of marital conflict and reconciliation, and Tiny Alice (1964), an enigmatic story of a murder in which fantasy begins to reassert itself over the claims of realism. Later work, aiming at formal elegance rather than emotional intensity, has not always been so highly acclaimed. It includes experimental chamber plays such as Box (1968), QuotationsfromMao-Tse Tung(1968), Listening(l975) and Counting the Ways(1976), and more substantial work, notably A Delicate Balance (1966), about a family's vain search for happiness and purpose, Seascape (1975) and The Lady from Dubuque(1980).
Albee has also dramatized Carson McCullers's 7be Ballad of the Sad Cafe(1963), James Purdy's Malcolm (1966) and Nabokov's Lolita (1981).
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(Set in darkness. Crash agatnst front door. Martha's laughter beard. Front door opens, lights are switched on. Martha enters, followed by George)
Martha: Jesus . ...
George: ... Shhhhhhh ....
Martha: . . . H. Christ. . . .
George: For God's sake, Martha, it's two o'clock in the ....
Martha: Oh, George!
George: Well, I'm sorry, but. . . .
Martha: What a cluck! What a cluck you are.
George: It's late, you know? Late.
Martha: (Looks about the room. Imitates Bette Davis) What a dump. Hey, what's that from? "What a dump!"
George: How would I know what. ...
Martha: Aw, come on! What's it from? You know ....
George: ... Martha ....
Martha: What's it from, for Christ's sake?
George: [Weartry): What's what from?
Martha: I just told you; I just did it. "What a dump!" Hunh? What's that from?
George: I haven't the faintest idea what. ...
Martha: Dumbbell! It's from some goddamn Bette Davis picture ... some goddamn Warner Brothers epic ....
George: I can't remember all the pictures that. ...
Martha: Nobody's asking you to remember every single goddamn Warner Brothers epic . . . just one! One single little epic! Bette Davis gets peritonitis in the end ... she's got this big black fright wig she wears all through the picture and she gets peritonitis, and she's married to Joseph Cotten or something ....
第19章 アメリカ演劇 151
Jesus H. Christ「ちくしょうめ」（呪語） / cluck「まぬけ」/Bette Davis「ベティ・デイ ヴィス」映画女優の名。 /dump「みすぽらしい家」/What's that from?'What a dump.'というセリフが何のセリフだったか訊ねている。/Dumbbell「のろま」／
Warner Brothers Epic「ワーナー・プラザーズ社の長編大作映画」/peritonitis「腹 膜炎」/fright wig「逆毛かつら（髪の毛が必要に応じて逆立つように作った舞台用のか つら）」
Willa Cather Pearl Buck
Eugene O'Neill Tennessee Williams
Ezra Pound Hart Crane
153
第 20 章 現 代 ア メ リ カ 詩
アメリカの現代詩の特徴は形式の面で、あるいは内容の面でさまざまな実験 を試みてきたことに認められるであろう。エドウィン・アーリントン・ロビン スン (EdwinArlington Robinson, 1869‑1935)やロバート・フロスト (Robert Frost, 1874‑1963)らは、いずれも伝統的なしっかりした詩形を用いて詩を書い たが、そこにはすでに現代的な何かが喪失した感じが漂い、現代の不安が忍び 込んでいるのが見られる。同じ頃「シカゴ・グループ」に属するカール・サン ドバーグ (CarlSandburg, 1878‑1967)は「シカゴ
J
(Chicago, 1914)という詩 で機械や工場や物資が激しく動く大都会の躍動する生活を力強く歌い上げる。それは普通に考えられる詩の世界とは遠く隔たっているけれども、アメリカな らでは見られない詩の世界といえよう。
ところでアメリカの詩のモダニズムはどこから始まるかといえば、まずガー トルード・スタインの名をあげなければならないだろう。彼女は1902年にパリ に渡り、現代画家のピカソ、プラック、マチスらの親しい友人であり、彼女の 家はモダニズムという革新運動の中心といった観を呈していた。彼女がアン ダーソン、ヘミングウェイ、フォークナーらの作家に文体や技巧の面で大きな 影響を与えたことは既に述べた。彼女は言語表現に色々の実験を試みたが、よ く引用される "Roseis a rose is a rose is a rose."などもその一例で、要するに 彼女は抽象や概念化を排除して「目の前に今の瞬間に存在する個々の具体的な もの」だけを取り上げようとしたのである。このような考えは彼女の友人の画 家たちの考えを言葉に置き換えたものといえるかもしれない。
自分の名を含めて大文字で書くべきところを小文字で書いたりして視覚的に 異様な感じを与える詩を書いたe.e. カミングズ (e.e. cummings, 1894‑1962) はスタイン女史の直系の弟子だった。キュービズムの画家たちが彼らの絵をい ろんな角度や側面に分解しようとしたように、彼は伝統的な詩を異常な分子に 分解しようとしたのだった。
ところで、詩の分野においてモダニズムといえば、ほとんど同義語的に用い られるのはイマジズムという言葉である。そしてイマジズムといえば、アメリ 力詩で忘れてならないのはエズラ・パウンド (EzraPound, 1885‑1972)とT・S・ エリオット (T.S. Eliot, 1888‑1965)である。彼らはお互いに活躍領域は異なっ ても師弟関係、あるいは協同関係にあったと見なされうる。彼らはまた、スタ インと同じく、若くして祖国アメリカを捨ててヨーロッパヘ渡ったが、スタイ ンは「今、目の前に存在するもの」を感覚的に捉えることを強調したのに対し て、彼らは「今」よりも過去を、歴史を、そして伝統を尊重した。 T・S・エリ オットに「伝統と個人の才能」 ("Traditionand Individual Talent;• 1920)という 有名な評論があるが、そこにも個性よりも伝統あるいは歴史感覚を重要視する 態度が端的に表明されている。そのことは東西の文化的遺産を翻案することに 情熱を燃やしたエズラ・パウンドにも窺われるであろう。（彼が関心を持っ た東洋の文化的遺産には中国の古い詩ばかりでなく日本の謡曲や俳句も含まれ ている。）元来彼らがアメリカを去ったのは、彼らの先輩作家ヘンリー・ジェイ
ムズの場合と同じように、アメリカの文化的状況に飽き足らないものを感じた からであった。そしてパウンドはイタリアを愛し、エリオットが英国に深く傾 斜していったことはいうまでもない。そして彼らの輝かしい成果の影響が英米 両国に及んだこともまた論をまたない事実だが、その面でとくにエリオットは アメリカ文学で扱われるよりも英文学で扱われることが大きいといっても差し つかえないであろう。しかし彼らがヨーロッパの伝統により親近感を抱いたと はいうものの、彼らの根底にはやはり確固としたアメリカ性が存在していると いうのが通説である。
その後、パウンドやエリオットの影響でアメリカにはヒルダ・ドゥーリトル (Hilda Doolittle, 1886‑1961)やエイミー・ロウェル (AmyLowell, 1874‑1925) やマリアンヌ・ムアー (MarianneMoore, 1887‑1972)といったイマジズム派の 多くの詩人が誕生したが、なかでも注目すべきはウィリアム・カーロス・ウィ リアムズ (WilliamCarlos Williams, 1883‑1963)とウォレス・スティーヴンズ (Wallace Stevens, 1879‑1955)の二人である。ウィリアムズはパウンドと交友関 係もあったし、イマジズムの影響を強く受けた詩人だが、エリオットの『荒地』
（乃eWaste Land, 1922)の重要性を認めながら、「エリオットはわれわれを学 校の教室へ送り返した」といった。そこで彼は古典の必要を説いたのか否かは 明らかでないが、少なくとも彼はそのような教室に長くは留まりはしなかった。
普通の読者にもっと直接に訴える詩を書くことが彼の狙いだったからである。
ウィリアムズとよく比較対照されるのがスティーヴンズである。両者とも詩 が専門ではなく、詩の他に立派な本業をもっていた。ウィリアムズは生涯臨床 医だったし、スティーヴンズは生涯のほとんどを保険会社に勤務したという経 歴の持ち主である。ウィリアムズの詩は前述のように、目に浮かぶように直赦 的であるが、スティーヴンズの詩は難解である。しかし両者に共通しているこ とは彼らがリアリティ以上にそれを捉えるイマジネーションの力を、つまり、
外にある対象よりも、それを受け入れ、あるいはそれに働きかける心の機能そ のものを強調していることである。さらにこれらの詩人には、パウンドやエリ オットがアメリカを離れたことに対して、意識的にアメリカに固守しようとし た節が見られることである。いま一人アメリカを、そしてニューヨークをう たった素晴らしい詩「橋』（乃eBridge, 1930)を書き残し、若くして自殺した ハート・クレイン (HartCrane, 1899‑1932)の名を忘れることはできない。
1950年代になるといろんな派に属するいろんな詩人の活躍が目立つが、ここ では50年代の不安のなかから生まれたビート族の代表的な詩人アレン・ギンズ バーグ (AllenGinsberg, 1926‑ )を紹介してこの章を終わりたい。また31歳 の時に自殺したことが惜しまれる「告白派」の詩人シルヴィア・プラス (Sylvia Plath, 1932‑64)も強烈な印象を与える詩を残している。公民権運動の状況から 登場した黒人のリロイ・ジョウンズ (LeroiJones、アフリカ名はAmiriBaraka, 1934‑ )やグウェンドリン・プルックス (GwendolynBrooks, 1917‑ )にも 注目すべき作品が多い。その他現代のアメリカには、枚挙にいとまがないほど に多くの詩人の活躍が見られ、かつては決して豊かとはいえなかったこの国の 詩の土壌に、一挙に百花線乱の盛況を呈していると言ってもあながち過言では ない。
155
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
He was born in Head Tide, Maine, and educated at Harvard. Deeply influenced by Victorian poetry, he began his poetic career with a bleak portrayal of New England life in character sketches of, or dramatic monologues by, the inhabitants of the fictional Tilbury Town, based on his childhood home of Gardiner. His reputation was established in The Torrent and the Night Before (1896), which contained 'Richard Cory', and in Captain Craig (1902) and The Town down the River(l910), which contained 'Miniver Cheevy'. His mature style - direct, ironic but never abandoning traditional forms - emerged in The Man against the Sk.y (1916) and Collected Poems (1921), which added another Tilbury poem, 'Mr Flood's Party', and two more favourite anthology pieces, 'The Tree in Pamela's Garden' and 'Rembrandt to Rembrandt'. His many later volumes, written when the modernism was fashionable, enjoyed a mixed reception which never completely reduced him to the margins of 20th-century poetry. They include several long poems, most notably a trilogy based on Arthurian literature, Merlin (1917), I.ancelot (1920) and Tristram (1927), and The Man Who Died Twice (1924), about a musician's betrayal of his talent. Robinson was three times awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Miniver Cheevy Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam's neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the media:val grace Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought, But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate, And kept on drinking.
Prancing
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Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Frost was born and raised in San Francisco, but his father's death in 1885 forced the family to return to their native New England, where they settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In 1912 he and his family moved to England, where he found a publisher for his first book of verse, A Boy's Will (1913). The collection was well received and was soon followed by a second, North of Boston (1914). These publications, along with his friendship with poets such as Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas, increased his exposure in literary magazines. In 1915 he returned to the USA and settled on a farm in New Hampshire.
His third collection, Mountain Interval, appeared in 1916, and he began to attract national attention. NewHampsbire(l923) was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Following the publication of West-Running Brook (1928), his Collected Poems (1930) won him a second Pulitzer. The distinction was bestowed twice more, for A Further Range(l936) and for A Witness Tree (1942).
His work developed further with the production of A Masque of Reason (1945) and A Masque of Mercy (1947), dramatic poems in blank verse, portraying biblical characters and exploring the relation of man to God in the modern world. In 1947 he published A Steeple Bush, a collection of lyrics. Despite increasingly poor health, he wrote poetry to the end of his life; his last collection, In the Clearing, appeared in 1962. His poetry is among the most accessible of modern writers, given the central theme of all his collections: the quest of the solitary individual to make sense of the world.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
157
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O)'"t:~ 7:>? oCarl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Born to Swedish immigrant parents in Galesburg, Illinois, he left school at the age of 13 and worked as an itinerant labourer, then served in the Spanish-American War, and later found work as a journalist and advertising copywriter. His career as a poet began with the privately printed In Reckless Ecstasy (1904), which failed to attract critical attention. From 1910-12 he served as secretary to the socialist mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In 1914 some of his work was published by Harriet Monroe in Poetry magazine, and his reputation as a major poet of the Midwest was finally established in 1916 with the publication of Chicago Poems, a volume of free verse on 20th-century urban themes.
Other collections of poetry followed: Cornhuskers(19l8), Smoke and Steel(1920), Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922), Good Morning, America (1928) and Tbe People, Yes(l936).
Complete Poems (1950) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Though his later verse reveals a darker poetic vision, tempered by the experience of the Depression, Sandburg always kept his optimism about the enduring qualities of ordinary working people. In addition to his poetry, he is known for his two-part biography of Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln: Tbe Prairie Yeat:5 (2 vols., 1926) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (4 vols., 1939). He also published children's literature, including Rootabaga Stories(l922), Rootabaga Pigeons (1923) and Potato Face 0930); a novel, Remembrance Rock (1948);
and an autobiography, Always the Young Strangers (1952).
Chicago
Hog Butcher for the World,Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the
heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
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e.e.cummings(1894-1962)
Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard in 1916. He drove an ambulance in France during World War I, and stayed on in Paris after the armistice. His first published work was a novel, The Enormous Room (1922), based on his mistaken imprisonment in a French detention centre during the war. This was followed by collections of verse, Tulips and Chimneys (1923) and XL! Poems (1925).
& and is 5 (both 1925) presented Cummings's new style, which was influenced by jazz and contemporary slang and characterized by an innovative use of punctuation and typography, as in the use of lower case letters for his own name. Features of this poetry include the use of capital letters and punctuation in the middle of single words, phrases split by parentheses, and stanzas arranged to create a visual design on the page. Formal devices were often used as visual manifestations of theme or tone; the poem's typographical dimension itself becomes a new level of meaning.
Cummings's other works include Vi Va (1931), No Thanks (1935), 1/20(1936), Collected Poems (1938), 50 Poems (1940), 1 x 1 (1944), Poems 1923-1954 0954), Ninety-Five Poems(1958), 73 Poems(1963) and Complete Poems 1913-1962(1972). He also published two plays, a book of drawings and paintings, a travel book, and i, six nonlectures (1953).
'next to of course god america i'
"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
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iJ, t;, &:11:W~-1!. 1H -c 1,,, 7.i (l);i;fJi~lt t;, tt 7.i aEzra Pound (1885-1972)
Idaho-born poet and critic, reared in Pennsylvania, attended the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College, and taught briefly at Wabash College, until dismissed because of his impatience with academic ways, despite his scholarly ability. He went to Italy 0908), where his first book, A Lume Spento (1908), was published.
In 1909 he published two volumes of verse, Personae and Exultations (poems from both reprinted as Personae, 1926). Provenr;a (1910), Canzoni(l9ll), and Ripostes 0912) extended the paths he had marked for himself, but also indicated his tendency to allow esoteric lore to become an unduly important part of his poetry. This trend continues in his translation of The Sonnets and Bal/ate of Guido Cavalcanti (1912); Cathay (1915), translations from the Chinese, based on notes of Fenollosa; Umbra (1920); translations and selections from some of his earlier poems; and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920).
He began to scatter his interests and became a leader of the Imagists.
Lustra (1916), including earlier work, was followed by Quia Pauper Amavi 0919).
Pound's prose includes The Spirit of Romance (1910); Certain Noble Plays ofJapan 0916'. and Nob- or, Accomplisbment09l6), edited from the notes of Fenollosa, whose literary executor he was; Gaudier-Brzeska (1916), a biography; Pavannes and Divisions 0918); Instigations (1920); Indiscretions (1923); Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony 0924); ABC of Economics 0933); ABC of Reading 0934); Make It New 0934); Jefferson and/or Mussolini (1935); Polite Essays(l937); Guide to Kulchur(l938, revised 1952);
Patria Mia (1950), an essay written in 1912; Money Pamphlets by Pound (1950-52); The Literary Essays 0954), collected with an introduction by T.S. Eliot; Pavannes and Divagations 0958); and Impact, Essays on Ignorance and the Decline of American Civilization 0%0). His Letters, 1907-41 was published in 1950. Later translations include Confucius: The Unwobbling Pivot and the Great Digest (1947); Confucian Analects O 951);
The Classic Anthology (1954), Chinese poems; and The Women of Trachis 0956), a version of Sophocles' play.
Pound, who termed himself a ''.Jeffersonian Republican," professed to find "the heritage of Jefferson" in Mussolini's Italy. During the war he broadcast Fascist propaganda over the Rome radio, and was afterward returned to the U.S. to face trial
for
treason. Adjudged to be of unsound mind, he was committed (1946-58) to a sanitarium instead of being tried. When the indictment was finally withdrawn he was released, and he returned to Italy.Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
IV These fought, in any case,
and some believing, pro domo, in any case ...
Some quick to arm, some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness, some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination, learning later . . .
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some, pro patria,
non "duke" non "et decor" ...
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick and liars in public places.
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood, fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days, hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.
In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
1913
161
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quick to arm
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'a:ll'G~ "? "? 'I:, 1::~~0)~'a;' '.\t ;t -r J / pro patria . .. "et decor" See Horace, Odes, III, ii, I, 13: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ["It is sweet and appropriate to die for one's country"]. .:. 0) ~:ii 'a:' 'non' Hi f'J ~ L -CtJ-1:,Wf L -r v> J., o / unbelieving lfil t: 'a: v', ffi!~El'-JI:: 'a:-::> -rJ /
age- thick age-old I: 'a: G-::, t..:1~7::,, ]--'O)~~!o / laughter out of dead bellies@~iji!::~lt t..:,lll i~v• 1:: ~-t''Gz
J., :::,,·o T .:<. 7 ~ 1 /- - :Jo/ In a Station of the Metro .:. tlli1~'7::,, J--'ii,~HiJ 1:: ~ G-::, -r{t-::i t..:1t•1to l1'1liii' f'J 0) ~ii•l::ri-n,u·.1:-n'-::i t..:ilfmO)YJWff:i 1::
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-r, $W!EJ<J'a: 11i O)#~UEl'-J~'bO)~~:bJ.>~0)-•i••L~'bO)-z";li;J.>oT. S. Eliot {1888-1965)
He was born at St Louis, Missouri, and educated at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Merton College, Oxford. In 1914 he met Pound, who encournged him to settle in England;
in June 1915 his poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' appeared (also with Pound's encouragement) in Poetry. In 1917 began to work for Lloyds Bank; from 1917 he was also assistant editor of The Egoist. His first volume of verse, Pru/rock and other Observations (1917), was followed by Poems (1919). In 1922 Eliot founded a new quarterly, 7be Criterion; in the first issue appeared, with much eclat, 1be Waste Land, which established him decisively as the voice of a disillusioned generation. In 1925 he left Lloyds and became a director of Faber and Faber.
In 1927 he became a British subject and a member of the Anglican church; his pilgrimage towards his own particular brand of High Anglicanism may be charted in his poetry through 'The Hollow Men' (1925), with its broken asseverations of faith, through 'The Journey of the Magi' (1927) and 'Ash-Wednesday' 0930), to its culminating vision in Four Quartets (1935-42). He describes himself as 'classical in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion'. The same preoccupation with tradition continued to express itself in his critical works.
Eliot's classic book of verse for children, Old Possum '.5 Book of Practical Cats (1939), which reveals the aspect of his character that claimed the influence of Lear, achieved a considerable stage success in a musical adaptation, Cats, in 1981.
Eliot was equally influential as critic and poet, and in his combination of literary and social criticism may be called the M. Arnold of the 20th cent. Among his critical works may be mentioned: 7be Sacred Wood· F.ssays on Poetry and Criticism (1920); 1be Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933); Elizabethan Essays Cl 934); 7be Idea of a Christian Society (1940); Notes Towards a Definition of Culture (1948); Poetry and Drama (1951);
On Poets and Poetry Cl 957).
Eliot was formally separated from his first wife (whose ill health, both physical and mental, had caused him much stress and misery) in 1932-3; she died in 1947. The following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for liternture and the Order of Merit.
He married his second wife, Valerie Fletcher, in 1957.
Burnt Norton Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know.
Other echoes Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them, Round the comer. Through the first gate, Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves, In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air, And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery, And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern, Along the empty alley, into the box circle, To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, And the Iotas rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children, Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.
163
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1::v,10)-z"~~oWilliam Carlos Williams {1883-1963)
American poet. Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, the son of an English father and a Puerto Rican mother, he attended Swiss and French schools before studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he met Hilda Doolittle and Ezra Pound. After further medical study in New York and Leipzig, and a visit to London where he met Yeats, Williams settled down to practise medicine in Rutherford in 1909.
His first book, Poems, was privately printed in 1900. It was followed by The Tempers (1913), Al Que Quiere! 0917), Kora in Hell: Improvisations 0920), Sour Grapes O 921) and Spring and All 0923). Numerous other volumes followed. Among his last books were The Desert Music and Other Poems O 954), Journey to Love O 955) and Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1963. Between 1946 and 1958 he published five books of the epic- length poem, Paterson, the work for which he is best known. Fragments of a sixth book were published posthumously in 1963. A posthumously edited two-volume Collected Poems appeared in 1986-8.
Williams also published a number of prose works, both fiction and non-fiction, beginning with two collections of essays: The Great American Novel O 923) and In the American Grain 0925). Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams appeared in 1954.
His short stories were collected in The Farmer's Daughter: The Collected Stories (1961);
earlier volumes include The Knife of the Times 0932), Life along the Passaic River Cl 938) and Make Light of It: Collected Stories (1950). His novels are A Voyage to Pagany (1928), White Mule (1937), In the Money (1940) and The Build-Up 0952). The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams was published in 1951; a collection of plays, Many Lives and Other Plays, appeared in 1961.
The Revelation I awoke happy, the house Was strange, voices Were across a gap Through which a girl Came and paused, Reaching out to me - Then I remembered What I had dreamed - A girl
One whom I knew well
Leaned on the door of my car And stroked my hand - I shall pass her on the street We shall say trivial things To each other
But I shall never cease To search her eyes For that quiet look -
This Is Just to
Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and whichyou were probably saving
for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet
and so cold
1934
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
165
American poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and educated at Harvard. In 1900 he got a job on the editorial staff of The New York Tribune and then on the periodical 1be World's Work. In 1901 he entered New York Law School. He was admitted to the Bar in New York in 1904. He joined the legal staff of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company in 1916 and remained with the firm until his death.
His early verse appeared in Trend and in Harriet Monroe's magazine Poetry.
'Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise', which won the Poetry magazine prize for a verse play in 1916, was produced in the following year at New York's Provincetown Playhouse.
Stevens's first collection of verse, Harmonium (1923), sold fewer than 100 copies but was well received by reviewers such as Marianne Moore. His second volume of poetry, Ideas of Order, appeared in 1935 and was followed in 1936 by Owl's Clover. Another of his most famous poems provided the title piece of his fourth collection, 1be Man with the Blue Guitar and Other Poems (1937). Two further collections, Parts of a World and Notes toward a Supreme Fiction, appeared in 1942, Esthetique du Mal in 1945 and Transport to Summer in 1947. 1be Auroras of Autumn was published in 1950, the year
after he was awarded the Bollingen Prize. Collected Poems (1954) won Stevens a belated Pulitzer Prize. The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination (1951), a collection of essays and addresses on poetry and art, received the National Book Award.
Opus Posthumous (1957) contains poems, essays and plays, many hitherto unpublished.
The Letters of Wallace Stevens appeared in 1966.
Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill.It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee .
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0) t b _ii-:, -c-1,,,f:_.:: t HH&1:1lfx1,,,J:Jft 1,,, 7., 0Hart Crane (1899-1932)
Crane was born in Ohio but spent most of his life in New York City. His parents' unhappy marriage deeply troubled him; alcoholism and his inability to support himself in New York further undermined his stability. He committed suicide at the age of 33.
Strongly influenced by French Symbolism and by T.S. Eliot, Crane produced in his relatively brief career a body of poetry that has received considerable critical attention and acclaim. Characterized by dramatic rhetoric and exotic diction, his work often drew on images of water and the sea, which provided him with material for his symbolic and psychological speculations. He is best known for his long poem The Bridge (1930), written partly in response to the negativism of Eliot's The Waste Land. Each section of the poem focuses on a particular aspect of American history or culture, which Crane then unifies in the figure of.the Brooklyn Bridge, which he called 'a symbol of our
