【人社中心國際學者系列講座】4/14"How Does a Poem Think?" Prof. Marshall Brown 主講

國立中興大學人社中心暨外文系

國際學者系列講座

主題(Topic)："How Does a Poem Think?"

地點(Venue)：國立中興大學語言中心萬年樓502室 Room 502, 5F, Language Center, Wan Nian Lou, NCHU

時間(Date&Time)：2011-04-14(Thu) 15：00~17：00 P.M.

主講者(Speaker)：Marshall Brown (Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Washington, U.S.A.)

摘要(Abstract)：

"How Does a Poem Think?" is a response to an exchange between Martin Heidegger and his student, the very influential mid-century critic Emil Staiger, concerning a short poem by the mid-nineteenth-century German poet Eduard Mörike.  The original exchange is translated in PMLA 105:3 (May 1990): 409-427.  It would also be useful to read the introduction to the translation (398-408) and the associated essay by Leo Spitzer (427-435).  Here is the poem with my translation, which is better than the published translations:

                                                        Auf eine Lampe

Noch unverrückt, o schöne Lampe, schmückest du,

An leichten Ketten zierlich aufgehangen hier,

Die Decke des nun fast vergess'nen Lustgemachs.

Auf deiner weißen Marmorschale, deren Rand

Der Efeukranz von goldengrünem Erz umflicht,

Schlingt fröhlich eine Kinderschar den Ringelreihn.

Wie reizend alles! lachend, und ein sanfter Geist

Des Ernstes doch ergossen um die ganze Form -

Ein Kunstgebild' der echten Art. Wer achtet sein?

Was aber schön ist, selig scheint es in ihm selbst.

                                                            On a Lamp

Still undisturbed, O lovely Lamp, adornest thou,

Attached with chains and delicately hanging here,

The ceiling of the near-forgotten pleasure hall.

And on thy bowl of marble white, o'erwoven with

An ivy wreath of golden green around the rim,

A swarm of children wind their gleeful round.

How charming all! with laughter, yet a spirit mild

Of earnest seeming poured around th' entire form--

An artwork genuine as may be.  Who pays it heed?

But what is lovely, blissful seems it in itself.

主講者簡介(Speaker's Bio-note)：

Education:

YaleUniversity, Department of Comparative Literature Ph.D., 1972

Positions Held:
Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Washington, 2005-
Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Washington, 1988-2005
Adjunct Professor of Music, University of Washington, 1991-
Adjunct Professor of Germanics, University of Washington, 1998-
Editor, Modern Language Quarterly, 1991-

2009 Ruth A. Solie Award, American Musicological Society (for Haydn and the Performance of Rhetoric)
2006 Rockefeller Foundation, Residency, Bellagio Study Center
2002 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Research Fellowship
2001 Research Fellowship, Simpson Center for the Humanities
1997-98 Woodrow Wilson Center Fellowship
1997-98 National Humanities Center Fellowship (declined)
1994-95 NEH Fellowship
1984-85 University of Colorado Faculty Fellowship

Areas of Specialization

18th-19th Century British and Continental Literature, Music and Literature, Literary History

Activities and Interests

My books have concerned romanticism and 18th-century literature in Great Britain and Europe, most recently a comparative study of the gothic novel. Focal interests are the relationship of form to ideology and the history of forms and ideas. I work on all major literary genres and also on the German philosophical tradition. A growing area of study is musical form in comparison with literary expression. I also have written essays on major theorists and general essays about criticism and literary history. I intend to return to work on a book mostly about 19th-century European fiction to be called "Fiction and Form."

Selected Publications

"The Tooth That Nibbles at the Soul": Essays on Poetry and Music. Universityof WashingtonPress. 2010.

The Gothic Text. Standord University Press. 2004.

Turning Points: Essays in the History of Cultural Expressions. Stanford University Press. 1997.

Preromanticism. Stanford University Press. 1993.

The Shape of German Romanticism. Cornell University Press. 1979. 

主辦單位：國立中興大學人文與社會科學研究中心、國立中興大學外國語文學系

協辦單位：國立中興大學語言中心

指導單位：教育部、國科會

聯絡人：黃瓊慧小姐 04-22840708轉101