Mending Wall 修墻羅伯特·弗羅斯特精編版

1、Robert Frost ?羅伯特弗羅斯特, 20世紀(jì)最受歡迎的美國(guó)詩(shī)人。因其當(dāng)過(guò)新英格蘭的鞋匠、教師和農(nóng)場(chǎng)主，所以作品多從農(nóng)村生活中取題材；與19世紀(jì)的詩(shī)人有很多共同之處，但相比之下，卻又較少具有現(xiàn)代派氣息。 ?他曾贏得4次普利策獎(jiǎng)和許多其他的獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)及榮譽(yù)，被稱之為美國(guó)文學(xué)中的桂冠詩(shī)人。 ?然而在他的下半生，才贏得大眾對(duì)其詩(shī)歌作品的承認(rèn)，并最終樹(shù)立起了一位偉大的文學(xué)家的形象。 ?Mending Wall is a metaphorical(隱喻的) poem written in blank verse, published in 1914. ?This poem is set in the

2、countryside and is about one man questioning why he and his neighbor must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring. ?The stone wall at Frosts farm in Derry, which he described in Mending wall. ?While living in England with his family, Frost was exceptionally homesick for the farm in N

3、ew Hampshire where he had lived with his wife from 1900 to 1909. ?Despite the eventual failure of the farm, Frost associated his time in New Hampshire with a peaceful, rural sensibility that he instilled in the majority of his subsequent poems. “Mending Wall” is autobiographical on an even more spec

4、ific level: a French-Canadian named Napoleon Guay had been Frosts neighbor in New Hampshire, and the two had often walked along their property line and repaired the wall that separated their land. Summary ?Every year, two neighbors meet to repair the stone wall that divides their property. The narra

5、tor is skeptical of this tradition, unable to understand the need for a wall when there is no livestock to be contained on the property, only apples and pine trees. He does not believe that a wall should exist simply for the sake of existing. Moreover, he cannot help but notice that the natural worl

6、d seems to dislike the wall as much as he does: mysterious gaps appear, boulders fall for no reason. ?The neighbor, on the other hand, asserts that the wall is crucial to maintaining their relationship, asserting, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Over the course of the mending, the narrator attemp

7、ts to convince his neighbor otherwise and accuses him of being old-fashioned for maintaining the tradition so strictly. No matter what the narrator says, though, the neighbor stands his ground, repeating only: “Good fences make good neighbors.”. ?Something there is that ?有一樣?xùn)|西，它大概是doesnt love a wall

8、, ?That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, ?And spills the upper boulders in the sun; ?And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 不喜歡墻， ?它使得墻腳下的凍地漲得隆起， ?大白天的把墻頭石塊弄得紛紛落： ?使得墻裂了縫，二人并肩都走得過(guò)。 ?The work of hunters is ?another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one s

9、tone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. ?士紳們行獵時(shí)又是另一番?糟蹋： 他們要掀開(kāi)每塊石頭上的石頭， 我總是跟在他們后面去修補(bǔ)， 但是他們要把兔子從隱處趕出來(lái)， 討好那群汪汪叫的狗。 ?The gaps I mean, ?我說(shuō)的墻縫 ?是怎么生的，誰(shuí)也沒(méi)看?No one has seen them 見(jiàn)，誰(shuí)也沒(méi)聽(tīng)見(jiàn) made or heard them made, ?但是到了春季補(bǔ)墻時(shí)，?But at spring mending-就看見(jiàn)在那里。 tim

10、e we find them there. ?我通知了住在山那邊的?I let my neighbor know 鄰居； beyond the hill; ?And on a day we meet to ?有一天我們約會(huì)好，巡視地界一番， walk the line ?And set the wall between ?在我們兩家之間再把墻重新砌起。 us once again. ?我們走的時(shí)候，中間隔?We keep the wall 著一垛墻。 between us as we go. ?To each the boulders that ?落在各邊的石頭，由各have fallen t

11、o each. ?And some are loaves and some so nearly balls ?We have to use a spell to make them balance: ?Stay where you are until our backs are turned! 自去料理。 ?有些是長(zhǎng)塊的，有些幾乎圓得像球 ?需要一點(diǎn)魔術(shù)才能把它們放穩(wěn)當(dāng)： ?“老實(shí)呆在那里，等我們轉(zhuǎn)過(guò)身再落下！” ?We wear our fingers rough ?我們搬弄石頭把手指都磨粗了。 with handling them. ?Oh, just another kind of ?啊

12、！這不過(guò)又是一種戶外游戲， out-door game, ?One on a side. It comes to ?一個(gè)人站在一邊。此外沒(méi)有多少用處： little more: ?There where it is we do not need the ?在墻那地方，我們根本不需要墻： ?wall: ?He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across ? And eat the cones under his pines, ? I tell him. He only says, ? Good

13、fences make good neighbors. ? 他那邊全是松樹(shù)，我這邊是蘋(píng)果園。 我的蘋(píng)果樹(shù)永遠(yuǎn)也不會(huì)踱過(guò)去 吃掉他松樹(shù)下的松球， 我對(duì)他說(shuō)。他只是說(shuō)： “好籬笆造出好鄰家?！??Spring is the mischief in ?春天在我心里作祟，我在懸想 me, ?能不能把一個(gè)念頭注入?and I wonder If I could 他的腦里： put a notion in his head: ?Why do they make good ?“為什么好籬笆造出好鄰家？是否指著 neighbors? Isnt it ?Where there are cows? But ?有牛

14、的人家？可是我們此地又沒(méi)有牛。 here there are no cows. ?我在造墻之前先要弄個(gè)?Before I built a wall Id ask 清楚， to know Protect dignity and property, hinder the ?圈進(jìn)來(lái)的是什么，圈出去?What I was walling in or communication 的是什么， walling out, ?并且我可能開(kāi)罪的是些什?And to whom I was like to 么人家， give offence. ?Something there is that ?有一點(diǎn)什么，它不喜歡墻

15、， ?doesnt love a wall, That wants it down.“ I could say Elves to him, But its not elves exactly, and Id rather He said it for himself. ? 它要推倒它。 ”我可以對(duì)他說(shuō)這是“鬼”。 但嚴(yán)格說(shuō)也不是鬼我想這事還是 由他自己決定吧。 ?I see him there ?我看見(jiàn)他在那里 ? Bringing a stone grasped firmly ?搬一塊石頭，兩手緊抓著by the top 石頭的上端， In each hand, like an old-st

16、one ?像一個(gè)舊石器時(shí)代的武裝savage armed. 的野蠻人。 Backward, He moves in darkness as it ?我覺(jué)得他是在黑暗中摸索， uncivilized, seems to me, convention ?這黑暗不僅是來(lái)自深林與Not of woods only and the 樹(shù)蔭。 shade of trees. ?He will not go behind his ?他不肯探究他父親傳給fathers saying, ?And he likes having thought of it so well ?He says again, ? Goo

17、d fences make good ?neighbors. 他的格言 他想到這句格言，便如此的喜歡， 于是再說(shuō)一遍， “好籬笆造出好鄰家”。 Form ?Blank verse is the baseline meter of this poem, but few of the lines march along in blank verses characteristic lock-step iambs, five abreast. Frost maintains five stressed syllables per line, but he varies the feet extens

18、ively to sustain the natural speech-like quality of the verse. There are no stanza breaks, obvious end-rhymes, or rhyming patterns, but many of the end-words share an assonance (e.g., wall, hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing, stone, mean, line, and again or game,them, and him twice). ?Internal r

19、hymes, too, are subtle, slanted, and conceivably coincidental. The vocabulary is all of a pieceno fancy words, all short (only one word, another, is of three syllables), all conversationaland this is perhaps why the words resonate so consummately with each other in sound and feel. ?The wall is a key

20、 in this poem, it unites the speaker and his neighbor every year and separates them as well. ?Actually, the wall symbolizes the regulations made upon human being in modern society. ?Living in the modern society, one is bound by many rules and laws to enforce the normal social order. Themes ?The imag

21、e at the heart of “Mending Wall” is arresting: two men meeting on terms of civility and neighborliness to build a barrier between them. They do so out of tradition, out of habit. Yet the very earth conspires against them and makes their task Sisyphean. Sisyphus is the figure in Greek mythology conde

22、mned perpetually to push a boulder up a hill, only to have the boulder roll down again. These men push boulders back on top of the wall; yet just as inevitably, whether at the hand of hunters or sprites, or the frost and thaw of natures invisible hand, the boulders tumble down again. Still, the neig

23、hbors persist. The poem, thus, seems to meditate conventionally on three grand themes: barrier-building (segregation, in the broadest sense of the word), the doomed nature of this enterprise and our persistence in this activity regardless. Analysis ?As the narrator points out, the very act of mendin

24、g the wall seems to be in opposition to nature. Every year, stones are dislodged and gaps suddenly appear, all without explanation. Every year, the two neighbors fill the gaps and replace the fallen boulders, only to have parts of the wall fall over again in the coming months. It seems as if nature

25、is attempting to destroy the barriers that man has created on the land, even as man continues to repair the barriers, simply out of habit and tradition. ?The speaker may scorn his neighbors obstinate（頑固的） wall-building, may observe the activity with humorous detachment, but he himself goes to the wa

26、ll at all times of the year to mend the damage done by hunters; it is the speaker who contacts the neighbor at wall-mending time to set the annual appointment. Which person, then, is the real wall-builder? The speaker says he sees no need for a wall here, but this implies that there may be a need fo

27、r a wall elsewhere “where there are cows,” for example. Yet the speaker must derive something, some use, some satisfaction, out of the exercise of wall-building, or why would he initiate it here? There is something in him that does love a wall, or at least the act of making a wall. ?Perhaps his skep

28、tical questions and quips can then be read as an attempt to justify his own behavior to himself. While he chooses to present himself as a modern man, far beyond old-fashioned traditions, the narrator is really no different from his neighbor: he too clings to the concept of property and division, of ownership and individuality. ?Ultimately, the presence of the wall between the properties does ensure a quality relationship between the two neighbors. By maintaining the division between the