Marvell’s “the unfortunate lover”

IF 0.2 3区文学 0 LITERATURE

EXPLICATOR Pub Date : 2021-07-03 DOI:10.1080/00144940.2021.1965516

Alan S. Horn

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Abstract

“The Unfortunate Lover” (1648–49) by Andrew Marvell has provoked a range of modern interpretations (Berthoff 1966; Patterson 1978; Stocker 1986; Enterline 1987; Klawitter 2009; Hirst and Zwicker 2012), with little consensus on its tone or purpose. Michael Riffaterre’s semiotic theory of literature (1978, 1983) can help to clarify the structure and meaning of this challenging poem, while shedding light on some of the sources of its ambiguity. According to this theory, every poem derives from a sentence, phrase, or single word that need not appear in it directly. It elaborates that minimal starting-point (its “matrix”) by reference to clusters of verbal association already present in the reader’s mind – received ideas, common phrases, well-known passages from other works, literary conventions, and the like – that Riffaterre calls “intertexts.” Applying this thesis to Marvell’s “Unfortunate Lover,” it is possible to show how the poem expands and transforms the phrase fortune in love, which is echoed in the title, through two contrasting generic intertexts: heroic narrative and Petrarchan lyric. The former offers an exemplary representation of fortune itself, the power ruling the individual struggle against contingency, while the latter dramatizes fortune in the special context of love as the fickleness of a lady’s favor. Riffaterre holds that the poem’s initial expansion of its matrix (the “model”) governs the form of successive variants. In the case of “The Unfortunate Lover,” the first stanza constitutes the model – the original extended variant of the phrase fortune in love. The first two couplets repeat and develop the concept of love in the mode of pastoral allegory, while the third, through the conventional simile of a meteor, introduces the idea of fortune as it stereotypically applies to love in the form of passion’s inconstancy. The final couplet, however, raises a concern that seems out of place, prefiguring the clash of generic codes around which the poem is structured. It is not pastoral lovers who are traditionally expected to “make impression upon Time” (8) but the noble hero. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2021.1965516

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Marvell的“不幸的情人”

安德鲁·马维尔(Andrew Marvell)的《不幸的情人》(1648-49)引发了一系列现代解读(Berthoff 1966;帕特森1978;储料器1986;Enterline 1987;Klawitter 2009;赫斯特和兹威克尔2012)，但对其语气或目的几乎没有共识。迈克尔·里法特雷的文学符号学理论(1978,1983)可以帮助澄清这首具有挑战性的诗的结构和意义，同时揭示其模糊性的一些来源。根据这一理论，每首诗都源于一个句子、短语或单个单词，而这些单词不需要直接出现在诗中。它详细阐述了这个最小的起点(它的“矩阵”)，通过参考读者头脑中已经存在的语言联想集群——接受的想法、常用短语、来自其他作品的知名段落、文学惯例等等——里法特雷称之为“互文”。将这一论点应用到马维尔的《不幸的情人》中，就有可能展示这首诗是如何通过两种对比的通用互文:英雄叙事和彼得拉克式抒情，扩展和改变了与标题相呼应的短语“爱情中的财富”。前者提供了财富本身的典范代表，即支配个人与偶然性斗争的力量，而后者则在爱情的特殊背景下将财富戏剧化为一位女士的善变。里法特尔认为，诗歌对其母体(“模型”)的初始扩展决定了后续变体的形式。以“不幸的情人”为例，第一节构成了模型——爱情中的财富这句话的原始扩展变体。前两首对联以田园寓言的方式重复和发展了爱的概念，而第三首对联，通过流星的传统比喻，引入了财富的概念，因为它通常以激情的不稳定的形式应用于爱。然而，最后的两行诗引发了一种似乎不合时宜的担忧，预示着这首诗的结构围绕着通用代码的冲突。传统上期望“给时间留下深刻印象”的不是田园恋人，而是高尚的英雄。https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2021.1965516

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来源期刊

EXPLICATOR LITERATURE-

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期刊介绍： Concentrating on works that are frequently anthologized and studied in college classrooms, The Explicator, with its yearly index of titles, is a must for college and university libraries and teachers of literature. Text-based criticism thrives in The Explicator. One of few in its class, the journal publishes concise notes on passages of prose and poetry. Each issue contains between 25 and 30 notes on works of literature, ranging from ancient Greek and Roman times to our own, from throughout the world. Students rely on The Explicator for insight into works they are studying.