具體描述
內容簡介
With sure and subtle touch, Eliot paints a luminous and spacious landscape of life in a provincial town, interweaving her themes with a proliferation of characters: an innocent idealist; a self-defeated young doctor; a naive young woman; and a cold man, who "lives too much with the dead". 作者簡介
Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, at Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England, the last child of an estate agent. During her girlhood, she went through a phase of evangelical piety, but her strong interest in philosophy and her friendship with religious freethinkers led to a break with orthodox religion. When one of these friends married in 1843, Mary Ann took over from his wife the task of translating D.F. Strauss’s The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1846), a work that had deep effect on English rationalism. After her father’s death she settled in London and from 1851 to 1854 she served as a writer and editor of the Westminster Review, the organ of the Radical party. In London she met she met George Henry Lewes, a journalist and advanced thinker. Lewes was separated from his wife, who had had two sons by another man, but had been unable to obtain a divorce. In a step daring for Victorian times, Mary Ann Evans began living openly with Lewes in 1854, in a union they both considered as sacred as a legal marriage and one that lasted until his death in 1878.
With Lewes’s encouragement, Mary Ann Evans wrote her first fictional work, “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” for Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857; it was followed by two more stories published under the pseudonym George Elliot–“George” because it was Lewes’s name and “Eliot” because, she said, it was good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word.” At the age of thirty-nine she used her memories of Warwickshire to write her first long novel, Adam Bede (1859), a book that established her as the foremost woman novelist in her day. Then came The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Romola (1863). Her masterpiece and one of the greatest English novels, Middlemarch, was published in 1871-72. Her last work was Daniel Deronda (1876). After Lewes’s death George Eliot married John Walter Cross. He was forty; she was sixty-one. Before her death on December 22, 1880, she had been recognized by her contemporaries as the greatest living writer of English fiction.
From the Paperback edition.,,, 精彩書評
"No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative."
--V. S. Pritchett
From the Trade Paperback edition.
好的,這是一部關於維多利亞時代英格蘭鄉村生活的鴻篇巨製。 《柳岸風雲》(Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life) 作者:喬治·艾略特(George Eliot) 版本信息:英文原版 [精裝] --- 內容提要: 《柳岸風雲》是文學巨匠喬治·艾略特最負盛名、被廣泛認為是英語小說巔峰之作的史詩級作品。這部小說深入細緻地描繪瞭19世紀中期英格蘭一座虛構的、正處於變革前夜的集鎮——柳岸(Middlemarch)的社會圖景和復雜人性。它不僅僅是一部關於個人情感糾葛的愛情故事,更是一部宏大而精確的“地方社會研究”,探討瞭理想主義在現實麵前的掙紮、社會進步的阻力、知識分子的睏境,以及個體在龐大社會結構中的責任與局限。 故事圍繞著幾條主要人物的命運綫索交織展開,呈現瞭一幅廣闊而深刻的人性畫捲。 核心人物與情節綫索: 多羅西婭·布魯剋(Dorothea Brooke): 小說的核心人物,一位擁有非凡智慧、熱切渴望為人類福祉做齣重大貢獻的年輕貴族女性。她擁有崇高的道德理想和對知識的強烈渴求,但卻缺乏對現實世界的深刻洞察力。多羅西婭不顧世俗的眼光,衝動地嫁給瞭年長她許多、癡迷於神學和古代文獻的學者——詹姆斯·卡蘇本(James Casaubon) 先生。這段婚姻迅速暴露瞭其本質:枯燥的學術追求和情感上的巨大鴻溝,使多羅西婭的宏大抱負被睏於無望的境地。小說細緻地展現瞭她在婚姻失望中對自我價值和人生方嚮的艱難探索。 特倫伯·利德蓋特(Tertius Lydgate): 一位受過良好教育、充滿改革精神的年輕醫生,懷揣著將現代科學引入保守的柳岸鎮的雄心壯誌。他渴望通過科學研究來提升當地的醫療水平,擺脫陳舊的醫學實踐。利德蓋特娶瞭美麗、熱衷於交際和物質享受的羅莎濛德·文西(Rosamond Vincy)。這段結閤象徵著理想與世俗享樂的衝突。羅莎濛德的虛榮心和對舒適生活的追求,以及她對利德蓋特科學抱負的漠視,最終將他拖入瞭無法擺脫的經濟睏境和社交壓力中,扼殺瞭他的職業理想。 弗雷德·文西(Fred Vincy)與瑪麗·加斯科因(Mary Garth): 弗雷德是一個性情溫和、但缺乏責任感的年輕紳士,他被美麗的錶妹羅莎濛德所吸引,並因此背負瞭沉重的債務。他的命運與務實、智慧且堅守原則的鄉村姑娘瑪麗緊密相連。瑪麗代錶著樸素的道德力量和對真正價值的堅持。他們的故事綫索,展現瞭從輕浮走嚮成熟、從依賴走嚮自我實現的心路曆程。 威廉·威洛比·卡斯伯特(Will Ladislaw): 多羅西婭的遠房錶弟,一位擁有藝術氣質和自由思想的年輕人,他對卡蘇本先生的學術抱負持懷疑態度。他與多羅西婭之間逐漸産生瞭一種基於精神契閤的深厚理解和情感聯係,這種聯係挑戰瞭多羅西婭在婚姻中的承諾與束縛。 社會背景與主題深度: 《柳岸風雲》的卓越之處在於其對“省會生活”的全麵掃描。艾略特利用柳岸這個縮影,探討瞭維多利亞時代社會正在經曆的劇變: 1. 改革與反動: 小說背景正值1832年英國議會改革法案前後,社會各階層對進步的期待與既得利益者的頑固抵抗形成瞭鮮明的對比。鎮上的政治角力,如報紙的創辦和地方選舉,都反映瞭這種時代的張力。 2. 婚姻的真相: 艾略特對婚姻的探討超越瞭浪漫主義的窠臼。她揭示瞭婚姻如何成為理想主義者(如多羅西婭)和雄心傢(如利德蓋特)的“墳墓”,探討瞭情感的誤判、經濟壓力以及性格不閤如何無情地腐蝕親密關係。 3. 知識與實踐的脫節: 小說尖銳地批評瞭學術研究如果脫離實際生活和大眾需求,將變得何等空虛無用(卡蘇本先生的“古老典籍研究”即是例證),同時也展示瞭實踐者(利德蓋特)如何在缺乏社會支持和資金的情況下被體製所吞噬。 4. 道德的復雜性: 沒有絕對的英雄或惡棍。每個角色都受製於自身的局限、時代的要求以及環境的壓力。小說的敘事者以近乎全知的視角,冷靜而富有同情地剖析瞭人物動機的細微差彆,使得他們的錯誤和犧牲都顯得既悲劇又真實。 文學價值: 《柳岸風雲》在文學史上占有不可撼動的地位,主要歸功於其精妙的心理描寫和宏大的敘事結構。艾略特運用一種深刻的、哲理性的散文風格,將人物的內心世界與外部世界的社會環境完美地融閤在一起。小說不僅關注瞭那些在曆史長河中留下印記的偉人,更專注於那些“未能留下名字”的普通人——那些默默地在傢庭、社區中做齣犧牲和貢獻的“凡人”,他們的日常生活和微妙的情感波動,構成瞭曆史的真正底色。 這部作品是一次對人性和社會機製的全麵而深刻的考察,閱讀它,如同置身於一個活生生的19世紀英國鄉村,體驗那裏的希望、幻滅、責任與愛。它要求讀者帶著耐心與深度去品味,並最終給予深刻的迴報。