【导读】

哈特·克兰（1899—1932）是二十世纪美国最有影响力的诗人之一。他中学毕业后即创作并发表诗歌，在T.S. 艾略特和惠特曼等人影响下，很早就立志以诗歌创作为业，并试图超越自己的偶像艾略特。在短暂且高度戏剧化的一生里，克兰留下了《白色建筑群》《桥》等作品。可以说没有哪个诗人像克兰那样，以短暂悲怆的人生和强大的诗歌影响力塑造并改变了美国诗歌的发展轨迹。哈罗德·布鲁姆推崇其为二十世纪最伟大的美国诗人之一。

这封写给编辑兼评论家戈勒姆·蒙森的信很好地反映了克兰一以贯之的语言风格和思想特质，展现出现代主义文坛中卓尔不群的老派学究气。言辞之辛辣，修辞之曲折，较之约翰逊博士致切斯特菲尔德伯爵的信和鲁迅对赵景深的挞伐，有过之而无不及。克兰在信中表现出对诗歌独立性的坚守，主张诗歌不应被框定为科学、哲学或道德的附属品，而应成为体验、感知和知识的具象化自由表达。他捍卫诗歌作为一种混沌中重构意义的艺术，其核心正在于形式的创造性和意义的模糊性，体现了克兰作为一位现代主义诗人对艺术本质的深刻思考。

原文出处：Horton， Philip. Hart Crane： The Life of an American Poet， New York： The Viking Press， 1957， p. 341—345

Patterson， New York

纽约帕特森

March 17 ’26

1926年3月17日

Dear Gorham1：

亲爱的戈勒姆：

My rummy conversation last Monday offered， I fear， but a poor explanation of my several theoretical differences of opinion with you on the function of poetry， its particular province of activity， etc. Neither was I able to express to you my considerable appreciation of many accurate distinctions made in your essay which certainly prompt my gratitudes as well as applause. It would be probably uninteresting， as well as a bit excessive， for me to enumerate and dwell on these felicitations， however gratifying to myself they may be. Your essay is roughly divided in two， the second half including our present disagreement， and inasmuch as I have never really attempted to fulfil the functions therein attributed to the poet， your theories on that subject can be discussed from a relatively impersonal angle so far as I am concerned. Furthermore， it is one aspect of a contemporary problem which has already enlisted the most detailed and intense speculation from a number of fields， science， philosophy， etc.， as you， of course， know. I’m not saying that my few hasty notes which follow are conclusive evidence， but the logic of them （added to the organic convictions incident to the memorized experience of the creative “act，” let us say） is not yet disproved for me by at least such arguments as you have placed in your essay.

我周一的谈话语无伦次，恐怕未能充分阐明我在诗歌功能及其特定活动范围等方面与你的理论分歧。我也未能向你表达我对你文章中诸多精准区分的钦佩，它们的确引发了我的感激与赞叹。尽管这些让我感到愉悦，将之逐一列举并详加讨论则可能既无趣味，又有些过度。你的文章大致可分为两部分，后半部分涉及我们当前的分歧。鉴于文中认为的诗人功能从不是我真正想要实现的，因此我可以从一个相对客观的角度讨论你这方面的理论。此外，这已经是一个当代问题的一部分，引发了科学、哲学等多个领域细致和激烈的思考，对此你当然是知道的。我并不是说我接下来的这些匆忙的语句能充当决定性证据，但它们的逻辑（再加上创作“行为”中记忆化体验所带来的基本信念）对我来说，至少尚未被你在文章中提出的那些论点驳倒。

Poetry， in so far as the metaphysics of absolute knowledge extends， is simply the concrete evidence of the experience of knowledge. It can give you a ration of fact and experience， and in this sense it is both perception and thing perceived according as it approaches a significant articulation or not. This is its reality， its fact， being. When you attempt to ask more of poetry， —the fact of man’s relationship to a hypothetical god， be he Osiris2， Zeus or Indra， you will get as variant terms even from poetry; whereas poetry without attempting to logically enunciate such a problem or its solution may well give you the real connective experience， the very sign manifest on which rests the assumption of god.

诗歌，在绝对知识的形而上学范畴中，仅仅是知识体验的具体证据。它能够给予你一定比例的事实和体验，从这个意义上说，它既是感知，也是被感知之物，这取决于它是否接近富有意义的表达。这便是它的现实性、事实性和存在性。当你试图从诗歌中寻求更多，比如人类与假想中的神（无论是奥西里斯、宙斯还是因陀罗）之间关系的本质，你甚至会从诗歌中得到各种不同的答案；诗歌无需试图以一种合乎逻辑的方式阐述这样一个问题或其解决方案，但却极有可能给予你真正的联结体验，而这种显现的迹象正是神的假说赖以建立的基础。