【#第一文档网# 导语】以下是®第一文档网的小编为您整理的《查尔斯兰姆》，欢迎阅读！
If anyone had a justified complaint about the vagaries of a fickle fate, it was surely Charles Lamb. As a child he had a stammer that he retained for life. He was unable to complete a formal education though he attained a high level of self-education. He was himself a victim of mental instability and was confined to a sanatorium for several months. His beloved sister Mary (the Bridget of his essays) also suffered from insanity. During one of her fits, she killed her mother and seriously wounded her father. Charles spent the remainder of his life caring for her, sacrificing forever the normal hopes and aspirations of a wife and children. Charles Lamb was not the sort of man to permit his misfortunes to weigh him down. Instead, he used them as a literary inspiration to produce some of the finest personal essays in the English language. For him, the key to a bearable present was a link to the past. It was only in the past, that he could find solace even if a vicarious one that permitted him to tinker with a reality that seemed so grossly unfair to present an alternate one that was eminently more sustainable. In "Dream Children" he could write of a dream in which he could erase a lifetime of hurt and isolation and find the company of children that might have been his. It is almost as if he used his pen as a therapist to make more bearable a lifetime of pain about which he dared not publically complain. In "Old China" he describes an upper class lifestyle that is replete with the very material advantages that he could never possess. Lamb loved books, paintings, and old china, all of which he wrote of as if he truly possessed them in abundance. Along with his musings about his penurious past, he contemplates with perceptive insight the widespread paradox that those who have struggled mightily to amass a fortune discover to their dismay that money by itself does not buy happiness. It is only through a childish appreciation of the wonder of youth that makes poverty not only bearable but later to be seen as an integral part of the process of maturation that he can see but Bridget cannot. In "A Dissertation upon Roast Pig," Lamb hearkens back to a never-never land in China where fire cooked food is unknown. His use of archaisms and subtle whimsy invests a seemingly incredible tale of brain dead residents with just enough verisimilitude to punctuate his thesis that there is often a huge gap in the learning process where one attempts to separate cause from effect. In "The Two Races of Men," he approaches the willingness of people to be bamboozled by con men who use their personal charm and glibness to separate them from their money. It is difficult to imagine lenders who are so willing to line up merely for the privilege of emptying their pockets to borrowers like Bigod (by God?). In "Christ's Hospital," Lamb attempts to place a happy face on a period of time that was particularly trying for him, the time that he spent in school as a youth when he was mistreated. In this process of rewriting history, he felt it necessary to invest this past with a modicum of happy memories. History does not record whether this particular attempt to revise the past to recreate an ending more suitable was both accurate and justified. It was Charles Lamb's desire to look to the past almost as if this past were not a fixed thing but one that was infinitely malleable. He felt more comfortable addressing an audience of readers whom he perceived as friends rather than worshipful acolytes, hence his consistent use of wonder and whimsy. In some of his essays he was more successful than in others but in all of them his need to speak in a leisurely fashion with goodness and cheer invests them with a sense of ease that is as inviting today as it was in Lamb's day. 英国随笔作家。生于伦敦，其父为法学院执事索尔特充当助手及家仆。兰姆自幼好读书，索尔特家藏书任他广泛浏览。7岁入伦敦基督慈幼学校,与诗人柯尔律治、亨特同学，自此与柯尔律治结成终生莫逆之交。兰姆的《三十五年前的基督慈幼学校》（1813）一书，即这一段生活的回忆。在校时成绩斐然，原拟升入剑桥大学深造，因口吃不利于言，于15岁辍学。17岁进入东印度公司任簿记员，直至1825年退休。兰姆的姐姐玛丽患精神病，1796年9月忽然大发作,竟杀其母。他悲痛之极，决心毕生照拂、护理玛丽。玛丽发病时住疯人院，平素家居则头脑清醒，与他合作著述，对他的文学事业大有助益。兰姆当时虽默默无闻,但交游者大多是著名文人,其中包括葛德文、哈兹里特、胡德、华兹华斯和柯尔律治等人，这种珍贵的友情成为兰姆一生中生活的动力和乐趣。 兰姆的文学生涯从诗歌创作开始。他的诗深受柯尔律治的影响，个别篇章可能是与柯尔律治合写的。他以格律严谨取胜，不善于写无韵体诗。他的诗有《熟悉的旧面容》(1798)和《昙花一现的婴儿》等，但成就不高。他也写过剧本，有诗剧《约翰?伍德维尔》(1802)和闹剧《H君》(1806)。后来他与玛丽合写儿童文学作品,最成功的是《莎士比亚故事集》(1807)，用散文复述莎士比亚部分剧作的内容,风行一时，流传至今。此外,他还写过一部悲剧故事《萝莎蒙?格雷》(1798)。1808年出版的《莎士比亚同时代英国戏剧诗人之范作》是一部作品选集，收集17世纪各个著名剧作家作品的片断，附有简短的评论。当时英国人对莎士比亚及其同时代剧作家极为漠视。兰姆着重加以评介，重新引起读者对伊丽莎白时期文学遗产的兴趣。 兰姆所写的评论文章不多，其中《论莎士比亚的悲剧》一文表明他对莎士比亚剧作所感兴趣之处在于人物的性格,而不是情节结构;他认为莎士比亚的剧作不适宜于上演,只适于阅读。他唯一的一篇较长的评论文章,是评论华兹华斯的《出游》，其中说出了诗人的天才和独创性。兰姆对文学批评的见解，散见于他的书信中。他十分景仰17世纪的戏剧诗人和散文家福勒、布朗和伯顿，以及18世纪的小说家；他对各时期的写实作品都感兴趣，而对矫揉造作的作品和世外桃源式的田园诗则表示厌烦；他好谈体裁形式，而少谈内容，从不讨论作品的布局结构。 兰姆最大的成就是随笔。他的随笔的最大特点是笔调亲切，富有生活气息和人情味。兰姆不像18世纪的散文家，爱讲大道理，阐发哲学思想，他避免谈政治、时事、两性关系、宗教等一切当务之急的问题，而好谈生活琐事和知识性题材，如《万愚节》、《古旧的瓷器》、《偏见一束》、《全世界背后的一部百科全书》等。他的随笔大多与他的经历密切相关，有的风雅幽默，情趣横生；有的则哀惋凄切,悱恻动人。兰姆好推敲文字,爱用典故，注重细节，文体富有个人特色，但从中可以看到蒙田、伯顿和布朗等人的影响。兰姆的随笔后来收为两个集子《伊利亚随笔集》（1823）和《后期随笔集》(1833)。佳作多在前集中，后集的杰作只有《退隐者》一篇,写退休后的闲散生涯,颇饶风趣。他以《随笔集》作者“伊利亚”见知于世。 兰姆还是英国著名的书简家之一。他的书信记载了他与同时代一些著名文人的交往，而他与他们每个人的友谊又各有特色；其次，他的书信富有随笔意味。不谈时事、宗教或哲学问题，有不少对文学的见解、友人的消息以及他本人的生活锁事和爱好等；而更重要的是谈书。兰姆一生嗜书如命，在书信中历历可见。兰姆所有书信中贯穿着失意者的忧郁情调。 英国作家查尔斯·兰姆（Charles Lamb）生平简介 1825年兰姆退休，渐趋消沉；玛丽病情又日益恶化，因而移居埃德蒙顿,自此远离亲友,更感生趣索然。1834年卒于埃德蒙顿。 本文来源：https://www.dywdw.cn/1fc3105d7cd184254a353522.html
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2022-04-15
