美國人如何將莎士比亞“美國化”

美國人如何將莎士比亞“美國化”

New York has been handed a surplus of Shakespeare over the last six months. To celebrate the 450th anniversary of his birth, there were eight Broadway and Off Broadway productions on offer — enough, surely, for even the most ravenous Shakespearean appetite. But to a 19th-century American, this stuffed schedule might well look like slim pickings.

過去的六個月里，紐約的莎士比亞已經(jīng)過剩了。為了慶祝他誕辰450周年，舉辦了八場百老匯和外百老匯莎士比亞戲劇演出——這對于最饑渴的莎士比亞劇迷來說也足夠了。但是對于19世紀(jì)的美國來說，這樣緊密的安排恐怕根本不夠。

Two hundred years ago, Shakespeare accounted for one-quarter of all dramatic productions in cities up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Philadelphians, between 1800 and 1835, could see 21 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays. In the decade after the Gold Rush, Californians stood in line to see a raft of them. Some were presented in the palatial Jenny Lind Theater in San Francisco, where miners, the historian Constance Rourke wrote in “Troupers of the Gold Coast,” “swarmed from the gambling saloons and cheap fandango houses to see ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Lear.’ ”

200年前，莎士比亞占據(jù)了東海岸城市舞臺劇目的1/4。1800年到1835年，費城可以看到莎士比亞全部37部劇目中的21部。淘金潮之后的十年間，加利福尼亞也可以看到很多了。有些劇目是在舊金山宮殿般的詹尼·林德劇場上演，歷史學(xué)家康斯坦斯·魯克(Constance Rourke)在《黃金海岸的演員們》(Trouers of the Gold Coast)一書中寫道，淘金者們“從賭場和廉價舞廳蜂擁而來，只為一睹《哈姆雷特》(Hamlet)和《李爾王》(Lear)。”

Americans were mad for Shakespeare. For the evidence, look no further than “Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From the Revolution to Now,” to be published by the Library of America next month, just in time for that big birthday.

美國人為莎士比亞而瘋狂。若說證據(jù)，只需在《莎士比亞在美國：從獨立戰(zhàn)爭至今的選集》(Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From the Revolution to Now)中尋找，這本書將由美國圖書館(Library of America)在下月出版，為了趕上莎士比亞誕辰的日期。

The collection, edited by the eminent Shakespearean James Shapiro, a professor at Columbia, begins with a parody of Hamlet’s soliloquy written by an anonymous Tory in 1776, responding to the Continental Congress’s demand in 1774 that all colonists sign on to a boycott of English goods. It starts: “To sign or not to sign? That is the question.” The book ends with “Nets,” a 2004 work by the poet and visual artist Jen Bervin that highlights selected words in the sonnets, eliciting unexpected meanings and associations.

這部選集由哥倫比亞大學(xué)教授、著名莎學(xué)家詹姆斯·夏皮羅(James Shapiro)編輯。全書第一篇是對哈姆雷特那篇獨白的戲仿，由“無名氏托里”創(chuàng)作于1776年，是為了呼應(yīng)1776年大陸議會要求所有殖民地居民在抵制英貨的文件上簽字。文章開頭是“簽還是不簽?這是問題。”全書最后一篇是《網(wǎng)》(Nets) ，這是詩人和視覺藝術(shù)家詹·波文(Jen Bervin)的作品，從莎士比亞的十四行詩中選出詞語，為它們賦予令人意想不到的涵義和組合方式。

There are discoveries and surprises along the way, like Lord Buckley’s beat-era “Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin’ Daddies,” an extended riff on Shakespeare’s most famous speeches (“I came here to lay Caesar out, Not to hip you to him”), and “Shakespeares of 1922,” a vaudeville sketch by Lorenz Hart and Morrie Ryskind. But for many readers the real eye opener will be the heated love affair, richly documented by Professor Shapiro, between ordinary Americans and the most exalted writer in the English language.

全書中有許多發(fā)現(xiàn)和驚喜，比如洛德·巴克利(Lord Buckley)在垮掉派時期寫的《潮人、冒失鬼和打響指的老家伙》(Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin’ Daddies)就是莎士比亞最著名的演說(“我今天是來埋葬凱撒，不是來贊美他”)的延伸樂段;還有《1922年的莎士比亞們》 (Shakespeares of 1922)，是洛倫茲·哈特(Lorenz Hart)和莫里·里斯金德(Morrie Ryskind)創(chuàng)作的歌舞雜耍劇本草稿。但對于許多讀者來說，最令人大開眼界的還是夏皮羅教授記載的大量對莎士比亞的熾熱愛意，從普通美國人到最有名的英語作家應(yīng)有盡有。

“The 25-year period around the Civil War was the most extraordinary,” he said in an interview. “You have John Quincy Adams on Desdemona having sex with Othello, Lincoln reading ‘Macbeth,’ and another president, Grant, rehearsing the role of Desdemona at a military camp. You couldn’t make this stuff up. This is how central a preoccupation Shakespeare was at the time.”

“南北戰(zhàn)爭時期的25年間是最特別的，”他在接受采訪時說，“約翰·昆西·亞當(dāng)斯(John Quincy Adams)寫過苔絲特蒙娜與奧賽羅發(fā)生性關(guān)系，林肯也讀《麥克白》(Macbeth)，還有格蘭特總統(tǒng)，他曾經(jīng)在軍營里彩排過苔絲特蒙娜這個角色。這些都不是能編出來的。那個時候人們對莎士比亞的迷戀就到這個地步。”

Professor Shapiro, in his introduction, leads off with Grant’s brief turn on the boards, which he rightly calls “one of the more memorable episodes in the history of Shakespeare in America.” The year was 1846, the place was Corpus Christi, Tex.

夏皮羅教授在全書前言一開始就描述了格蘭特短暫的登場，他說得很正確：“這是莎士比亞在美國傳播史上最值得紀(jì)念的時刻之一。”那一年是1846年，地點是得克薩斯的科珀斯克里斯蒂。

To distract the troops, a theater was hastily constructed and a production of “Othello” put into motion. James Longstreet, the future Confederate general, was originally cast as Desdemona, but was judged too tall for the part. The shorter Grant took his place. “He really rehearsed the part of Desdemona, but he did not have much sentiment,” Longstreet later recalled. In the end, Grant was replaced by a professional actress at the insistence of the officer playing Othello, who, Longstreet wrote, “could not pump up any sentiment with Grant dressed up as Desdemona.”

為了給軍人們提供消遣，一座劇院迅速建成了，將要上演《奧賽羅》(Othello)。苔絲特蒙娜一角本來要由未來的南部聯(lián)盟將軍詹姆斯·郎斯特里特 (James Longstreet)出演，但人們覺得他個頭太高。個頭矮一些的格蘭特就接替了他的位子。“他真的在彩排中出演了苔絲特蒙娜，但他沒多少感情，”朗斯特里特后來回憶。最后，在飾演奧賽羅的軍官要求下，一位職業(yè)女演員又取代了格蘭特，朗斯特里特寫道，那個飾演奧賽羅的軍官“看到格蘭特穿成苔絲特蒙娜的樣子，根本沒法入戲”。

It was not fanciful to think that ordinary soldiers might enjoy a Shakespeare play. Americans in the 19th century absorbed him whole from earliest childhood. “There is hardly a pioneer’s hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s. “I remember that I read the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.”

普通士兵可以欣賞莎士比亞戲劇，這并不是什么新奇的事。19世紀(jì)，美國人從孩提時代就開始全心全意地欣賞莎士比亞。“幾乎所有拓荒者的小屋里都會擺上幾卷莎士比亞，”亞里克斯·德·托克維爾(Alexis de Tocqueville)在19世紀(jì)30年代寫道。“我記得自己是在一座小木屋里第一次讀到《亨利五世》(Henry V)這部歷史劇。”

Shakespeare’s words fell on fertile ground, thanks to the American education system, which stressed public speaking as an essential acquirement in a democracy and regarded Shakespeare’s works as a gold mine of political and moral set pieces.

多虧了美國的教育系統(tǒng)，莎士比亞的語句被播撒在肥沃的土壤上，美國教育視公共演說為民主政治的必要才能，并把莎士比亞的作品當(dāng)做政治與道德片段的金礦。

Excerpts featured prominently in elocution books like “The Columbian Orator” and “The National Orator” and in the advanced McGuffey’s readers. “Both boys and girls gave recitations and performed excerpts from the plays,” Sandra M. Gustafson, an English professor at University of Notre Dame, said in an interview. “This was an essential part of education.”

《哥倫比亞演說家》(The Columbian Orator)、《國家演說家》中都有顯著的莎士比亞選段，高等麥克格雷(McGuffey)教材讀本中也有。“男孩和女孩們都會朗誦和表演劇本選段，” 圣母大學(xué)的英語教授桑德拉·M·古斯塔夫森(Sandra M. Gustafson)在接受采訪時說，“這是教育中不可缺少的一部分。”

Women seized on Shakespeare as a way to construct a homemade version of a college class. In the second half of the 19th century, women’s Shakespeare clubs began popping up all over the United States, from Worcester, Mass., to Waxahachie, Tex., some 500 of them in the peak years from 1880 to 1940.

女人們把莎士比亞當(dāng)做一種家庭版本的大學(xué)課堂。在19世紀(jì)后半葉，為女人建立的莎士比亞俱樂部在美國遍地開花，在1880年到1940年這段巔峰時期，從馬薩諸塞州的伍斯特到得克薩斯州的沃克西哈奇，共有500多個這樣的俱樂部。