基本介紹
內容簡介
This book takes a particular perspective on thenature of poetry and follows this through toproposals for teaching. It focuses attention onhow the use of language in short poems can set upconditions for individual interpretation and therepresentation of reality in ways other than thosewhich are established by normal social convention.This view of poetry leads to a recognition of itsessential role in education, and provides a set ofprinciples for an approach to teaching it whichintegrates the study of language and literature.
作者簡介
作者：（英國）威多森（H.G.Widdowson）
圖書目錄
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE The significance of poetry
1 To begin with: common features and uncouth rhymes
2 Significance beyond plain speaking
3 Procedures for interpretation: reference and representation
4 Dissociation from context: the poem on the page
5 Verbal patterning and the grammar of representation
6 Time and place in a different dimension
7 Other patterns, alternative realities
8 Parallel lines and parallel texts
9 Intertextual associations
10 Aesthetic effects and relative values
11 So the meaning escapes.
12 In summary
PART TWO The teaching of poetry
1 The point of poetry
2 Educational relevance; recreation and language awareness
3 Pedagogic approaches; against exegesis
4 Composing poetic text:line assembly
5 Completing poetic text: verse blanks
6 Intertextual comparison and the use of variants
7 Comparing poems with prose description
8 Deriving poems from prose description
9 Deriving and comparing poetic variants
10 Progressive derivation: composing interim versions
11 Using prose paraphrases
12 Comparing derived and authorized versions
13 Comparing different modes of poetic writing
14 In conclusion
Notes
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
Index of poets
文摘
In an earlier chapter of this book, I expressed the view that themodest graveyard inscriptions with which I began should beacknowledged as kin to the grander works of established poetsand （in Auden's words） 'share in the total literary glory'. In thepreceding chapter I have argued against privileged interpreta-tions, and have taken the position that there are no criteria, exceptthose imposed by fiat, which can assign different values tovariable responses. But does this mean that all poems areaesthetically equal, that claims to superior artistic quality areunfounded, that the odes of Keats, say, or the sonnets ofShakespeare, are only accounted great poetry, and other poeticefforts dismissed as lightweight, because those in a position to setstandards of excellence have told us so？ One might accept thatdoggerel is kin to works like these, but surely they are humble kin,remote country cousins with no rights to any artistic heritage inthe poetic tradition.
What is it, then, which constitutes aesthetic quality？ How canwe make a judgement about the relative artistic value of differentpoems？ I would suggest that the point made in the precedingchapter about the poetic containment of divergent meanings pro-vides us with at least a partial answer. It seems to me that the aes-thetic effects of a poem （as with other forms of art） depend on thesatisfaction of two conditions. The first is that it disperses mean-ings and disrupts established ideas, or what T.S. Eliot referred toas 'stock responses'. This （following the reference to Siva in thepreceding chapter） we might call the destructive or divergent con-dition. In respect to this condition, the greater the incongruity ofthe poem, the more difficult it is to accommodate within acceptedstructures of reality, and therefore the more variable responses itevokes, the greater its aesthetic potential.
序言
這是一部討論詩歌在文體學中的地位、詩歌的意義和價值、以及如何進行詩歌教學的學術專著。作者H·G·威多森為倫敦大學教育學院對外英語教授，著名套用語言學家，從事套用語言學研究近40年，成果豐碩，對該學科的發展有深遠的影響。
在書中，作者闡述了他對於詩歌作為語言創作形式的本質的理解，指出了這種理解對於教育所具有的意義，並具體說明了在實踐中應採用何種教學方法才能真正達到詩歌教學的目的。
全書分為兩大部分。第一部分題為“詩歌的意義”，主要探討詩歌作為一種語言創作形式的本質。作者指出語言中尚存在著許多未被人們意識到的可能性，而詩歌正是運用了語言的這些可能性來表達社會現實。那么，詩歌的存在意義何在？尤其是它在教育中有什麼價值？作者認為人們對詩歌的理解普遍存在誤區，而且在詩歌的教學方法上也存在偏差，從而使得我們幾乎無法證明詩歌教育仍然存在的合理性。習慣上，因為詩歌語言表達的非常規性，人們已不知不覺地將詩歌神聖化，將之歸為一種特權話語，一種只有少數精英才能理解、欣賞的話語。它被視為一種遙不可及，同時又無實用價值、不被需要的東西，而在進行詩歌教學上我們又往往要求學生按照權威的注釋去理解詩歌。這不僅使得詩歌在人們心目中變得高高在上，而且因為學習的被動性使得學生對詩歌學習感到索然無味。威多森提出應當揭開詩歌的神秘面紗，去掉它頭上的光環，讓它走近生活；應當允許並鼓勵人們對詩歌有自己獨特的理解。而詩歌教學的價值在於它給學生提供了一種自娛的方式。
