제 7 강 : 지속가능성의시인 W. S. Merwin

Transcription

1 현대영미시 : 생태시를중심으로 제 7 강 : 지속가능성의시인 W. S. Merwin Utterance, For a Coming Extinction, Vixen, Hearing the Names of the Valleys 2011 봄 전세재

2 W. S. Merwin "His environmental concerns are very powerful, but they grow out of an even deeper sensibility about human beings and their relation to life and the rest of nature itself." (James Billington) 2

3 Life of W. S. Merwin (1927- ) Poet, Translator, Environmentalist, Expatriate 1927 Born in New York City 1946 Meeting with Ezra Pound 1947 Graduated from Princeton Univ Stayed in London 1956 Moved back to the States 1970s Stayed in Lot, France 1983 Moved to Hawaii 2010 Poet Laureate 3

4 W. S. Merwin (1927- ) Major Works of Poetry A Mask for Janus (1952) Green with Beasts (1956) * The Lice (1967) * The Carrier of Ladders (1970) The Compass Flower (1977) Finding the Islands (1982) The Rain in the Trees (1988) Travels: Poems (1993) The Vixen: Poems (1996) The River Sound (1999) * Migration: New and Selected Poems (2005) 4

5 W. S. Merwin A Poet of Cultural Criticism A Poet of Experiment A Poet of Nature 5

6 W. S. Merwin A Poet of Cultural Criticism critique of contemporary militaristic and industrial American society The Carrier of Ladder A Poet of Experiment abandonment of the conventions of punctuation developing less-regimented, more speech-oriented, holistic and organic forms of writing 6

7 W. S. Merwin A Poet of Nature The Lice - environmental manifesto Environmental Values vs. World Views "I think the way of living is probably the most clear and certain political statement, more than anything one could say." (Merwin) Henry David Thoreau, Rick Bass, "there s no separation between human imagination and the rest of life. Put another way, humans are not a separate species. The world is a part of us. It should be part of our joy and our pleasure. When we destroy the world, we re destroying ourselves. (Merwin) 7

8 Utterance Questioning of the relationship of words, first-hand experience and being Mourning the loss of a naïve encounter with nature because of the impedence of language and conceptuality Skepticism on language and its ability to articulate accurately and fully the poet s experience with the world Wishing to recover something more from the silence and the earth 8

9 For a Coming Extinction Choice of the whale Instrument of divine punishment (Jonah) Instance of the limits of human understanding (Job) Symbol of the inscrutable nature (Moby Dick) Moral ambiguity Unreliable speaker Humans and whales as inseparable and equivalent parts of a larger whole 9

10 For a Coming Extinction And the cause of [my] anger is, I suppose, the feeling of destruction, watching the destruction of the things that I care passionately about. If we re so stupid that we choose to destroy each other and ourselves, that s bad enough; but if we destroy the whole life on the planet! And I m not talking about a big bang; I m talking about it the destruction of the seas, the destruction of species after species, the destruction of the forests. These are not replaceable. We can t suddenly decide years down the line that we made a mistake and put it all back. The feeling of awe something that we seem to be losing-is essential for survival. (Elliott, David L. An Interview with W. S. Merwin Contemporary Literature, 39 (1988):1-26) 10

11 Vixen Ultimate unknowability of the vixen Intense appreciation for the vixen s dark, secretive, uncatchable nature and of reverence for the nonhuman world 11

12 Hearing the Names of the Valleys Tact of lines and breaks a long way toward consciousness Free of colonial or missionary motive Ecology of culture The signified vs. The signifier Adamic Language Loss of the language the meaning the culture 12

13 Discussion Characteristics of W. S. Merwin s Nature Ecological implication of W. S. Merwin s poems 13