内容简介

　　也许可以说，这四个人组成了一个奇怪的组合。而他们自己所不曾察觉的相同之处开始显现：一样都是背井离乡、诙谐风趣、晦涩难解、言辞激烈。这几个都柏林人，出类拔萃、自鸣得意，即便自认潦倒之时也要摆足阔气，就像叶芝诗中的毕达哥拉斯，有着金股。他们提出又挑战自己的假设，他们逡巡于艺术和反艺术、愉悦和恐惧、接受和放弃之间。他们都来自同一座城市，这一点说明不了什么，但他们和祖国一样，为独立而苦战，蔑视外部强权的占领，同时内部也存在着很多分歧。这些特质并非爱尔兰独有，但是在爱尔兰得以集中体现。凭借这四个土生土长的都柏林人，这个曾经被迫归属于帝国的城市重获力量，以另一种统治权，即艺术的统治权，影响整个世界。

　　——理查德•艾尔曼

　　作者简介

　　理查德•艾尔曼（Richard Ellmann，1918—1987）是二十世纪现代主义文学权威，尤其在爱尔兰文学研究方面堪称一代学术巨匠。他曾就学于耶鲁大学和都柏林圣三一学院，后在哈佛、耶鲁、牛津等名校任教与讲学。从1970年起，担任牛津大学哥德史密斯英语文学教授，直至1984年荣休。艾尔曼一生治学严谨，著述精益求精，代表作有传记《叶芝：真人与假面》《乔伊斯传》和《王尔德传》，其中《乔伊斯传》获得1959年美国国家图书奖，《王尔德传》获得1989年普利策传记奖，在西方学界备受推崇。他的其他作品还有文学评论集《川流复始》《都柏林文学四杰》等，并编有《乔伊斯书信集》《诺顿现代诗选》等。吴其尧，上海外国语大学英语学院教授，主要从事英美文学的研究、翻译和教学。曾游学美国和加拿大，先后在加州大学伯克利分校、华盛顿大学、路易威尔大学和麦克马斯特大学学习。发表有专著《庞德与中国文化》《唯美主义大师王尔德》，学术随笔集《知困集》《已拙集》，译著《垂死的肉身》《魔种》《半生》《奥斯卡•瓦奥短暂而奇妙的一生》《看这些小丑！》《婚变》《纯真年代》和《都柏林文学四杰》等。

Content introduction

It might be said that these four make an odd combination. And similarities begin to emerge that they were not aware of: they are both remote, witty, obscure, and fiery. These Dubliners, brilliant, smug, even when they think they're down, like Yeats's Pythagoras, with their gold shares. They raise and challenge their assumptions, they wander between art and anti-art, pleasure and fear, acceptance and abandonment. The fact that they all came from the same city doesn't tell you much, but like their homeland, they fought hard for independence, defied occupation by outside powers, and had plenty of internal differences. These qualities are not unique to Ireland, but they are epitomized here. With these four native Dubliners, the city that had been forced to belong to the Empire regained its power to influence the whole world with a different kind of dominion: that of art.

-- Richard Elman

About the author

Richard Ellmann (1918-1987) was an authority on twentieth-century modernist literature, especially in the study of Irish literature. He studied at Yale University and Trinity College Dublin, and later taught and lectured at Harvard, Yale, and Oxford. From 1970 he was Goldsmith Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford until his retirement in 1984. Eilman devoted his life to rigorous studies and wrote excellent works, including the biographies Yeats: Real Man and Mask, Joyce Biography and Wilde Biography, of which Joyce Biography won the 1959 National Book Award, and Wilde Biography won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, which is highly respected in the Western academic circle. His other works are a collection of literary reviews, "The Beginning of the Stream", "The Four Masters of Dublin Literature", and edited "Joyce's Letters", "NORTON Modern Poetry" and so on. Wu Qiyao is a professor at the School of English at Shanghai International Studies University, mainly engaged in the research, translation and teaching of American and American literature. He traveled to the United States and Canada and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Washington, Louisville University, and McMaster University. He has published monographs such as "Bond and Chinese Culture", "Wilde, the Master of Aestheticism", the collection of academic essays "Knowing the Problem" and "Already Stupid", translated "Dying Flesh", "The Magic Species", "Half a Life", "The Brief but Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao" and "Look at These Clowns!" The Marriage Change, The Age of Innocence, and the Four Masters of Dublin Literature.