《勿失良辰》:"唯美现实主义"的杰作

贝娄是战后美国文坛一位重要小说家,他著名的中篇小说<勿失良辰>是一部富于喜剧精神和抒情色彩的唯美现实主义杰作,代表了他在小说创作水平上一次质的飞跃.小说的形式结构、背景描写、人物刻画和语言风格与作者的思想命题相适应,较好地体现了作者的创作理念和主题关怀.本文拟从叙事结构、背景描写、人物刻画等几个方面探讨这部小说的艺术特色,阐释作者对当代文明与人生的理解.

Seize the Day:Masterpiece in Aesthetic Mode

Seize the Day is Bellow's most tightly built novella,with which Bellow ascended to a new level of literary creation and attained his artistic maturity in the sense that he has exquisitely combined the psychological realism of Dangling Man and The Victim ,and the inventive energy,the stylistic richness of, The Adventures of Augie March ,that Bellow's ideational emphasis is conveyed in an aesthetic mode,i.e.he makes the structure,the setting,the imagery and the characterization of this novella all count to reveal his vision of and concerns about the human soul.In my reading of the book,I try to interpret the protagonist's experience as an unconscious struggle to shed off his pretender soul for a firm sense of his true self and the real meaning of humanity,of a spiritual human existence against the crass materialism of contemporary society.With a detailed analysis of the stnovella,I intend to clarify Bellow's thematic concerns in this most compact piece of writing that clearly marks an important stage in Bellow's development as an artist.