传奇女诗人艾米莉·狄金森的魅力
She may seem a curious choice for teenage devotion. Many might think of Emily Dickinson as someone locked away from the world, a spinster living and writing in her bedroom as if she were in a self-made prison. In a way, though, many teens are reclusive just like this. Uncertain and a little afraid of the approaching world of *** hood, it seems safer to many to keep to oneself.
青少年喜欢她或许看起来有些奇怪。或许在许多人眼中，艾米莉·狄金森是一个与世隔绝的人，一个画地为牢、在自己卧室生活写作的大龄单身女性。但在某种程度上，许多青少年也像是隐遁一般。他们对即将要面对的成人世界感到茫然，甚至还有一点点害怕，不与他人来往看起来似乎更为安全。
Except – it turns out that Emily Dickinson wasn’t quite like this. A new exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York is encouraging a different perspective on the poet. The curator of the show, Carolyn Vega, told the BBC that while it is true that Dickinson liked to keep herself to herself, she also took a great interest in life beyond the front door of her father’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts.
但艾米莉·狄金森其实也并非完全如此。纽约摩根图书馆的一场新展览正鼓励人们从不同的视角看待这位诗人。该展览的策展人卡洛琳·维加在接受BBC采访时表示，狄金森住在父亲位于马萨诸塞州爱摩斯特市的房子里，尽管她的确很喜欢自己独处，但也对门外的世界有着浓厚的兴趣。
According to Vega, Dickinson was deeply connected to her world through family, friendships, and literary mentors and editors. She also read many books and was aware of the political realities that were going on around her, including the American Civil War.
Another expert gives us a clue into the appeal of Dickinson’s poems to the young. Cassandra Atherton, an Australian academic, fell in love with the writer’s work as a teenager. “Emily Dickinson was my poster girl,” she told the BBC. Atherton took it so far as to model her teenage look on the only known photograph of Dickinson. She would arrive at school dressed in white and her hair tied in a tight bun. She identified with the poet as a fellow outsider.
另一位专家则带我们领略了狄金森的诗作对于年轻人的吸引力。澳大利亚学者卡珊德拉·阿瑟顿在青少年时期爱上了这位作家的作品。“艾米莉·狄金森是我的海报女郎，”她在接受BBC采访时表示。阿瑟顿十分喜欢狄金森，甚至还在青少年时期根据狄金森唯一存世的照片打扮自己。她会穿着白衣、扎着紧紧的发髻去上学。她和这位诗人一样，在同学之中格格不入。
The title of the New York exhibition, “I’m nobody! Who are you?”, from one of her poems, tells us a little about Dickinson’s approach to life and writing. She seemed to have thought, “The less I am to myself, the more interesting the world will become.” And when reading a large proportion (比例) of the 1,800 poems she wrote, the world seems just like that – a place we thought we knew, but which Dickinson represents to us in a brand new way.
