加拿大曼尼托巴大学Warren Cariou教授讲座
5月28日晚来自加拿大曼尼托巴大学的Warren Cariou博士在诚意楼206教室做了题为“威廉·布莱克的意图与对立”的讲座。
Dr. Warren Cariou对威廉·布莱克进行过四年深刻的研究，并以此撰写博士毕业论文。Dr. Warren首先对威廉·布莱克做了简单的介绍。威廉·布莱克是英国浪漫主义画家、诗人兼雕刻家。他的诗歌创作并配有他自己的插图出版。Dr. Warren结合作品的插图，对《天真之歌》、《经验之歌》、《天堂与地狱的联姻》、《虎》等从作品中意图与对立两方面进行了深刻的讲解。其中还着重讲解了作品中身份的突出和强调。尽管讲座本身有些抽象，开始理解起来稍有难度，但是Dr. Warren 声情并茂,引经据典,使讲座深入浅出,同学们开阔了视野,亦受益匪浅,对威廉·布莱克的玄妙晦涩的作品有了更深一步的了解和领悟。
Dr. Warren Cariou’s Lecture on William Blake: Intention and Contrariety
Professor Warren Cariou from Manitoba University of Canada gave us a very brilliant lecture on May 28, 2007 in Chengyi Building Room 206. The lecture is about the well-known British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver— William Blake (1757—1827) with the title “William Blake------Intention and Contrariety.”
Professor Warren Cariou got his Ph. D. in 1998 from The University of Toronto. His dissertation title is “Mixed Media: Intention and Contrariety in Blake’s Composite Art.” With his profound knowledge of William Blake, Professor Cariou conducted an excellent lecture. He outlined the thoughts of Blake and major themes of his work. Many illustrations and engravings made by Blake himself for his works were presented in the lecture, which help the audience to understand him better. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. He put forward the idea of contrariety, to wit, the opposition of ideas. The writer has certain intentions, but then these intentions might be understood otherwise by the reader. Blake believed that without Contraries is no progression, and that Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
In order to have more creative control, Blake emphasized the line as a boundary. Blake saw the bounding line as the source of an artist’s power. The line can “bound” off the page. However, the line is also contrary. “Bounding” also means “to bind down or restrict”. He wrote: “Leave out this l[i]ne and you leave out life itself”. The artist must struggle with the line in order to imbue it with his or her intentions. But the line always remains contrary, which means that it can distort or reverse the artist’s intentions.
Blake was something of a rebel in his time, heretic and sexually liberal. He joined for a time the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in London and considered Newtonian science to be superstitious nonsense. For his recondite thoughts, Blake was not understood at his time. Misunderstanding shadowed his career as a writer and artist and it was left to later generations to recognize his importance. Many writers have claimed indebtedness to him, among whom was the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Dualistic philosophers, and deconstructionist critics.
Through the lecture the students get a better understanding of William Blake and his works.
By Tammy (Wei Xiujuan)
