一百七十二年前的今天,一位年轻的诗人驾着他更年轻的轻舟,从比萨驶回雷瑞奇(Lerici),不幸遇到风雨,溺于地中海里。我说的正是雪莱,那时他还未满30岁,但是留下的丰盛作品,以长篇的《普罗米修斯之解放》、《阿当奈司》到短篇的《西风颂》、《云雀歌》,日后都成了西方文学的经典。不过雪莱还是一位饱学深思的学者,不但谙于希腊、拉丁的古典,邃于诗学,而且通晓意大利文、西班牙文、法文、德文。他对于文学批评的一大贡献,那篇一万四千字的长论《诗辩》,知者当然较少。至于他把欧陆名著译成英文多篇,这方面的成就,恐怕只有专家才清楚了。 One hundred and seventy-two years ago today, a young poet drove his younger cockpit back to Lerici from Pisa, unlucky to encounter wind and rain and drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. I was referring to Shelley when he was under the age of 30, but the rich works left behind were the long Promethean Emancipation, Adenai Si, the short Song of the West Wind, “Lark Song”, have become the classic of Western literature in the future. However, Shelley is also a well-thought-study scholar, not only familiar with Greece, Latin classical, profound poetics, but also proficiency in Italian, Spanish, French, German. His great contribution to literary criticism, the long speech about 14,000 words of “poetry debate”, of course, less known. As for his translation of English masterpieces into English, it is only the experts who have made clear achievements in this area.