Chapter 17 Chapter 15 Some Suggestions for Reading Stories, Dramas, and Poems

In the previous chapter we have spoken of the general rules for reading imaginative literature, and the same applies to imaginative literature of all kinds in a wider sense—novels, stories, whether written in prose or poetry (including epics); plays, whether tragedies , comedy or neither; lyric poetry, regardless of length or complexity. These general rules require some adjustments when applied to different works of imaginative literature.In this chapter, we will provide some adjustment suggestions.We will cover in particular the rules for reading stories, plays, and lyric poetry, and will include considerations for special issues when reading epics and the great Greek tragedies.

Before we begin, it is necessary to mention the four problems of reading a book mentioned above.These four questions are the questions that active and demanding readers must ask a book, and they should also be asked when reading imaginative literature. Do you remember that the first three questions were: First, what is the whole book about?Second, what are the details of the content?How did it manifest itself?Third, is what the book says true?All true or partly true?The previous chapter has discussed how these three rules are applied to imaginative literature.To answer the first question, you need to be able to tell the gist of a story, play or poem, broadly including action and change in the story or lyric.To answer the second question, you need to be able to identify all the different characters in the play and recount key events that happened to them in your own words.To answer the third question, is that you can reasonably judge the authenticity of a book.Is this like a story?Does this book satisfy your heart and mind?Do you appreciate the beauty that this book brings?Either way, can you explain why?

The fourth question is, what does this book have to do with me?In expository writing, to answer this question is to take some action.Here, "action" does not mean getting out and doing something.We said that when reading a practical book, the reader agrees with the author's point of view—that is, agrees with the final conclusion—obliges to act, and accepts the author's proposed method.If the expository work is a theoretical book, the so-called action is not an act of obligation, but a spiritual action.If you agree that a book like that is true, in whole or in part, you must agree with the author's conclusions.If this conclusion implies that you need to make some adjustments in your views on things, then you have to adjust your views at least somewhat.

It is now clear that in imaginative literature, the fourth and final question requires some considerable adjustment.In a way, this question has nothing to do with reading poems and stories.Strictly speaking, after you have read—that is, analyzed a novel, play, or poem—no action is required.After you have taken a similar analytical reading and answered the first three questions, your responsibility as a reader has been fulfilled. We say "strictly speaking" because imaginative literature obviously always leads readers to do all sorts of things.Sometimes a story can drive a point of view—political, economic, moral point of view—than an expository work.George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and "Animal Farm" both strongly attack totalitarianism.Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (Brave New World) is a fierce satire of the tyranny of technological progress.Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle" (The First Circle) tells us many trivial, cruel and inhuman problems of Soviet bureaucracy, which is more amazing than a hundred research reports on facts.Works like that have been banned many times in human history, for obvious reasons.EB White once said: "A tyrant is not afraid of a nagging writer proclaiming free ideas—he is afraid of a drunken poet who tells a joke and attracts the attention of the whole people."

However, the main purpose of reading stories and novels is not to take actual action.Imaginative literature can lead to action, but it is not necessary, because they belong to the realm of pure art. The so-called "pure" art is not because of "delicacy" or "perfection", but because the work itself is an end, no longer related to other influences.As Emerson said, beauty itself is the only reason for existence. Therefore, special attention must be paid to applying the last question to imaginative literature.If you are influenced by a book to get out into the open and do anything, ask yourself, does that book contain a manifesto that motivates you and moves you to action?The poet, properly speaking, is not here to make a manifesto.But many stories and poems do contain manifesto claims, they're just hidden.There is nothing wrong with noticing their thoughts and reacting accordingly.But remember, what you notice and respond to is something other than the story or the poem itself.This is the autonomy that imaginative literature itself has.To read through these literary works, the only thing you have to do is to feel and experience.

※ How to read a storybook Our first piece of advice for reading storybooks is this: read quickly and with all your heart.Ideally, a story should be read in one sitting, but for busy people, it is almost impossible to read a long novel in one sitting.The closest you can get to that ideal, though, is to squeeze the time it takes to read a good story to a reasonable length.Otherwise you might forget what happened in between, and you might miss some whole plots, and end up not knowing what you were reading. When some readers encounter a novel they really like, they will want to prolong the reading time, so as to savor it to the full and immerse themselves in it.In such cases, they may not want to satisfy their knowledge of unknown events or characters by reading novels.We'll come back to this later.

Our advice is to read quickly and with full concentration.We have said that the most important thing is to let the work of the imagination work on you.That is to say, let the character enter your mind, believe the events that happen in it, and don't doubt it if you have doubts.Don't have doubts until you understand why a character does what they do.Try to live in his world as much as possible, not yours, so that what he does is easy to understand.Unless you really try your best to "live" in such a fictional world, don't criticize it freely. In the following rules, we're going to ask you to answer the first question, which is the question you ask every book you read—what is the whole book about?Unless you can read it quickly, you won't get the gist of the whole story.If you don't read it consistently, you'll miss the details.

According to our observation, the meaning of a story exists in the characters and events.You have to be familiar with them in order to clarify the relationship between them.There is one thing to remind, take as an example, when many readers start reading this great novel, they will be confused by a bunch of characters appearing on the stage, especially those names that sound very strange.They quickly abandoned the book because they immediately thought they would never figure out how these people were related to each other.That's true of any big novel—and if it's really good, we want it to be as thick as possible.

And it's not just reading that happens to the wimpy reader.Something similar happens when they move to a new city or suburb, start a new school or start a new job, or even just arrive at a party.In such a situation, they will not give up.They know that after a while, individuals will blend into the whole, and friends will stand out from the group of colleagues, classmates and guests who cannot see their faces clearly.We may not be able to remember the names of all the people at a party, but we will remember a man we talked to for an hour, or a woman we made an appointment to see next time, or our child went to school. a parent.The same is true in fiction.We're not expected to remember every name, and many people are just background characters to set off the main character's actions.Anyway, when we finish reading or any tome, we know who the important people are and we don't forget.Although Tolstoy's works are books we read many years ago, but Pierre, Andrew, Natasha, Princess Marie, Nicholas—these names will immediately come back to our memory.

No matter how many events occur, we will quickly understand which of them are important.In general, the authors are very helpful at this point.They don't want the reader to miss the main plot, so they lay it out from different angles.But our point is this: don't be anxious even if it's not clear at first.In fact, it was not clear at first.Stories are like our lives, in which we cannot expect to know everything that happens to us, or to see the whole of our life clearly.But when we look back, we understand why.Therefore, when readers read novels, they will look back after reading all of them, and they will understand the relationship between events and the sequence of activities.

All of these come back to the same point: you have to finish reading a novel before you can talk about whether you have read the story through.In any case, paradoxically, on the last page of the novel, the story ceases to be alive.Our lives go on, the stories don't.Out of the book, those characters have no vitality.When you read a novel, before the first page and after the last page, your imagination of what will happen to those characters is no different than that of the next person reading.In fact, these imaginations are meaningless.Some people wrote prequels to Hamlet, but they were all ridiculous.When the book is over, we shouldn't ask what is the ending of Pierre and Natasha?We are satisfied with Shakespeare or Tolstoy partly because they tell the story in a certain amount of time, and our needs are no more than that. Most of what we read are storybooks, stories of all kinds.People who cannot read can also listen to stories.We even make up our own stories.Fiction, or fiction, seems to be indispensable to human beings.Why? One reason for this is that fiction can satisfy many of our subconscious or conscious needs.If it only touches the level of consciousness, like expository works, it is of course very important.But fiction is also important because it touches on the subconscious level. Put simply — and this subject gets complicated if you want to get into it — we like certain people, or dislike certain people, without really knowing why.If in fiction, someone is rewarded or punished, we all have strong reactions.We may even have a positive or negative impression of this book beyond the artistic evaluation. For example, if a character in a novel inherits an inheritance or makes a fortune, we are usually happy too.However, this only happens when the character is sympathetic—meaning we identify with him or her.We're not saying we want an inheritance too, just that we love the book. Maybe we all wish we had more love than we have now.Many novels are about love—probably most—and we feel happy when we identify with characters in love.They are free and we are not free.But we hate to admit it because it makes us feel like the love we have is incomplete. In fact, under everyone's mask, there may be some sadism or masochism in the subconscious.These are usually met in fiction, where we identify with the conqueror or the masochist, or both.In such a situation, we simply say: we like "that kind of novel"—without being too explicit about why. In the end, we always suspect that life is not fair.Why do good people suffer and bad people succeed?We don't know and can't know why, but this fact makes everyone anxious.In the story, this messy and unpleasant situation is rectified, and we find it extra satisfying. In storybooks—novels, epic poems, or plays—justice does exist.People get what they deserve.For the characters in the book, the author is like a god, rewarding or punishing them according to their actions.In a good story, in a story that satisfies us, at least this should be done.The most annoying thing about a bad story is that there is no sense in which a person is rewarded or punished.A true storyteller can't go wrong on this one.He wants to convince us that justice—what we call poetic justice—has been triumphed. The same goes for great tragedies.Terrible things happen to good people, and our heroes don't deserve such fate, but in the end they have to understand fate.And we are very eager to share his insights with him.If we knew this - we could face what we are going to encounter in the real world. "I Want to know Why" is a story by Sherwood Anderson that could also be used as the title of many stories.The tragic hero does learn why, hard of course, and only after his life has been ruined.We can share his insights without sharing his pain. In criticizing fiction, therefore, we have to be careful to distinguish between two kinds of works: one is fiction that satisfies our own particular subconscious needs—that would make us say, "I like this book, even though I don't know why. "The other is fiction that satisfies the subconscious needs of most people.Needless to say, the latter will be a great work, passed down from generation to generation, never ending.As long as a person lives for a day, such novels can satisfy him and give him something he needs—belief and understanding of justice, and calm the anxiety in his heart.We don't know and can't be sure that the real world is beautiful.But in great works, the world is more or less good.We want to live in that world of the story as often as possible, whenever possible. ※ Important points about epics In the Western tradition, the greatest glory, and the least read is the epic.Especially Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Virgil's "Aeneid", Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Milton's.The inconsistencies in it deserve our attention. It can be seen from the fact that only a small number of epic poems have been written in the past 2,500 years, this is the most difficult kind of work for human beings to write.It's not that we are unwilling to try. Hundreds of epic poems have been written, such as Wordsworth's Prelude, Byron's Don Juan, Much of it has been written, but not really finished.The poet who sticks to the job and gets it done is to be honored.And the greater glory belongs to the poets who wrote those five great books, but such books are not easy to read. And it's not just that the books are written in verse—other epics, besides being originally written in English, have exegesis in prose to aid our understanding.The real difficulty seems to be how to follow the work's escalating quest around themes.Reading any major epic puts extra demands on the reader—demanding your concentration, your full participation, and the use of your imagination.The effort required to read an epic is indeed nontrivial. Most of us don't notice just how much we lose by not putting in the effort to read.For good reading--analytical reading, shall we say--gets so much out of us, and epic poetry, at least as much as any other work of fiction, does our souls better.Unfortunately, readers who do not use their reading skills to read these epics will gain nothing. We hope that you will make up your mind and start reading these five epics, and you will gradually understand these works.If you do, we're sure you won't be disappointed.You may also enjoy further satisfaction.Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton—every good poet is their reader, not to mention the others.These five books, plus the Bible, are essential reading for any serious reading program. ※ How to read drama A screenplay is a novel, a story, and really should be read like a story.Because the script does not describe the background clearly like a novel, perhaps the reader has to be more active when reading to create the background of the world in which the characters live and move.When it comes to reading, though, the fundamental issues with both are similar. However, there is one important difference.When you read a play, you are not reading a fully finished work.A finished play (what the author wants you to grasp) is only ever performed on stage.Just like music must be able to be listened to, what reading a script lacks is the actual performance of body language.Readers must provide that performance themselves. The only way to do this is to pretend to see the show in action.So once you find out what the script is about, in whole or in part, once you can answer all the questions about the reading, you can start directing the script.Suppose you have six or seven actors in front of you, waiting for your instructions.Tell them how to say this line, how to act that scene.Explain the important sentence and show how this action brings the whole play to a climax.You're going to have a lot of fun and learn a lot from this drama. Here is an example to illustrate our idea.In Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2, Polonius informs the king and queen of Hamlet's folly, because he is in love with Ophelia, and she will hinder the prince's future.The king and queen hesitated a bit, and Polonius asked the king to hide behind the tapestry with him so as to eavesdrop on the conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia.This scene occurs in Act II, Scene II, lines 160-170 of the original text.Soon, Hamlet came to the stage reading the book, and what he said to Polonius was like a charade, so Polonius said: "He is crazy, but he has a theory of his own." After a while, the first At the beginning of the third act, Hamlet enters and delivers his famous monologue: "To live, or to die?" Then Ophelia appears before him and interrupts him.He talks to her, apparently sane, when suddenly he screams: "Ah! Ah! Are you sincere?" (Act III, Scene I, line 103).The question now is: Did Hamlet overhear Polonius' conversation with the king about to spy on him?Or did he hear Polonius say to "let my daughter seduce him"?If so, then Hamlet's conversations with Polonius and Ophelia represent the same thing.If he hadn't heard of the plot, that was another matter.Shakespeare leaves no stage directions, the reader (or director) must decide for himself.Your own judgment will be the central point of understanding the whole play. Many of Shakespeare's plays require the reader to read them actively.Our point is that no matter how clearly a playwright writes and tells us verbatim what happened, it's still well worth the effort. (We can't complain that we can't hear, because the dialogue is all in front of our eyes.) If you haven't performed a script on the mental stage, you probably haven't read it.Even if you read well, you only read part of it. As we mentioned earlier, there is an interesting exception to this reading rule, which is that the playwright cannot speak directly to the reader, as the novelist can. (Fielding's Tom Jones, which would have spoken directly to the reader, is also a great novel.) There are two exceptions, nearly twenty-five centuries apart.Aristophanes, the ancient Greek playwright of comedy, wrote some examples of the so-called "Old Comedy" that survive.Very often, or at least once, in Aristophanes' plays, the main actor breaks out of his role, even goes to the audience, and makes a political speech which has nothing to do with the play as a whole.That speech was just expressing the author's personal feelings.There are still plays that do this now and then—no useful artistic device is really lost—only they may not do so in a way that Aristophanes does. Another example is George Bernard Shaw, who not only wanted his plays to be performed, but also to be read by readers.He published all of his plays, even a copy of "Heart Break House" that came out before the show.Before the script, he wrote a long preface, explaining the meaning of the script and telling readers how to understand the play. (In the script he also included detailed stage directions.) To read a Shaw-style play without reading the Shaw-written preface is to deny the author the most important help in understanding the play. play.Similarly, some modern playwrights have followed Shaw's approach, but none can match his influence. Another piece of advice might help, especially when reading Shakespeare.We have already mentioned that when reading a script, it is best to read it in one go in order to grasp the overall feeling.However, many plays are written in verse, and since the language has changed since 1600, the sentences in verse have been rather obscure, so it is often a good idea to read the play aloud.Read slowly, as if the audience is listening to you, or read with emotion—that is, make the sentences mean something to you.This simple suggestion will help you solve many problems.Only if you still have problems after doing this, do you ask for annotations to help you read. ※ Important points about tragedy Most screenplays are not worth reading.We think it's because the script isn't complete.Scripts are not originally meant to be read—they are meant to be acted out.There are many great expository works, and there are great novels, stories, and lyric poems, but very few great plays.In any case, these few plays—the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, the plays of Shakespeare, the comedies of Moliere and a few Modern works—all very great works.For in their works are contained the depth and richness of insight which a human being can express. Of these plays, Greek tragedy is probably the most difficult for the beginner.One reason for this is that in ancient times these tragedies were performed in three acts at once, all on the same theme, but today there are no other tragedies except Aeschylus' Oresteia. There are only one-act plays left.Another reason is that it is almost difficult to mentally simulate these tragedies, since we have absolutely no idea how Greek directors staged such dramas.There is also a reason that these tragedies usually come from stories that were familiar to audiences at the time but are just a script to us.Take the story of Oedipus, although we are as familiar with that story as we are with Washington and the Cherry Tree, it is one thing to see how Sophocles interprets It is another thing to imagine the King of Kings as the main story, and then to imagine what the background this familiar story provides. Still, these tragedies are so powerful that they survive despite all the obstacles.It is important to read these plays well, because they not only tell us all about the world, but also the beginning of a literary form, which many later playwrights such as Racine and O'Neil followed based on.Here are two more suggestions that may help you read Greek tragedy. First, remember that the essence of tragedy is time, or lack of time.Given enough time in Greek tragedy, nothing is unsolvable.The problem is that there is never enough time.Decisions or choices must be made at a certain moment, and there is no time to think and weigh.For even the tragic hero is fallible—perhaps especially fallible—and makes wrong decisions.It's easy for us to see what to do, but can we see everything in the limited time we have?Keep this question in mind as you read Greek tragedies. Second, we do know that in Greek plays all tragedians wear a kind of boot that rises a few inches above the ground (they also wear masks).Actors narrating narration do not wear such boots, although they sometimes wear masks.Therefore, a comparison between the protagonist of the tragedy on the one hand and the actor who narrates the narration on the other shows a great difference.So you have to remember that when you read the narration, you have to imagine that the lines are spoken by someone your height, and when you read the lines of the tragic characters, you have to imagine that they are coming from the mouth of a big person. They are not just In terms of image, he is also taller than you in actual height. ※ How to read Lyric Poetry The simplest definition of poetry (which, like this title, is limited here) is what a poet writes.Such a definition seems simple and clear enough, but some people will still argue about it.They believe that poetry is a natural outlet of personality, which may be expressed through words, through physical actions, or through music, or even just a feeling.Of course, poetry has something to do with all of these, and poets can accept such a statement.There's a very old idea about poetry that poets have to go deep inside to create their lines.Therefore, deep in their hearts is a mysterious "fountain of creation".From this point of view, anyone can create poetry at any time, as long as they are alone and sensitive.While we all agree that this definition hits the point, we shall now use a narrower definition of poetry.No matter how much primitive poetic emotion may stir in our hearts, poetry is still composed of words, and it is assembled in a coherent and delicate way. Another definition of poetry, also contains some points.That is, poetry (mainly lyric poetry) is not genuine if it is not admiring, or evoking action (often revolutionary action), or if it is not written in verse, especially in what is called "poetic language." poetry.In this definition, we intentionally blend some of the latest and oldest theories.Our view is that all these definitions, including some that we'll mention, are too narrow.And the definition of poetry mentioned in the previous paragraph is too broad. Between narrow and broad definitions, there is a core concept that they will admit that it is poetry whenever they see fit.If we try to specify what this core concept is, we're asking ourselves for trouble, and we don't intend to.Also, we're sure you know what we're talking about.We are ninety-nine percent sure, or ninety-nine percent sure, that you will agree with us that X is poetry and Y is not poetry.This concept is enough to illustrate our topic. Many people believe they cannot read lyric poetry—especially modern poetry.They think that such poems are difficult to read, vague and complex, require a lot of attention and effort, and are therefore not worth the time spent on reading.We want to talk about two concepts: first, lyric poetry, any modern poetry, as long as you are willing to pick it up and read it, you will find that it does not take as much work as you think.Second, it's definitely something worth your time and energy to do. We're not saying you don't need to spend energy reading poetry.A good poem can be studied by heart, read over and over again, and kept in mind throughout your life.You will constantly find new ideas, new joys and revelations in poetry, new ideas about yourself and the world.What we mean is; approaching a poem, studying it, is not as difficult as you might think. The first rule of reading lyric poetry is: whether you think you understand it or not, read it in one sitting without stopping.This advice is the same as for reading other types of books, only this rule is more important for poetry than for reading philosophical or scientific treatises, or even novels or plays. In fact, many people have trouble reading poetry, especially modern poetry, because they don't know the first rule of reading poetry.Faced with Eliot, Dylan Thomas, or other "incomprehensible" modern poetry, they decide to devote themselves to it, but give up after the first line or paragraph.They do not immediately understand the line, and assume that the whole poem is like that.They shuffle through anagrams trying to reassemble the jumbled grammar, but soon they give up and conclude that they suspect modern poetry is too difficult for them to understand. It is not only modern lyric poetry that is difficult to understand.Many good poems use complex words and involve the language and thought of their time.In addition, many poems that look simple on the outside are actually very complicated in their inner structure. But any poem has an overall general idea.Unless we read it all at once, we will not be able to understand what the general idea is, and it will be difficult to discover what the basic feelings and experiences are hidden in the poem.Especially in a poem, the central idea never occurs in the first line or paragraph.That is the idea of ​​the whole poem, not in a certain part. The second rule of reading lyric poetry is: Reread it—read it aloud.We have suggested this before, for example, poetic dramas such as Shakespeare's works should be recited aloud.Read plays, that will help you understand.Reading poetry, this is the basic.When you read a poem aloud, it seems that the spoken words help you understand the poem better.If you read aloud, it is less likely to miss words that you do not understand, and your ears will protest where your eyes have missed.The rhythm or rhyme in the poem can help you highlight the place that should be emphasized and increase your understanding of the poem.In the end, you'll open up to the poem and let it work on your heart—as it should. These first two rules are more important than anything else when reading lyric poetry.We think that if a person feels that he cannot read poetry, he will find it easier if he follows the two preceding rules.Once you get the gist of a poem, even a vague one, you can start asking questions.As with expository works, this is the key to understanding. The questions posed to expository works are grammatical and logical.The problem with lyric poetry is usually one of rhetoric, or of syntax.You can't agree with a poet, but you can figure out the key words.You won't be able to tell grammatically, but rhetorically.Why do some words in the poem jump out and stare at you?Is it because of the rhythm?Or a rhyming relationship?Or is the word repeated over and over again?If several paragraphs are talking about the same concept, how are they related to each other?The answers you find will help you understand the poem.In most good lyric poetry, there is some conflict.Sometimes two opposing parties—either individuals, or symbols of imagination and ideals—appear, and the conflict between them is described.If it is written in this way, it is easy to grasp.But often the conflict is hidden, unspoken.Most great lyric poems, for example—perhaps most of all—are about the conflict between love and time, life and death, fleeting beauty and eternal triumph.But in the poem itself, these words may not be seen. It has been said that all of Shakespeare's sonnets are about the devastation wrought by what he called "the rapacious time."Some of the poems do, as he emphasizes over and over again: I have seen the cruelty of time's hand To be buried by obsolete years is the price of glory This is sonnet number 64, enumerating that time conquers all, and one wishes to fight against time.He said: The ruins make me think twice Of course there is no problem with a sonnet like the days will take my love.In the famous sentence of the 116th song, the following sentences are also included: Love is not fooled by time, though red lips and beautiful face No match for the scimitar wielded by time; Love is undistorted by fleeting hours and cycles, It will endure till the end of the day. 而在同样有名的第138首十四行诗中，开始时是这么写的： 我的爱人发誓她是真诚的 我真的相信她，虽然我知道她在说谎 谈的同样是时间与爱的冲突，但是“时间”这两个字却没有出现在诗中。 这样你会发现读诗并不太困难。而在读马维尔(Marvell )的庆典抒情诗《给害羞的女主人》(To His Coy Mistress)时，你也不会有困难。因为这首诗谈的是同样的主题，而且一开始便点明了： 如果我们拥有全世界的时间， 这样的害羞，女郎，绝不是罪过。 但是我们没有全世界的时间，马维尔继续说下去： 在我背后我总是听见 时间的马车急急逼进； 无垠的远方横亘在我们之上 辽阔的沙漠永无止境。 因此，他恳求女主人： 让我们转动全身的力量 让全心的甜蜜融入舞会中， 用粗暴的争吵撕裂我们的欢愉 彻底的挣脱生命的铁门。 这样，虽然我们不能让阳光 静止，却能让他飞奔而去。 阿契伯·麦克莱西(Archibald MacLeisch)的诗《你，安德鲁·马维尔》（You，Andrew Marvell)，可能比较难以理解，但所谈的主题却 是相同的。这首诗是这样开始的： 在这里脸孔低垂到太阳之下 在这里望向地球正午的最高处 感觉到阳光永远的来临 黑夜永远升起麦克莱西要我们想像一个人（诗人？说话的人？读者？）躺在正午的阳光下—同样的，在这灿烂温暖的当儿，警觉到“尘世黑暗的凄凉”。他想像夕阳西沉的阴影—所有历史上依次出现过又沉没了的夕阳—吞噬了整个世界，淹没了波斯与巴格达……他感到“黎巴嫩渐渐淡出，以及克里特”，“与西班牙沉人海底、非洲海岸的金色沙滩也消失了”……“现在海上的一束亮光也不见了”。他最后的结论是： 在这里脸孔沉落到太阳之下 感觉到多么快速，多么神秘， 夜晚的阴影来临了…… 这首诗中没有用到“时间”这两个字，也没有谈到爱情。此外，诗的标题让我们联想到马维尔的抒情诗的主题：“如果我们拥有全世界的时间”。因此，这首诗的组合与标题诉求的是同样的冲突，在爱（或生命）与时间之间的冲突—这样的主题也出现在我们所提的其他诗之中。 关于阅读抒情诗，还有最后的一点建议。一般来说，阅读这类书的读者感觉到他们一定要多知道一点关于作者及背景的资料，其实他们也许用不上这些资料。我们太相信导论、评论与传记—但这可能只是因为我们怀疑自己的阅读能力。只要一个人愿意努力，几乎任何人都能读任何诗。你发现任何有关作者生活与时代的资讯，只要是确实的都有帮助。但是关于一首诗的大量背景资料并不一定保证你能了解这首诗。要了解一首诗，一定要去读它—一遍又一遍地读。阅读任何伟大的抒情诗是一生的工作。当然，并不是说你得花一生的时间来阅读伟大的抒情诗，而是伟大的抒情诗值得再三玩味。而在放下这首诗的时候，我们对这首诗所有的体会，可能更超过我们的认知。