"But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days."— Persuasion by Jane Austen
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was published #onthisday in 1813. Here’s a wood-engraved illustration by Helen Binyon depicting Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. http://ow.ly/XCX1S
Jane Austen was born in Hampshire, England 240 years ago on this day in 1775.
"It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her." --from EMMA
Emma 的中譯本，我手頭上有三本。底下的引言，2本中國的，都採用"第2卷第9章"方式。台灣的遊目族出版社( 2007)，張瑞麟先生的譯本，則是第26章---因為第1卷18章，加8是第26章。
'Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.' - Emma
The most perfect of Jane Austen’s perfect novels begins with twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominating the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people’s lives–for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, the dangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish if appealing Harriet Smith, and the ambitious young vicar Mr. Elton–and ends with her complacency shattered, her mind awakened to some of life’s more intractable dilemmas, and her happiness assured. Jane Austen’s comic imagination was so deft and beautifully fluent that she could use it to probe the deepest human ironies while setting before us a dazzling gallery of characters–some pretentious or ridiculous, some admirable and moving, all utterly true. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/6386/emma/9780679405818/
Jane Austen is one of the most widely read and revered authors of all time. Born on this day in 1775, the cult of "Janeism" has ensured her legacy
Celebrating the life and work of Jane Austen -- born in Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, England on this day in 1775.
"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment." --from "Pride and Prejudice" (1813)
No novel in English has given more pleasure than Pride and Prejudice. Because it is one of the great works in our literature, critics in every generation reexamine and reinterpret it. But the rest of us simply fall in love with it—and with its wonderfully charming and intelligent heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. We are captivated not only by the novel’s romantic suspense but also by the fascinations of the world we visit in its pages. The life of the English country gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century is made as real to us as our own, not only by Jane Austen’s wit and feeling but by her subtle observation of the way people behave in society and how we are true or treacherous to each other and ourselves. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/6400/pride-and-prejudice/
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Jane Austen died in Winchester, Hampshire, England on this day in 1817 (aged 41).
"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning." --from PERSUASION (1818)
Of all Jane Austen’s great and delightful novels, Persuasion is widely regarded as the most moving. It is the story of a second chance. Anne Elliot, daughter of the snobbish, spendthrift Sir Walter Elliot, is a woman of quiet charm and deep feelings. When she was nineteen, she fell in love with–and was engaged to–a naval officer, the fearless and headstrong Captain Wentworth. But the young man had no fortune, and Anne allowed herself to be persuaded, against her profoundest instinct, to give him up.Now, at twenty-seven, and believing that she has lost her bloom, Anne is startled to learn that Captain Wentworth has returned to the neighborhood, a rich man and still unwed. Her never-diminished love is muffled by her pride. He seems cold and unforgiving. Even worse, he appears to be infatuated by the flighty and pretty Louisa Musgrove. What happens as Anne and Wentworth are thrown together in the social world of Bath–and as an eager new suitor appears for Anne–is touchingly and wittily told in a masterpiece that is also one of the most entrancing novels in the English language.
Is there such a thing as the pandemic novel? Two new books suggest that the tumult of 2020 offered plenty of fodder. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Minneapolis bookstore owner Louise Erdrich looks at what happens when the ghost of a bookstore’s most annoying customer haunts it over the course of the year in question. (Weren’t we all a little haunted that year?) Malcolm Jones reviews her novel “The Sentence.” And Gary Shteyngart’s “Our Country Friends” looks at a pandemic bubble of friends, and the romantic and platonic entanglements that develop as they live out a version of Chekhov on the Hudson. Our reviewer is Dana Spiotta, author most recently of the novel “Wayward.”
“Dear Mama: The reason I didn’t write last Sunday was because I was out of town. My friend Pound invited me to spend Saturday and Sunday with him … His parents are very nice people and have always been exceptionally kind to me.” — William Carlos Williams
LITERATURE/URBAN STUDIES "Richard Lehan's is the first book to tackle, head-on, the way in which the city has simultaneously become a literary construct of ... ~~~~
Dec 27, 2016 - It was inspired, in part, by an epic William Carlos Williams poem. ... In his latest film, Paterson, Jarmusch takes that idea one step further.
Paterson is a poem by influential modern American poet William Carlos Williams. The poem is composed of five books and a fragment of a sixth book. The five books of Paterson were published separately in 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1958, and the entire work was published as a unit in 1963. This book is considered to be Williams' epic. Williams' book In the American Grain is claimed to be Paterson's abstracted introduction involving a rewritten American history. It is a poetic monument to, and personification of, the city of Paterson, New Jersey. However, as a whole the three main topics of the poem are Paterson the Man, Paterson the City, and Identity. The theme of the poem being centered in an in-depth look at the process of modernization and its effects.
Williams saw the poet as a type of reporter, who relays the news of the world to the people. He prepared for the writing of Paterson in this way:
I started to make trips to the area. I walked around the streets; I went on Sundays in summer when the people were using the park, and I listened to their conversation as much as I could. I saw whatever they did, and made it part of the poem.[1]
While writing the poem, Williams struggled to find ways to incorporate the real world facts obtained through his research into the poem. On a worksheet for the poem, he wrote, "Make it factual (as the Life is factual-almost casual-always sensual-usually visual: related to thought)". Williams considered, but ultimately rejected, putting footnotes into the work describing some facts. Still, the style of the poem allowed for many opportunities to incorporate 'factual information', including portions of his own correspondence with the American poet Marcia Nardi and fellow New Jersey poet Allen Ginsberg[2].
William Carlos Williams was born on September 17, 1883, in Rutherford, New Jersey. His father had emigrated from Birmingham, England, and his mother (whose mother Basque and whose father was of Dutch-Spanish-Jewish descent) from Puerto Rico. Williams attended schools in Rutherford until 1897, when he was sent for two years to a school near Geneva and to the Lycée Condorcet in Paris. On his return he attended the Horace Mann High School in New York City. After having passed a special examination, he was admitted in 1902 to the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. There he met two poets, Hilda Doolittle and Ezra Pound. The latter friendship had a permanent effect; Williams said he could divide his life into Before Pound and After Pound.
Williams did his internship in New York City from 1906 to 1909, writing verse in between patients. He published a first book, Poems, in 1909. Then he went to Peipzig in 1909 to study pediatrics, and after that retuned to Rutherford to practice medicine there for the rest of his life. In 1912 he married Florence Herman (or "Flossie"). In 1913 Pound secured a London publisher for Williams' second book, The Tempers. But his first distinctly original book was Al Que Quiere! (To Him Who Wants It!), published in Boston in 1917. In the following years he wrote not only poems but short stories, novels, essays, and an autobiography. In 1946 he began the fulfillment of a long-standing plan, to write an epic poem, with the publication of Paterson, Book I. The three following books appeared in 1948, 1949, and 1951; in 1952 he suffered a crippling stroke, which forced him to give up his medical practice and drastically limited his ability to write. Nonetheless he continued to so so, producing an unanticipated fifth book of Paterson in 1958 as well as shorter poems. He died in Rutherford in March 4, 1963. Two months later his last book of lyrics won the Pulitzer prize for poetry.
***
帕特森（Paterson, New Jersey）是美國新澤西州巴賽克縣縣治。面積22.6平方公里，2006年人口148,708人，是該州第三大城市。[1] 1831年4月11日設鎮，1851年4月14日建市。 In 1791, Alexander Hamilton helped found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.), which helped encourage the harnessing of energy from the Great Falls of the Passaic, to secure economic independence from British manufacturers. Paterson, which was founded by the society, became the cradle of the industrial revolution in America. Paterson was named for William Paterson, Governor of New Jersey, statesman, and signer of the Constitution. French architect, engineer, and city planner Pierre L'Enfant, who developed the plans for Washington, D.C., was the first superintendent for the S.U.M. project. He devised a plan, which would harness the power of the Great Falls through a channel in the rock and an aqueduct. However, the society's directors felt he was taking too long and was over budget. He was replaced by Peter Colt, who used a less-complicated reservoir system to get the water flowing to factories in 1794. Eventually, Colt's system developed some problems and a scheme resembling L'Enfant's original plan was used after 1846. L'Enfant, meanwhile, brought his city plans with him when he designed Washington, and that city's layout resembles the plan he wanted to develop for Paterson. The industries developed in Paterson were powered by the 77-foot high Great Falls, and a system of water raceways that harnessed the power of the falls. The city began growing around the falls and until 1914 the mills were powered by the waterfalls. The district originally included dozens of mill buildings and other manufacturing structures associated with the textile industry and later, the firearms, silk, and railroad locomotive manufacturing industries. In the latter half of the 19th century, silk production became the dominant industry and formed the basis of Paterson's most prosperous period, earning it the nickname "Silk City." In 1835, Samuel Colt began producing firearms in Paterson, although within a few years he moved his business to Hartford, Connecticut. Later in the 19th century, Paterson was the site of early experiments with submarines by Irish-American inventor John Holland. Two of Holland's early models — one found at the bottom of the Passaic River — are on display in the Paterson Museum, housed in the former Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works near the Passaic Falls. The city was a mecca for immigrantlaborers who worked in its factories as well. Paterson was also the site of historic labor unrest that focused on anti-child labor legislation, and the six-month long Paterson silk strike of 1913 that demanded the eight-hour day and better working conditions, but was defeated by the employers with workers forced to return under pre-strike conditions. Factory workers labored long hours for low wages under dangerous conditions, and lived in crowded tenement buildings around the mills. The factories then moved south where there were no labor unions, and later moved overseas. In 1932, Paterson opened Hinchliffe Stadium, a 10,000-seat stadium named in honor of John V. Hinchliffe, the mayor at the time. Hinchliffe originally served as the site for high school and professional athletic events. From 1933–1937, 1939–1945, Hinchliffe was the home of the New York Black Yankees and from 1935-36 the home of the New York Cubans of the Negro National League. The historic ballpark was also a venue for many professional football games, track and field events, boxing matches and auto and motorcycle racing.Abbott and Costello performed at Hinchliffe prior to boxing matches. Hinchliffe is one of only three Negro League stadiums left standing in the United States, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1963, Paterson Public Schools acquired the stadium and used it for public school events until 1997, but it is currently in a state of disrepair, while the schools have been taken over by the state. During World War II Paterson played an important part in the aircraft engine industry. By the end of WWII, however, there was a decline in urban areas and Paterson was no exception, and since the 1970s the city has suffered high unemployment rates. Once a premier shopping and leisure destination of northern New Jersey, competition from the malls in upscale neighboring towns like Wayne and Paramus have forced the big-chain stores out of Paterson’s downtown. The biggest industries are now small businesses because the factories have moved overseas. However, the city still, as always, attracts many immigrants. Many of these immigrants have revived the city's economy especially through small businesses. The downtown area was struck by massive fires several times, most recently Jan. 17, 1991. In this fire, a near full city block (bordered on the north and south by Main and Washington Street and on the east and west by Ellison Street and College Boulevard, a stretch of Van Houten Street that is dominated by Passaic County Community College) was engulfed in flames due to an electrical fire in the basement of a bar at 161 Main Street and spread to other buildings.[8] Firefighter John A. Nicosia, 28, of Engine 4, went missing in the fire, having gotten lost in the basement. His body was located two days later.[9] A plaque honoring his memory was later placed on a wall near the area. The area was so badly damaged that most of the burned buildings were demolished, with an outdoor mall standing in their place. The most notable of the destroyed buildings was the Meyer Brothers department store, which closed in 1987 and since had been parceled out.
The Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson, which are the second-highest large-volume falls on the East Coast of the United States.
Some Scholars(sic 按: 我加的，下述"sic"同。) have tried to prove that Chinese picture writing had a common origin with the picture-writing of the ancient Sumerians, that the two system (sic) followed independent lines of development, and that while the Babylonians soon abandoned, in large part, ideographic for phonetic writing, the Chinese stuck to the old System(sic).)
Before the 20th century, it was nearly impossible for a philosophically gifted woman to gain recognition.
Well, unless she was a royal or at least a duchess.
How that situation began to change, at least in Britain, is part of the story told in a new biography of four women, who became friends at Oxford during the second word war.
One of the subjects of the book is Iris Murdoch (pictured). Though she is best-known for her novels, she was also a philosophy don at Oxford for 15 years.
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms Dirge, a song of lamentation in mourning for someone's death; or a poem in the form of such a song, and usually less elaborate than anelegy. An ancient genre employed by Pindar in Greek and notably by Propertius in Latin. The dirge also occurs in English, most famously in the ariel's song 'Full fathom five thy father lies' in Shakespear's The Tempest.
我抄這段，才恍然大悟梁兄翻譯的大海，大海之作者的先生John Bayley所寫的《輓歌》（Elegy for Iris，有天下文化出版社譯本），實在有典故，都沒被翻譯和導讀人點破，因為Iris酷愛莎士比亞的Tempest。
*** 我抄的沒錯。英國文學中當然有許多人寫dirges，莎士比亞作品中的，只不過是較為出名。據M. H.Abram的The Glossary of Literature Terms，挽歌（dirge）不同於哀歌（elegy—hc:我們或聽過Thomas Gray 於1751年寫的Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard，The New Penguin Book of English Verse，p.484；美國總統甘迺迪遇刺後，名詩人Auden寫Elegy，由斯特拉文斯基譜曲）的地方，是挽歌較短、較不茍形式、並且，通常挽歌可配曲唱。除了前引的莎士比亞之「海下長眠」，還可舉William Collins的 A Somg From Shakespeare's Cymbeline.
in ''Elegy for Iris,'' his memoir of their lives together. John Bayley fell in love with Iris Murdoch when he was in his late 20's and she was in her early 30's; she passed his window on a bicycle. ''I indulged the momentary fantasy that nothing had ever happened to her; that she was simply bicycling about, waiting for me to arrive,'' he wrote. ''She was not a woman with a past or an unknown present.'' They were married in 1956; he is her only close survivor. The novelist Mary Gordon, reviewing ''Elegy for Iris'' in The Times, touched on their relationship. ''Radical privacy, sealing compartments of her life off from each other, was always a condition of Iris Murdoch's selfhood, and anyone who married her had to deal with that. From the beginning, she had friendships that she kept from Bayley, and love affairs that he was meant to understand had nothing to do with him. There are some hints that this was not always easy, but Bayley rose to the challenge.'' Ms. Gordon then quotes Mr. Bayley's memoir: ''In early days, I always thought it would be vulgar -- as well as not my place -- to give any indications of jealousy, but she knew when it was there, and she soothed it just by being the self she always was with me, which I soon knew to be wholly and entirely different from any way that she was with other people.'' Slipping Into A Baffling Darkness In 1995 Miss Murdoch told an interviewer that she was experiencing severe writer's block, noting that the struggle to write had left her in ''a hard, dark place.'' In 1996, Mr. Bayley announced that she had Alzheimer's disease, which she had suffered for five years by the time she died. Her final three weeks were spent in a nursing home. If ''Elegy for Iris'' offers a moving evocation of a great love story, it also provides a grim record of watching the personality of a loved one gradually dwindle under the burden of fear, bafflement and grief.
February 9, 1999
OBITUARY
Iris Murdoch, Novelist and Philosopher, Is Dead
By RICHARD NICHOLLS
The Associated Press
Dame Iris Murdoch in London, 1998.
ris Murdoch, a prodigiously inventive and idiosyncratic British writer whose 26 novels offered lively plots, complex characters and intellectual speculation, died yesterday at a nursing home in Oxford, England. She was 79 and had Alzheimer's disease. Her struggle with Alzheimer's was documented recently in ''Elegy for Iris,'' a memoir by her husband, the critic and novelist John Bayley, who was at her bedside when she died.
Quelle noble et grande figure que celle de ce vieux roi qui, en dépit de son âge et des souffrances d'une cruelle maladie, a voulu partager les fatigues de ses soldat !
Ce noble souverain — rappelons-le avec fierté — est attaché à notre pays par des liens très anciens déjà, et c'est chez nous qu'il a fait ses premières armes.
Venu tout jeune en France, il y fit ses études. Il était élève à l'École militaire de Saint-Cyr quand la guerre éclata en 1870. Avec une belle ardeur et un noble amour du pays qui lui donnait asile, le jeune prince s'engagea dans la Légion étrangère et il s'y comporta vaillamment. Il se distingua particulièrement à la bataille d'Orléans, pendant laquelle il défendit vigoureusement la gare des Aubrais.
« J'ai tenu à honneur, écrivait-il au ministre de la Guerre, le 6 mars 1871, que ma carrière militaire débutât sous le drapeau français, tant à cause de mes sympathies pour la France que pour reconnaître l'éducation militaire que j'ai reçu d'elle. »
Et il ajoutait :
« Je considérerai comme un des plus précieux souvenirs de ma carrière le temps que j'ai eu l'honneur de passer sous les drapeaux et, si je n'ai d'autre souvenir que le grade qui m'a été confié, la mémoire en restera néanmoins dans mes traditions de famille, où l'on retrouve, depuis de longues années, une fidèle affection envers la France, à laquelle la Serbie doit surtout depuis cinquante ans la consolidation de son autonomie et les meilleurs éléments de son indépendance. »
Cette fidélité à la France, le roi Pierre n'a cessé d'en donner les plus probants témoignages depuis que la volonté du peuple serbe l'a remis sur le trône de ses ancêtres.
On sait — et les Serbes n'ont pus manqué une occasion de le proclamer, que c'est aux méthodes et aux armes françaises que leur vaillante armée dut ses succès dans les deux guerres contre les Turcs et contre les Bulgares.
Le souverain serbe, en dépit des menées allemandes, garda toujours la plus absolue confiance dans la valeur militaire du pays pour lequel il avait naguère combattu.
En 1905, lorsque son fils, le prince Georges. atteignit sa majorité et prêta serment de fidélité à la Constitution, le roi Pierre lui montra dans un admirable langage les devoirs qu'un jour il aurait à remplir :
« Tiens toujours en honneur, lui déclara-t-il, les lois du royaume. Ainsi seulement tu gagneras les sympathie du peuple sans lesquelles chancellent ici-bas les trônes. N'oublie jamais que c'est au roi à servir son pays et non point au pays à servir son roi, Tache de devenir un bon monarque : tu mériteras alors les bénédictions de tes sujets. Souviens-toi qu'un souverain heureux ne peut exister que dans un État heureux. »
Paroles sublimes que le roi Pierre a mises en action pendant tout son règne.
Au mois de novembre de l'an dernier, la Serbie envahie par les masses autrichiennes, était près de succomber. Les munitions manquaient, Belgrade était aux mains de l'ennemi.
Quelques corps de troupes avaient donné des signes de défaillance, Le vieux roi Pierre, alors malade, perclus de rhumatismes, quitta la station thermale de Vragna où il se faisait soigner et s'en vint faire le coup de feu à côté de ses soldats.
« En deux jours, rapporte, l'auteur d'une correspondance de Serbie, par des gestes, par des paroles dites pour ces paysans-soldats, le roi a électrisé son armée, et ces hommes épuisés, harassés, démoralisés, ont repris l'offensive et ont montré un entrain et un vigoureux héroïsme. »
Le résultat, ce fut la victoire éclatante remportée par l'armée serbe sous les ordres du prince régent Alexandre, digne fils de son vaillant père.
Honneur au vaillant peuple serbe, honneur à son vaillant roi qui, par ces actes a si admirablement paraphrasé sa parole sublime: « C'est au roi à servir son pays ! »
Honneur au vaillant peuple serbe, honneur à son vaillant roi qui, par ces actes a si admirablement paraphrasé sa parole sublime: « C'est au roi à servir son pays ! »
One of the most treasured items in my personal library is a tiny volume of "little poems" entitled 憶 which 俞平伯 dedicated to his sister. The volume, the preface of which is dated in March 1922, was published in December 1925. It carries a colophone (sic) by 朱自清 and highly congenial woodcut illustrations by豐子愷. -- A little talk on little poems (小詩小語 ) by N. G. D. Malmqvist (馬悅然)， 收入"慶祝王元化教授八十歲論文集"，上海：華東師範大學出版社， 2001， pp.428-29
馬悅然（瑞典語：Nils Göran David Malmqvist，1924年6月6日－），瑞典籍漢學家。 ...《另一種鄉愁》，2002年，聯合文學，；2004年，三聯書店，此五十篇散文羅縷紀存了馬悅然與中華文化時跨半世紀、境括兩岸三地的深刻淵源。透過不朽的文字與奇思，捕捉永恆的剎那，重溯一代漢學大師的成長軌跡；循著峨嵋山的蒼鬱小徑、淹沒山坡的雲海，探訪深情鶼鰈之往日靜好歲月。身為瑞典人的馬悅然，精鍊優美地揮灑自己的第二母語──中文，情意真摯地記述自己的第二故鄉──四川，引領我們馳騁於不同的時空中，領略雋永的妙語、趣聞與哲思。
《中國歷史人物論集 耶律楚材(1189-1243):佛家的理想主義和儒家的政治》台北:正中，1973，頁257-97 (翻譯自Arthur F. Wright and. Denis Twitchett, eds., Confucian Personalities (Stanford University Press) , 1962)
Confucian Personalities. Ed. Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett [Stanford Studies in the Civilization of Eastern Asia; Stanford University Press, 1962]. Pp.x, 411. US$8.75.
《中國歷史人物論集》
目次
前言
譯者小序
價值角色人物 Arthur F. Wright, "Values, Roles, Personalities" 1-27
Mote was born in PlainviewNebraska, one of ten children. In 1943 (during World War II) he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force but was unable to go to flight school for medical reasons. Due to a college course he took in Chinese language the year before, the Air Force sent Mote to Harvard where he studied Chinese under John K. Fairbank for a year. In 1944, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (the war-time pre-cursor to the CIA) as a noncommissioned officer, serving in the China-Burma-India theater of operations till 1946. After the war he enrolled in the University of Nanjing and graduated in 1948 with a degree in Chinese history. While the Chinese Communists took over Beijing in 1949, he was working as a language officer for the U.S. Embassy. Forced to leave China in 1950, he continued his studies in the United States, earning a PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1954. He was hired by Princeton University two years later and remained there till just a few years before his death (he retired from active teaching in 1987). During the 1960s, Professor Mote was able to secure financial resources from the Rockefeller and Ford foundations so the Gest Library could obtain a valuable collection of Chinese documents. He was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in two different years. In 1980, Professor Twitchett came to teach at Princeton and the two men worked closely together for the next eight years, co-editing volumes 7 and 8 of The Cambridge History of China. Curiously, both men had been part of Intelligence agencies during World War II. In addition to his work as an editor, Professor Mote wrote 23 different chapters in the books of the series. Near the end of his life he published the massive book Imperial China 900-1800 (1999) which sums up (and in a few cases updates) Volumes 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in The Cambridge History of China series. Mote married Ch’en Hsiao-lan in China in 1950. She survived him after a marriage of 55 years. Both his students and friends called him "Fritz Mote".
The Poet Kao Ch'i, 1335–1374 (1962). Princeton: Princeton University Press. 高啟。牟復禮先生讓他成為西方最知名的明代詩人。此書的摘要台灣有翻譯本。這段我記憶有誤(！)，以為出在《中國歷史人物論集》 (Confucian Personalities)。現在可以找到吉川幸次郎的"關於高啟"，以及孫康宜在《劍橋中國文學史》 中的簡介。不，我的原先記憶沒錯。《中國歷史人物論集˙一個十四世紀的詩人——高啟》 (Confucian Personalities)，台北：中山學術+正中，1973，頁325-354。
Intellectual Foundations of China (1971). New York: Knopf.
(As translator): K. C. Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, Volume 1: From the Beginnings to the Sixth Century AD(1979). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7 - The Ming Dynasty, 1368 - 1644, Part I (edited by Mote and Twitchett) (1988)
The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7 - The Ming Dynasty, 1368 - 1644, Part II (edited by Mote and Twitchett) (1988)
Frederick Mote, key figure in advancing the study of China, dies at age 82
Posted March 10, 2005; 05:04 p.m.
by Ruth Stevens
Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies Frederick Mote, a leading scholar of Chinese history and culture, died Feb. 10 in Aurora, Colo., after a long illness. He was 82.
Mote, a Princeton faculty member from 1956 to 1987, was one of a small number of academic pioneers who were instrumental in transforming the study of China and East Asia in the United States into a mature field with high standards and a distinguished record of scholarly achievement. At Princeton, he played a major role in the development of the Department of East Asian Studies and is remembered by his colleagues and students for his broad knowledge and wise counsel.
"Professor Mote influenced and enriched the field by his erudition, his farsightedness and his constructive criticism. He influenced his students by his love, his humor and his thoughtful guidance. He is truly a scholar, a historian and a gentleman," said Hung-lam Chu, who received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1984 and is now a professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Mote became a student of Chinese history and culture after enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943. He was sent to a military unit at Harvard University and trained under two prominent Sinologists. He went to China in 1944 as a noncommissioned officer in the Office of Strategic Services. After World War II ended, he returned there and became one of the first Westerners to enroll as an undergraduate at the University of Nanjing, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1948 in Chinese history.
Mote continued his studies at the University of Washington-Seattle, and received his Ph.D. in Sinology in 1954. After spending the 1954-55 year as a postdoctoral researcher at National Taiwan University and the following year as a Fulbright Exchange Lecturer at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, he was appointed an assistant professor of Chinese history and civilization at Princeton in what was then the Department of Oriental Studies. He was promoted to associate professor in 1959 and to full professor in 1963. He twice received Guggenheim Fellowships.
Mote spent his early years at Princeton working with others to establish a rigorous Chinese language program and to improve the facilities and expand the holdings of the Gest Oriental Library. He and his colleague, Marius Jansen, a specialist in Japanese history, were key figures in the growth of East Asian studies at Princeton in the 1960s and 1970s. They secured financial support from the John D. Rockefeller and Ford foundations in 1961, the Carnegie Corporation in 1963 and the U.S. Department of Education in 1965.
That support enabled the University to acquire a wealth of new materials for the Gest Library, to establish a highly-regarded Chinese linguistics program -- which Mote directed from 1966 to 1974 -- and to add a number of new East Asian specialists to the faculty. The Department of East Asian Studies was established at Princeton in 1969.
Beyond Princeton, Mote was active in many organizations, including the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, of which he was a founding member; the Committee on Studies of Chinese Civilization of the American Council of Learned Societies, which he chaired from 1974 to 1978; the Smithsonian Council; and the Visiting Committee of the Freer Gallery of Art. From 1963 to 1965, he served as an adviser to Thailand's Ministry of Education.
Mote's scholarship focused on the political and social history of the later imperial era, with special reference to the Yuan and Ming dynasties. He wrote, edited and translated numerous books, scholarly articles and essays on subjects ranging from classical Chinese philosophy to military history and from studies of great Chinese cities to ways in which poetry, painting and other arts could be used to gain a fuller understanding of Chinese economic, social and cultural history.
He was involved in the planning and editing of the Cambridge History of China and wrote 23 entries on Ming history for the Cambridge Encyclopedia of China. His final book, "Imperial China 900-1800" (Harvard University Press, 1999), was based on a lifetime of reflection and provides a comprehensive survey of this period of Chinese history.
Hung-lam Chu, Mote's former student, also said of his adviser, "His accomplishment in integrating Chinese classical, historical, philosophical, literary, language and artistic learning for an in-depth understanding of traditional Chinese culture for a better understanding of the problems facing modern China is unique and unsurpassed. His use of poetry and literary collections for the study of the mind and sentiment of 14th- to 17th-century Chinese literati and the political and social milieu in which they lived has attained a level of achievement that his peers could only hope to have had. His last book, 'Imperial China 900-1800,' will stand as a classic of sustained learning, consummate scholarship and insightful commentary to inspire the student of Chinese history and culture for a better appreciation of China's past and a better understanding of China's present."
Students and colleagues alike spoke of Mote's generosity in sharing his broad knowledge of China. "Everything he wrote was grounded in the sources, all at his finger tips, recallable without reference to notes," said Norman Itzkowitz, professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies, who remembered first meeting Mote as a junior colleague -- although "he never made those age and academic hierarchy distinctions" -- and soon regarding him as a valued friend. He added, "Fritz will live forever in the hearts and minds of all those who had the great, good fortune to know him."
"As a principled intellect and a warm-hearted teacher, Fritz Mote helped broaden my vistas on Sinology and history and sharpen my methodological and research skills," said Hok-lam Chan, who earned a Ph.D, from Princeton in 1967 and is now a faculty member at the University of Washington and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "For this and his professional guidance, I am deeply indebted to him. He left a durable legacy of scholarship remarkable for its critical assessment, but deep love and respect of Chinese civilization, and he will be sorely missed by his students, colleagues and friends."
Mote is survived by his wife, Ch'en Hsiao-lan of Granby, Colo., a sister and six brothers. Memorial services were held in Beijing on Feb. 15 and in Taipei on March 5. A memorial symposium in Princeton is being planned for the fall and will feature a series of panel discussions on issues in Chinese history and culture.
Memorial contributions may be made to: the Frederick W. Mote Memorial Fund for the East Asian Library, c/o Dr. Tai-loi Ma, 33 Frist Campus Center, Room 317, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; or to the F.W. Mote Lecture Fund, c/o Director, East Asian Studies Program, 241 Frist Campus Center, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. Checks for both funds should be made payable to the Trustees of Princeton University.
在今日北美的中國文史研究方面，普林斯頓應該說是最具有代表性的中心之一，科門齊全而且資源充分。但與哈佛和哥倫比亞等校相 比，普大東亞研究的不同于之處在于其發展歷史較短，成立迄今不過四十多年。五十年代中，牟先生初來普大教授中國史的時候還没有獨立的東亞研究系，更談不上 有全方位的中國文史研究，連牟先生自己都是隸屬於東方語言文學系（Department of Oriental Languages and Literature）的教授。該系以近東研究為主導。1968 年東亞系的建立，以他的推動為關鍵，所以稱其為普大東亞系之父並不過份。我們今天可能已很難想像當時在美國人文學界的格局之中東西方文化比重的懸殊。雖然 牟先生是一位不折不扣的史家，但他對中國傳統的了解向來是採取文史不分家的態度。也正由於此，他和當時強調？科學化的正統西洋史學取徑不同。比如 與牟先生同時在普大任教而執西洋史牛耳的大師史東（Laurence Stone）雖然對牟先生很尊敬，但對人提到牟先生時總稱他為 expert in Chinese literature, 而不稱其為 historian。因為在史東看來，像詩人高青丘這樣的課題僅屬於文學研究的範疇，算不得是真正嚴肅的史學題目。這種區分在當今西方人文界幾乎已不存在 了，但這一詞之差卻恰恰體現出在當時的環境下，牟先生為中國文史研究創出一片天地，需要何等的自信和從容不迫的態度。有趣的是牟先生對普大東亞系建立的貢 獻與史東造就普大歷史系的貢獻真可說是旗鼓相當。牟先生對普大中國史研究的具體貢獻主要有兩方面：一是確立以古代為中心的研究方向，二是對中文教學的尊 重。如果前者還是從當時西方漢學主流發展出來的話，後者則可以說是不同流俗的創舉。他反覆強?#123;中文的教學是一切研究的基礎，而且要古漢語和現代 漢語並重。這是一種從語言學而非從西洋漢学只重書面解讀的角度来主導的中文教學法。他以前的同窗學友陳大端教授當時正在普大主持中文教學，所以牟先生得以 和陳大端在這點上通力合作。以上兩點可以說是普大迄今為止都保持了的特色。但牟先生對普大東亞研究的影響並不止此。他對普大東亞研究資源的積累作出的貢獻 同樣地意義深遠。首先是他對普大葛斯德圖書館發展的關注。雖然葛斯德圖書館在牟先生來之前就已是收藏中國文史珍本善本最有名的中心之一，但整體的圖書收藏 尚遠不及哈佛燕京等其他老牌東亞圖書館。這種情況在牟先生任教期間就完全改觀了，葛斯德的中國文史方面書籍的收藏可以說是突飛猛進，到他榮退之時，藏書的 完整和豐富都已舉世公認了。同時他又創辦了《葛思德圖書館館刊》（Gest Library Journal），現已改名為《東亞圖書館館刊》（Journal of East Asian Library），內容以研究古籍為主，並涉及東亞文史哲各領域。其次是他對普大博物館東亞文物書畫收藏的擴充。在這方面他和創立普大中國藝術史研究傳統 的方聞先生以及已故收藏家 John Elliot 同樣地有長達數十年的密切合作。而牟先生個人對於中國書畫和版本印刷等的濃厚興趣和淵博知識的修養已融入他歷史研究的視野之中，比如他寫關於元代文人隱逸 （eremitism）的社會背景和文化象徵的經典文章就是迄今研究元代士大夫藝術必需參考的作品。當然從學術體制的角度來看，牟先生對普大東亞研究最重 要的貢獻是在七十年代與校方交涉成功，將原來由校方掌控用於支持東亞研究的大筆經費移到東亞中心（East Asian Program），由和東亞研究直接有關的教授支配，這樣不但確保了未來和東亞有關的學術活動經費無虞，並使其完全獨立於學校官僚系統之外。在過去幾十年 中，這一基金不斷括充，到今天可說已使普大東亞中心和哈佛費正清研究中心一樣，是世界上東亞研究方面資本最為雄厚的機構。這和一九六八年史東成功地將 Shelby Davis 捐助給普大的大筆款項成立了名聞遐爾的戴維斯歷史研究中心有異曲同工之妙。過去的十幾年中我在普大所遇到的東西方研究東亞方面的訪問學者，幾乎無一不是由 東亞中心資助。如果沒有這一層機制上的保障，則普大東亞研究的格局恐怕會是另一番光景。
Corrections：謝謝孫教授的更正。她說她是22道菜單的書寫者，料理者是牟復禮（Frederick W. Mote，1922年-2005年）夫人陳效蘭女士。Kang-i Sun Chang 22 courses for the dinner were prepared by Mrs.Mote (I.e., 陳效兰) although I was the calligrapher who wrote down the recipe .
1. Gan Tjiang Tek 3. Jane Chen? 4. Harry Simon? 6. 周一良 7. 翦伯赞 8. Laurence Picken? 37. Jacques Gernet 43. 黄文宗（郑德坤夫人） 44. Erik Zürcher
11. Otto van der Sprenkel 13. Piet van der Loon 15. Lionello Lanciotti 45. Mrs [Hung-ying] Bryan 46. Etienne Balasz 47. 郑德坤 48. Owen Lattimore 49. Swetlana Danilovna Markova 50. 陈效兰（牟复礼夫人） 51. Hope M Wright 52. Eleanor Lattimore (Mrs Owen Lattimore) 54. John Chinnery 55. Dirk Jonker 56. Michele Ondei 57. Helen van der Hoeven 58. Mrs (Minnie) van der Loon 59. Paul L-M Serruys 67. F W "Fritz" Mote 68. Frits Vos 70. Martina Deuchler 77. Roland van den Berg 79. Lim Kok-wie 85. Robert Ruhlmann? 92. Max Kaltenmark 93. Odile Kaltenmark? 94. Odile Kaltenmark?
22. Herbert Franke 24. Robert Paul Kramers 27. Anthony (Toon) F P Hulsewé 28. Mrs Erik Zürcher 62. Wolfgang Franke 76. H C Chang（这是谁？） 95. Pandora Chang
照片中没有出现的还有费正清（John K Fairbank）和费慰梅（Wilma Fairbank）。
《中國歷史人物論集 耶律楚材(1189-1243):佛家的理想主義和儒家的政治》台北:正中，1973，頁257-97 (翻譯自Arthur F. Wright and. Denis Twitchett, eds., Confucian Personalities (Stanford University Press) , 1962)
Confucian Personalities. Ed. Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett [Stanford Studies in the Civilization of Eastern Asia; Stanford University Press, 1962]. Pp.x, 411. US$8.75.
《中國歷史人物論集》
目次
前言
譯者小序
價值角色人物 Arthur F. Wright, "Values, Roles, Personalities" 1-27
David S. Nivison, Arthur F. Wright - 1959 - History - 390 頁 AN ANALYSIS OF CHINESE CLAN RULES: CONFUCIAN THEORIES IN ACTION The purpose of this paper is to examine the clan rules in Chinese genealogies from the ...
Arthur F. Wright - 1960 - History - 390 頁 Arthur 7. Wright SUI YANG-TI: PERSONALITY AND STEREOTYPE Yang Kuang (569-618), who ruled as Yang-ti of the Sui, is of interest to the student of Chinese ...
第二篇狄培理（William Theodore de Bary, 1919-）〈理學家中的一些共同趨勢 (儒家思想之一些共同傾向)〉(Wm. Theodore De Bary, “Some Common Tendencies in Neo-Confucianism.”) 狄培理（William Theodore de Bary, 1919-2017）(舊譯:狄百瑞)，
第三篇施華慈，〈儒學思想中的一些兩極性(儒家思想之諸極)〉(Benjamin Schwartz, “Some Polarities in Confucian Thought.”)
第四篇劉王惠箴，〈中國族規的分析：儒家理論的實行(中國族規分析：儒家理論之實踐)〉(Hui-Chen Wang Liu, “An Analysis of Chinese Clan Rules: Confucian Theories in Action.”)
第五篇推傑，〈范氏義莊：1050-1760 (范氏義莊：公元1050年至1760年)〉(Denis Twitchett, “The Fan Clan’s Charitable Estate, 1050-1760.”)
第六篇楊慶堃，〈中國官僚行為的一些特色(中國官僚行為之特徵)〉(C. K. Yang, “Some Characteristics of Chinese Bureaucratic Behavior.”)
第七篇劉子健，〈中國史學中的一些官僚的分類(中國史料編纂中之官僚分類)〉(James T. C. Liu, “Some Classifications of Bureaucrats in Chinese Historiography.”)
第八篇賀凱，〈儒家思想與中國的監察制度(儒家思想與中國監察制度)〉(Charles O. Hucker, “Confucianism and the Chinese Censorial System.”)
第九篇尼米森，〈和珅與他的控訴者：十八世紀的意理以及政治行為(和珅及其控訴者：十八世紀之意識型態與政治行為)〉(David S. Nivison, “Ho-shen and His Accusers: Ideology and Political Behavior in the Eighteenth Century.”)
第十篇列文森，〈遺跡的建議性：儒家思想以及君主制度的末路(遺跡之暗示性：儒家思想與末代君主政體)〉(Joseph R. Levenson, “The Suggestiveness of Vestiges: Confucianism and Monarchy at the Last.”)
第十一篇 霍爾，〈德川時代日本的儒家導師(日本德川時代之儒師)〉(John Whitney Hall, “The Confucian
Teacher in Tokugawa Japan.”)
第十二篇 史佛利，〈元田永孚：明治天皇的儒家講師(元田永孚：明治天皇之儒家國師)〉(Donald H. Shively,
“Motoda Eifu: Confucian Lecturer to the Meiji Emperor.”)
Walter Dubois Richards was active in the 1930's. He was a printmaker, and worked extensively for advertising and magazine covers.
He transferred to New York in 1936.His Shrunken Head printed by Men Magazine (under the pseudinym Wally Richards) can be found celebrated on the WWW. With Hardie Gramatky and Stevan Dohanos he founded the Fairfield Watercolour Group in 1946.By the end of his very long life, he designed over thirty stamps for the US Postal Serrvice.
New York Times ,Review By WILLIAM ZIMMER Published: October 03, 1999 - "WHETHER high art should mingle with low art, or high culture with mass culture, seems to be a burning question these days. So the current show at Connecticut Graphic Arts Center in Norwalk is something of a timeout.
The division between these planes is almost erased when it comes to the seven-decades-long career of Walter DuBois Richards, who was a major illustrator during the golden age of advertising and mass circulation magazines, the 1930's through the 60's.
Always alongside his commercial work was his fine art; he was a painter and printmaker as well.
Mr. Richards, who is 92 and lives in New Canaan, was born on a farm in Ohio. His upbringing surely influenced his first linocuts and wood engravings in the early 1930's. From another vivid region he shows industrious people doing what most of us think of as picturesque labor: fishing and trapping lobsters in Maine. These early works are mostly marked by strong, dramatic contrasts of black and white.
And in these early works he shows a special talent for chronicling the different ways water is displaced by sailing craft, as well as the nuances of Maine's shifting weather.
These mundane occurrences continue to interest him, but he has always been congenial with mystery, even eeriness.
The Maine linocuts include a ''Roadside Evangelist'' with no potential converts in sight, and in 1935 he did a series of wood engravings illustrating ''Ethan Frome.'' A lithograph from 1968 becomes a dip into Surrealism: ''The Same Tree Twice'' is worthy of Bunuel.
And it was in Eastport, Me. that Mr. Richards studied with the especially deft lithographer, Stow Wengenroth.
Mr. Richards's lithographs are marked by a sometimes photographic clarity that is not usually associated with this medium. Patience and a light touch to which pressure can be added seem to be the key. If an industry wants anything from its advertisements, it wants its product to be seen as clearly and as detailed as possible, and Mr. Richards's mastery of lithography seems to have fed directly into his successful commercial career.
The first, subtle appearance of an advertisement in the parade, which is not always chronological, is a lithograph from 1950 titled ''Cadillac.'' A black car has stopped before an ornate, columned building in Washington (the Capitol is visible at the far right).
A man in a top hat is getting out; a similarly dressed man comes forward to meet him. This is a sales pitch, but also the makings of an intriguing story. "
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7 May 1861 in Calcutta, India. He dedicated his life to poetry, art and music, composing the Indian national anthem as well as the national anthem of Bangladesh. He started writing poetry at the age of 8. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, he became the first non-European to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Tagore was also interested in learning and educational system. His educational philosophy put emphasis on naturalism. Tagore believed that education should be imparted in natural surroundings. Photo: Portrait of Rabindranath Tagore. Bengali Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Celebration Jadavpur University Campus. Cherishsantosh via Wikimedia Commons. #Tagore160
Tagore has been called one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century and the greatest poet India has ever produced. In Our Time looks at the polymath, progressive, painter, play writer, novelist, short story writer, composer of many songs and friend of Gandhi.
Great writers often shape our impressions of a place. Steinbeck and Dust Bowl Oklahoma, for instance. Sometimes a writer might even define a place, as Hemingway did for 1920s Paris. Rarely, though, does a writer create a place. Yet that is what the Indian poet and Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore did with a town called Shantiniketan, or “Abode of Peace.” Without Tagore’s tireless efforts, the place, home to a renowned experimental school, would not exist.
Tagore produced many of his famous poems at the school, which has always been known for its arts program.
For Indians, a trip to Shantiniketan, a three-hour train ride from Kolkata, is a cultural pilgrimage. It was for me, too, when I visited last July, in the height of the monsoon season. I had long been a Tagore fan, but this was also an opportunity to explore a side of India I had overlooked: its small towns. It was in places like Shantiniketan, with a population of some 10,000, that Tagore — along with his contemporary Mohandas K. Gandhi — believed India’s greatness could be found.
As I boarded the train at Kolkata’s riotous Howrah Station, there was no mistaking my destination, nor its famous resident. At the front of the antiquated car hung two photos of an elderly Tagore. With his long beard, dark eyes and black robe, the poet and polymath, who died in 1941, looked like a benevolent, aloof sage, an Indian Albus Dumbledore. At the rear of the car were two of his paintings, one a self-portrait, the other a veiled woman. Darkness infused them, as it does much of Tagore’s artwork, unlike his poems, which are filled with rapturous descriptions of nature. As the train ambled through the countryside, Tagore’s words echoed in my head. “Give us back that forest, take this city away,” he pleaded in one poem.
The son of a Brahmin landlord, Tagore was born in Calcutta, as Kolkata was called back then, in 1861. He began writing poetry at age 8. In 1913, he became the first non-Westerner to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The committee cited a collection of spiritual poems called “Gitanjali,” or song offerings. The verses soar. “The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end,” reads one.
Tagore became an instant international celebrity, discussed in the salons of London and New York. Today, Tagore is not read much in the West, but in India, and particularly in West Bengal, his home state, he remains as popular — and revered — as ever. For Bengalis, Tagore is Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Andy Warhol and Steven Sondheim — with a dash of Martin Luther King Jr. — rolled into one. Poet, artist, novelist, composer, essayist, educator, Tagore was India’s Renaissance man. He was also a humanist, driven by a desire to change the world, which is what he intended to do in Shantiniketan. Upset with what he saw as an India that mooched off other cultures — “the eternal ragpickers of other people’s dustbins,” he said — he imagined a school modeled after the ancient Indian tapovans, or forest colonies, where young men meditated and engaged in other spiritual practices. His school would eschew rote learning and foster “an atmosphere of living aspiration.”
Equipped with this vision — and unhappy with Calcutta’s transformation from a place where “the days went by in leisurely fashion,” to the churning, chaotic city that it is today — Tagore decamped in 1901 to a barren plain about 100 miles north of Calcutta. Tagore’s father owned land there, and on one visit experienced a moment of unexpected bliss. He built a hut to mark the spot, but other than that and a few trees, the young Tagore found only “a vast open country.”
Undaunted, he opened his school later that year, readily admitting that it was “the product of daring inexperience.” There was a small library, lush gardens and a marble-floored prayer hall. It began as a primary school; only a few students attended at first, and one of those was his son. Living conditions were spartan. Students went barefoot and meals, which consisted of dal (lentils) and rice, were “comparable to jail diet,” recalled Tagore, who believed that luxuries interfered with learning. “Those who own much have much to fear,” he would say.
Shantiniketan and its school represented an idea as much as a place: people do their best learning and thinking when they divorce themselves from the distractions of urban life and reconnect with their natural environment. That’s not easy to do in India. As my train trundled past rice fields and open space, I was inundated with offers of a shoeshine, pens, biscuits, flowers, jhalmuri (puffed rice), newspapers, musical performances and a magic show that featured the transformation of a Pepsi bottle into a bouquet of flowers.
Before I knew it, the train pulled into a tiny station, and the touts and hawkers were replaced by a few young men meekly asking if I needed a taxi. We drove past a moving collage of small-town India: squat buildings, women in saris riding sidesaddle on motor scooters, men in rickshaws selling banners emblazoned with verses from the Great Poet, tailors working from sidewalk shops, a sign for the “Tagore Institute of Management for Excellence.” Fifteen minutes later, I entered the lush grounds of the Mitali inn — and exhaled. India often takes your breath away; rarely does it give it back.
After settling into my simple room, lined from floor to ceiling with books (including Tagore’s), I met the inn’s owner, Krishno Dey, a former United Nations official who returned to his native Bengal some years ago. Sitting in a portico with ceiling fans whirling, we dined on chom-chom, or mango pulp (it tastes better than it sounds).
“You’re not going to see much here,” Mr. Dey warned me, “because there’s really not much to see.”
Perfect, I thought. I had just spent three weeks in Kolkata, an unrelenting city of 13 million, and “not much” was precisely what I craved. India may have invented the concept of zero, but traveling in the country has more to do with infinity. A seemingly infinite number of people, vehicles, noises, odors, wonders and hassles. Not in Shantiniketan, thankfully, where there are just enough sights to justify a few days’ stay.
The perfect activity is to read Tagore, and that’s what I did on the veranda, where I stumbled across a poem called “The Gardener”: “Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
Tagore, who lived on campus, produced much of his poetry in Shantiniketan (and nearly all of his paintings), taught a few courses and hosted a parade of visitors that included Ramsey MacDonald, a future British prime minister, and Gandhi.
Ridiculed at first, Tagore’s new school, which he called Patha Bhavan (“a place for the wayfarer”), became a college in 1921 and attracted thousands, including a young Indira Gandhi, the Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen and Satyajit Ray, the Indian filmmaker.
“If Shantiniketan did nothing else,” Mr. Ray once recalled, “it induced contemplation, and a sense of wonder in the most prosaic and earthbound of minds.”
Today, more than 6,000 students attend the university, which is now known as Visva-Bharati. Despite a drop in academic standards, its art school is still considered one of the best in the world.
As the school grew, so did the town. Its streets are lined with stately sal trees (some planted by Tagore), tea stalls and tiny bookstores. The poems and paintings of Tagore are everywhere.
Bicycles, which outnumber cars, are the best transportation. One day, Mr. Dey lent me his clunky bike equipped with a single gear and a bell, which came in handy given that there seem to be no passive-aggressive drivers on Indian roads, only aggressive-aggressive ones. Riding under a blanket of monsoon clouds, I passed schoolgirls in crisp blue uniforms, two or three to a bike. My destination was Rabindra Bhavan, the small museum that celebrates Tagore’s life.
Built on his former estate, it consists of a clutch of bungalows separated by raked gravel. Inside the dimly lighted exhibition hall are a few handwritten pages from “Gitanjali,” Tagore’s most famous poem, and black-and-white photographs of Tagore — a few of him as a dashing young man, but most of an older Tagore with crinkly eyes, looking off into the distance.
There are photos of Tagore with Helen Keller, Freud and Gandhi. Notable for its absence is the Nobel Prize itself. It was stolen from the museum in 2004, a crime that remains unsolved and that is, some believe, emblematic of a deeper problem.
“Long before the prize was stolen, Tagore was stolen,” quipped Kumar Rana, an aid worker I met. Reminiscing about Shantiniketan’s “good old days” is a popular sport here. Everyone I met told me how the air was once cleaner, the streets quieter, the people gentler.
Later that afternoon, I strolled through the sprawling university campus, with its simple concrete buildings and rows of sal trees. In the art studios, students’ work was on display: intricate bas-reliefs of Hindu goddesses, a sculpture made from a bicycle rickshaw.
A group of students gestured to me from a dormitory balcony. I climbed some stairs and found them slumped about a simple room — perhaps not as austere as Tagore had in mind, but close. On the ledge of the balcony sat one of their assignments, a bust of a well-known artist, a Shantiniketan alumna, drying slowly in the humid air.
Tagore left Shantiniketan rarely, but when he fell gravely ill in 1941, he went to Calcutta for treatment. It was there, in his ancestral home, that he dictated his last poem. “Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything — some love, some forgiveness — then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.” Nine days later, the Sage of Shantiniketan died.
Toward the end of my stay, I encountered a baul singer alongside the road, strumming an ektara, a guitarlike instrument with a single string. He waved and I steered my bike toward him.
With their unruly hair, matted beards and saffron kurtas, the singers (baul means “crazy”) are difficult to miss. Neither Hindu nor Muslim, they are said to be insane with the love of God and wander the countryside, as they have for centuries, singing enigmatic songs about the blessings of madness and the life of a seeker. Tagore adored the bauls, and even declared himself one of them.
I sat on the ground and listened to the hypnotic music. Bauls have grown popular in recent years and, inevitably, poseurs have tried to cash in. So when another traveler, a well-off Kolkatan with an expensive camera, joined us, I asked, “Do you think he is a real baul singer?”
Clearly displeased with my question, he said after a long pause, “He’s as real as you want him to be.”
Sitting on the hard Shantiniketan earth, a breeze foreshadowing the monsoon rains, I closed my eyes, listened to the music, and asked no more questions.
IF YOU GO
Getting There
Shantiniketan is reached via Kolkata. The fastest way is by train. The Shantiniketan Express runs daily and takes about two and half hours. Round-trip fare: approximately 1,560 rupees, or about $30, at 52 rupees to the dollar, on Indian Railways: indianrail.gov.in.
Where to Stay
Mitali Homestays (91-94-3307-5853, mitalishantiniketan.com; 1,560 to 4,160 rupees, about $30 to $80, a night) is a delightful B&B run by Krishno and Sonali Dey with lush gardens, an impressive library and delicious food. They will lend you a bicycle for the day, and offer suggestions about what to do.
What to See
The Rabindra Bhavan Museum features several of Rabindranath Tagore’s original manuscripts, as well as letters and photographs. Closed Wednesdays.
What to Buy
Shantiniketan is known for its leather goods, batik prints and artwork. Visit the bustling Saturday market on the outskirts of town.
Eric Weiner, author of “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine,” is working on a book about the connection between place and genius.
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Asia and the West
Never the twain
The intellectual roots of Asian anti-Westernism
Jul 28th 2012 | from the print edition
Dreaming of doing down the overlords
From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia. By Pankaj Mishra. Allen Lane; 356 pages; £20. To be published in America in September by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; $27. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk RARELY has the prestige of the West fallen lower in Asian eyes. Seemingly endless wars and the attendant abuses, financial crisis and economic malaise have made Europe and America look less like models to aspire to than dire examples to be shunned. In response, Asian elites are searching their own cultures and intellectual histories for inspiration.
In this section
As Pankaj Mishra, a prolific Indian writer, shows in this subtle, erudite and entertaining account of Asian intellectuals’ responses to the West, much the same was true over a century ago. He defines Asia broadly, as bordering with Europe at the Aegean Sea and Africa at the River Nile. A century ago, what he calls “an irreversible process of intellectual…decolonisation” was under way across this huge region. For Mr Mishra, and many Asians, the 20th century’s central events were the “intellectual and political awakening of Asia and its emergence from the ruins of both Asian and European empires”. China and India have shaken off foreign predators and become global powers. Japan has risen, fallen and risen again. It is commonplace to describe the current century as Asia’s. Mr Mishra tells the story of this resurgence through the lives of a number of pivotal figures, as they grappled with the dilemma of how to replicate the West’s power while retaining their Asian “essence”. He pays most attention to two, both little known in the West. One, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, was like most of them “neither an unthinking Westerniser, nor a devout traditionalist”. Despite his name, and despite a tomb in Kabul restored at America’s expense, al-Afghani was born in Persia in 1838. An itinerant Islamist activist, he also spent time in Egypt, India, Turkey and Russia, railing against the feebleness and injustices of Oriental despotisms and the immorality of Western imperialism, and trying to forge a Pan-Islamic movement. He had the ear of sultans and shahs. The other main character is Liang Qichao, a leading Chinese intellectual in the twilight of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing, and the chaotic early years after it fell in 1911. Steeped in the old Confucian traditions and aghast at the weak new republic, he came to the conclusion that “the Chinese people must for now accept authoritarian rule; they cannot enjoy freedom”. Writing in 1903, however, he saw this as a temporary phenomenon. He would have been surprised to find China’s rulers today arguing much the same. Two other developments would also have surprised these men. The first is how disastrously some of the syntheses of West and East worked out: from Mao’s and Pol Pot’s millenarian communism, to al-Qaeda’s brand of Islamist fundamentalism and Japan’s replication of the worst traits of Western imperialism. Japan’s later aggression helps explain the other surprise: that in many ways the links between Asian thinkers look more tenuous now than they did a century ago. Then, men such as Liang, or Rabindranath Tagore (pictured) from Bengal, would travel to Tokyo. They would dream of a pan-Asian response to the West, inspired by Japan’s example. China is now the coming Asian power, but it is not an intellectual hub of pan-Asianism, either in Communist orthodoxy or in efforts to revive Confucianism. And the Islam of al-Afghani’s ideological heirs has made little headway in non-Muslim countries. There is one contemporary Asian phenomenon that, Mr Mishra notes, would seem far less surprising to the author’s subjects than to many present-day Westerners. That is the depth of anti-Western feeling. Millions, he writes, “derive profound gratification from the prospect of humiliating their former masters and overlords.” That prospect, however, masks what Mr Mishra concedes is an “immense intellectual failure”, because “no convincingly universalist response exists today to Western ideas of politics and economy”. The ways of the West may not be working. Yet the alarming truth, Mr Mishra concludes, is that the East is on course to make many of the same mistakes that the West has made in its time.
When she passed by me with quick steps, the end of her skirt touched me. From the unknown island of a heart came a sudden warm breath of spring. A flutter of a flitting touch brushed me and vanished in a moment, like a torn flower petal blown in the breeze. It fell upon my heart like a sigh of her body and whisper of her heart.
India's Rabindranath Tagore was the first nonwhite writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. His 1892 story, "The Kabuliwala," helped fight prejudice aganist migrants and refugees.
Ever since Greg Young became one-half of “The Bowery Boys,” the podcast about New York City history he started with his friend Tom Meyers in 2007, visitors to the Big Apple have sought out his tourism recommendations. Forgoing Manhattan, Mr. Young, an amateur historian and Missouri native, sends them to the outer boroughs, to sites that are “offbeat but still truly unique to New York City and not overrun with crowds.” And they are outdoors, a plus for the summer ahead.
A view of Manhattan from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park.
Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Young about historical sites that tell lesser-known tales about New York City.
Q.What’s one of the city’s best-preserved historical sites?
A. Roosevelt Island, in the middle of the East River, has so many treasures from the 19th century. Now a residential area, it once was where New York put its undesirable industries, its prisons, its workhouses, its mental hospitals. At the upper north corner is a great little remnant of the old mental hospital, the Lighthouse, built in the 1872. Legend has it an inmate had built a fort there to keep watch in case the British came back and took over New York.
On the south side is the ruins of a small pox hospital designed by James Renwick, who built St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the hospital looks like the most astounding Gothic castle you’ve ever seen, fenced in, all overgrowth and ruins. Next to it is the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, barely a year old, but in a way decades old. It was supposed to be built in the early 1970s, and the tram that takes you there from Manhattan was built in anticipation of it, the island itself renamed for it.
Before that, it was called Welfare Island — a very glamorous name and why no one ever went there — and was chosen specifically because of Roosevelt’s reaching out to the poor. But then New York City went bankrupt, so the park project was put on hold until recently. The city used the original plans by the architect Louis Kahn, so the park has a relic feel. It’s an absolutely gorgeous, strolling promenade monument, though not everyone is happy with the design. It’s a lot of concrete. And the views of Midtown are breathtaking.
Q.Any other places that combine views with history?
A. Many tourists take the Staten Island Ferry, which goes by the Statue of Liberty, but then they turn around and go back. But there’s a lot to do in Staten Island, the most impressive being Snug Harbor, which opened in 1833 as a community of retirement homes for elder sailors. It’s one of the largest examples of neo-Classical architecture in the United States. Very Greek in structure, it has this otherworldly feel to it. It operated as a retirement community until the 1960s, and after it sat empty for a couple of years, the city was going to rip it down.
Luckily it became a historical landmark. Now it’s a cultural hub, with a botanical garden, a couple of theaters and exhibits. But I say just go out and wander. You could spend an afternoon finding strange corners.
Q.Where do you go to discover New York’s cultural heritage?
A.Wave Hill in the Bronx. It’s the kind of big old grand manor that New York used to be studded with. Built in the 1840s, it was rented out to various people for the summer, including Theodore Roosevelt’s family when he was a boy. Starting in 1901, Mark Twain stayed out there a couple of years. This is the Mark Twain, white suit, in his glory days era.
He would sit outside and write, and during that period, he was mostly at work on his autobiography, which is coming out in parts right now. I’m such a Twain fanatic, so to go to the same place and feel the inspiration is incredible. It’s also an amazing oasis, like you’re in a Maxfield Parrish painting. It has a breathtaking view of Hudson River.
This great photographic composition highlights the changes underwent to the New York City skyline in the past 137 years, the Manhattan city-scape is often hailed as having one of the greatest skylines in the world (other candidates include Hong Kong, Chicago and Singapore) and it’s interesting to see how it once looked back in the late 1800′s. From the city’s early immigration days, passing through the era of the Great Depression, then the old World Trade Center twin towers (where the 9/11 memorial is now located) and ending up in 2013 with the new One World Trade Center joining the silhouette… Read more »
英劇《神探夏洛克》裡福爾摩斯破某個案子的關鍵是，他發現了犯罪團伙用以聯系傳遞密碼的工具是傳說中遊覽倫敦不可或缺的一本 地圖冊： London A to Z。我覺得這個故事如果換到紐約，他們需要的就不是一本地圖冊，僅僅一張地圖就夠了，比如BDE代表目標在第七大道五十三街，NQRS是時代廣場，ABCD是哥倫比亞圈，諸如此類，唯一的缺點也許是有時候會難以辨認同伴，走在紐約街頭的人，又有誰沒有一張紐約地圖呢？只是這張密碼表並非恆定不變，因為你手裡的地圖跟這個城市一樣永恆處於流動之中。剛到紐約時候我好幾次坐錯車，後來發現原來是因為朋友送我的那張地圖已經過期了，我以為會經過我家 的那兩班地鐵，一班被撤銷，一班換了線路。
In 2011, the writer Anne Hellman completed a gut renovation of a town house in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, an experience that prompted her to write a book about the borough’s buildings and spaces. “I started thinking about other houses, and it quickly became 10 and more,” Hellman said. “There were so many stories. I started reaching out to architects. By fall I was contacting neighborhood associations in Brooklyn. It was a good two years.” In “Design Brooklyn: Renovation, Restoration, Innovation, Industry” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $40), she profiles new and historical public and private spaces from all the neighborhoods in Brooklyn.Above is a sneak peek at some of the spaces she included in the book, which hits shelves Oct. 22 and features more than 150 photographs by Michel Arnaud. It’s packed with engaging back stories of Brooklyn’s homes, shops, restaurants and public institutions like Fort Greene Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center in Prospect Heights. There are also interviews with some of Brooklyn’s finest, including Mike Diamond from the Beastie Boys, who restored a brownstone not far from Hellman’s place in Cobble Hill. Because 256 pages wasn’t enough to showcase all of the grand design material she found, she started a blog last December to give voice to the 15 or so stories that were left on the cutting room floor and provide a platform for new Brooklyn design tales.
【六合文藝．美學政治】台灣商周出版社最近出版了法國激進哲學家賈克．洪席耶（Jacques Rancière）的思想奠基著作《感性配享：美學與政治》（Le Partage du Sensible: Esthétique et politique）中譯本。在原本4個篇章以外，加上作者於2009年訪台4場講座，分別為：「何謂美學？」、「政治、民主與當前」、「虛構的政治」，以及「影像的政治」，可視為其思想的補充。
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