原诗：
ONE
From Sappho to myself, consider the fate of women.
How unwomanly to discuss it! Like a noose or an albatross necktie
The clinical sobriquet hangs us: codpiece coveters.
Never mind these epithets; I myself have collected some honeys.
Juvenal set us apart in denouncing our vices
Which had grown, in part, from having been set apart:
Women abused their spouses, cuckolded them, even plotted
To poison them. Sensing, behind the violence of his manner—
“Think I'm crazy or drunk?”—his emotional stake in us,
As we forgive Strindberg and Nietzsche, we forgive all those
Who cannot forget us. We
are
hyenas. Yes, we admit it.
While men have politely debated free will, we have howled for it,
Howl still, pacing the centuries, tragedy heroines.
Some who sat quietly in the corner with their embroidery
Were Defarges, stabbing the wool with the names of their ancient
Oppressors, who ruled by the divine right of the male—
I’m impatient of interruptions! I’m aware there were millions
Of mutes for every Saint Joan or sainted Jane Austen,
Who, vague-eyed and acquiescent, worshiped God as a man.
I’m not concerned with those cabbageheads, not truly feminine
But neutered by labor. I mean real women, like
you
and like
me.
Freed in fact, not in custom, lifted from furrow and scullery,
Not obliged, now, to be the pot for the annual chicken,
Have we begun to arrive in time?
With our well-known
Respect for life because it hurts so much to come out with it;
Disdainful of “sovereignty,” “national honor;” and other abstractions;
We can say, like the ancient Chinese to successive waves of invaders,
“Relax, and let us absorb
you.
You can learn temperance
In a more temperate climate.” Give us just a few decades
Of grace, to encourage the fine art of acquiescence
And we might save the race. Meanwhile, observe our creative chaos,
Flux, efflorescence—whatever you care to call it!
TWO
I take as my theme “The Independent Woman,”
Independent but maimed: observe the exigent neckties
Choking violet writers; the sad slacks of stipple-faced matrons;
Indigo intellectuals, crop-haired and callus-toed,
Cute spectacles, chewed cuticles, aced out by full-time beauties
In the race for a male. Retreating to drabness, bad manners,
And sleeping with manuscripts. Forgive our transgressions
Of old gallantries as we hitch in chairs, light our own cigarettes,
Not expecting your care, having forfeited it by trying to get even.
But we need dependency, cosseting, and well-treatment.
So do men sometimes. Why don’t they admit it?
We will be cows for a while, because babies howl for us,
Be kittens or bitches, who want to eat grass now and then
For the sake of our health. But the role of pastoral heroine
Is not permanent, Jack. We want to get back to the meeting.
Knitting booties and brows, tartars or termagants, ancient
Fertility symbols, chained to our cycle, released
Only in part by devices of hygiene and personal daintiness,
Strapped into our girdles, held down, yet uplifted by man’s
Ingenious constructions, holding coiffures in a breeze,
Hobbled and swathed in whimsy, tripping on feminine
Shoes with fool heels, losing our lipsticks, you, me,
In ephemeral stockings, clutching our handbags and packages.
Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking,
In need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware,
Keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
Look at man’s uniform drabness, his impersonal envelope!
Over chicken wrists or meek shoulders, a formal, hard-fibered assurance.
The drape of the male is designed to achieve self-forgetfulness.
So, Sister, forget yourself a few times and see where it gets you:
Up the creek, alone with your talent, sans everything else.
You can wait for the menopause, and catch up on your reading.
So primp, preen, prink, pluck, and prize your flesh,
All posturings! All ravishment! All sensibility!
Meanwhile, have you used your mind today?
What pomegranate raised you from the dead,
Springing, full-grown, from your own head, Athena?
THREE
I will speak about women of letters, for I’m in the racket.
Our biggest successes to date? Old maids to a woman.
And our saddest conspicuous failures? The married spinsters
On loan to the husbands they treated like surrogate fathers.
Think of that crew of self-pitiers, not-very-distant,
Who carried the torch for themselves and got first-degree burns.
Or the sad sonneteers, toast-and-teasdales we loved at thirteen;
Middle-aged virgins seducing the puerile anthologists
Through lust-of-the-mind; barbiturate-drenched Camilles
With continuous periods, murmuring softly on sofas
When poetry wasn’t a craft but a sickly effluvium,
The air thick with incense, musk, and emotional blackmail.
I suppose they reacted from an earlier womanly modesty
When too many girls were scabs to their stricken sisterhood,
Impugning our sex to stay in good with the men,
Commencing their insecure bluster. How they must have swaggered
When women themselves endorsed their own inferiority!
Vestals, vassals, and vessels, rolled into several,
They took notes in rolling syllabics, in careful journals,
Aiming to please a posterity that despises them.
But we’ll always have traitors who swear that a woman surrenders
Her Supreme Function, by equating Art with aggression
And failure with Femininity. Still, it’s just as unfair
To equate Art with Femininity, like a prettily packaged commodity
When we are the custodians of the world’s best-kept secret:
Merely the private lives of one-half of humanity.
But even with masculine dominance, we mares and mistresses
Produced some sleek saboteuses, making their cracks
Which the porridge-brained males of the day were too thick to perceive,
Mistaking young hornets for perfectly harmless bumblebees.
Being thought innocuous rouses some women to frenzy;
They try to be ugly by aping the ways of men
And succeed. Swearing, sucking cigars and scorching the bedspread,
Slopping straight shots, eyes blotted, vanity-blown
In the expectation of glory:
she writes like a man!
This drives other women mad in a mist of chiffon.
(One poetess draped her gauze over red flannels, a practical feminist.)
But we’re emerging from all that, more or less,
Except for some ladylike laggards and Quarterly priestesses
Who flog men for fun, and kick women to maim competition.
Now, if we struggle abnormally, we may almost seem normal;
If we submerge our self-pity in disciplined industry;
If we stand up and be hated, and swear not to sleep with editors;
If we regard ourselves formally, respecting our true limitations
Without making an unseemly show of trying to unfreeze our assets;
Keeping our heads and our pride while remaining unmarried;
And if wedded, kill guilt in its tracks when we stack up the dishes
And defect to the typewriter. And if mothers, believe in the luck of our children,
Whom we forbid to devour us, whom we shall not devour,
And the luck of our husbands and lovers, who keep free women.
诗的分析与解读
这首强有力的诗探讨了女性在历史、文化和社会中的复杂而不断演变的命运。它分为三个部分，每部分关注女性身份的不同方面：从历史压迫和社会刻板印象，到独立斗争，最后是女性在文学和创作领域面临的挑战。
第一部分：女性的历史与社会命运
这首诗开篇提到萨福，这位象征女性声音与创造力的古希腊女诗人，接着转向讲述者的个人反思。它强调女性如何被贴上贬义标签（“codpiece coveters”）并受到不公正的评判。诗人承认了归因于女性的历史恶习，这些恶习往往是由于她们的边缘化所导致。语气既反叛又反思，承认了严酷的标签（“鬣狗”），同时也通过对自由意志的呐喊来重新夺回主动权，经历了几个世纪的压迫。女性被描绘成既是受害者又是抵抗者，被社会角色所困，但又充满创造性的混乱与韧性。
第二部分：独立女性
这一部分聚焦于现代独立女性，她们“独立但受伤”，受到社会期望和限制的影响。它描述了为了竞争而采用男性特征（“咒骂，抽雪茄”）与仍然束缚女性的传统女性角色（“编织小鞋”，“束缚在束身衣中”）之间的紧张关系。诗歌批评了表面的外貌和社会压力，要求女性利用自己的智慧和才能（“你今天用脑子了吗？”）。提到的雅典娜，智慧女神，象征着女性智慧和力量的诞生。
第三部分：文人女性与创作斗争
最后一部分讨论了女性作家和艺术家，强调她们的历史边缘化和内心冲突。它指出了“老处女”和“已婚女独身者”的刻板印象，这些女性被困在社会角色和个人抱负之间。诗歌批评了一些女性如何内化了劣势，以及艺术如何被不公正地性别化。尽管男性主导，女性仍然创作出强大而颠覆性的作品，而男性往往未能识别。诗歌以希望的语调结束，鼓励女性拥抱真实的自我，努力工作，并在创作和个人自由中相互支持。
背景与作者介绍
这首诗反映了女性主义思想，可能受到第二波女性主义运动的启发，该运动强调女性解放、平等以及对女性在历史和文化中角色的重新评估。诗人运用丰富的文学典故——从萨福和尤维纳尔到圣女贞德和简·奥斯汀——来框定女性身份和认可的持续斗争。
作者通过坦诚且有时带有讽刺的语气，挑战传统性别规范，呼吁对女性经历的更深刻理解，超越刻板印象。诗歌的风格结合了历史批判、个人反思和文化评论，使其成为女性主义文学的重要作品。
反思与见解
阅读这首诗提供了对女性身份复杂性的深刻见解——社会期望与个人自由之间的紧张关系，女性声音的历史沉默，以及争取认可和平等的持续斗争。它鼓励读者质疑刻板印象，欣赏女性生活中固有的创造性混乱与韧性。
这首诗还促使人们反思当今女性如何继续打破限制角色，拥抱她们的全部智力和创造潜力。
教育价值与学生学习要点
学生和年轻读者可以从这首诗中学习到几个重要的教训：
- 历史意识： 了解女性角色和自由如何随着时间演变。
- 批判性思维： 分析社会刻板印象并质疑性别规范。
- 文学欣赏： 识别文学手法，如典故、隐喻和讽刺。
- 同理心与身份： 探索自我接纳、韧性和争取平等的主题。
- 女性主义文学： 了解女性主义视角及女性声音在文学和历史中的重要性。
实际应用于生活与学习
- 在课堂讨论中： 这首诗可以用来引发关于性别角色、历史和社会正义的对话。
- 创意写作： 学生可以受到启发，写下自己对身份和社会的反思。
- 个人成长： 鼓励年轻女性重视自己的智力和创造力，挑战限制性刻板印象。
- 文化研究： 帮助学生理解文学、历史与女性主义的交集。
阅读理解练习
- 诗中提到哪些历史人物来说明女性的斗争？
- 诗中如何描述“独立女性”？
- 诗人所说的女性“为自由意志呐喊”是什么意思？
- 为什么女性作家被称为“老处女”或“已婚女独身者”？
- 诗中提到雅典娜的意义是什么？
- 这首诗如何挑战传统性别角色？
- 这首诗传达了关于女性创造力和韧性的什么信息？
答案要点
- 诗中提到萨福、尤维纳尔、斯特林堡、尼采、圣女贞德、简·奥斯汀等人来说明女性的历史斗争和社会评判。
- “独立女性”被描述为强大但受限，有时为了竞争而采用男性特征，但仍受传统女性角色和社会期望的束缚。
- “为自由意志呐喊”象征着女性在历史上尽管遭受压迫，仍然坚持争取自主和自由的斗争。
- 女性作家被称为“老处女”或“已婚女独身者”，以突出她们的社会边缘化，以及个人抱负与传统角色之间的冲突。
- 雅典娜代表智慧和女性智力的诞生，鼓励女性充分利用自己的思想和才能。
- 这首诗通过批评刻板印象、揭示女性所戴的面具，呼吁智力和创造自由来挑战性别角色。
- 这首诗庆祝女性的创造力和韧性，展示了她们如何抵抗压迫并在文化中做出重要贡献，尽管面临障碍。
这首诗是理解女性身份的历史和文化维度的丰富资源，鼓励批判性思考和个人赋权。
