It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage——tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families——in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.
Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. ——Alix Wilber
Wordsworth Classics(共187册),
这套丛书还有
《The Last of the Mohicans》《The Old Curiosity Shop》《The History of Rasselas》《Scarlet Letter》《A Midsummer Night's Dream》
等
。
对《傲慢与偏见》几个中译本的比较 1.0 文中所描述文本为简•奥斯丁小说《傲慢与偏见》(《Pride and Prejudice》)英文版本一个,用以校验,以下简称O版;中文版本四个,分别为人民文学、上海译文、译林和北京燕山版,以下分别简称A、B、C和D版。 1.1 O版 ‘If you mean Da...
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1 有用 菠萝米多惊 2009-07-17 22:07:09
高中看的第一本原版小说。傍晚,搬小板凳上到天台吹风,一直看到天黑回家吃饭。
1 有用 若昔难得 2020-11-24 17:02:43
同样是大团圆式的结局,同样是扁平人物,奥斯汀比狄更斯还是要差不少。即便要写有情人终成眷属、即便要善恶有报,也要把人最柔软最珍贵的内心展现出来,让读者感动、自省。就这一方面来说,狄更斯作得很好,奥斯汀还不够。本书几乎从头到尾都在议论别人,那我也来议论一下几位主要人物吧。伊丽莎白,勇气可嘉,但判断力欠缺;达西,拥有一颗高贵的心,但情商显然不够;简,过分温柔与包容显得懦弱;彬格莱,真诚、敦厚,可惜毫无主... 同样是大团圆式的结局,同样是扁平人物,奥斯汀比狄更斯还是要差不少。即便要写有情人终成眷属、即便要善恶有报,也要把人最柔软最珍贵的内心展现出来,让读者感动、自省。就这一方面来说,狄更斯作得很好,奥斯汀还不够。本书几乎从头到尾都在议论别人,那我也来议论一下几位主要人物吧。伊丽莎白,勇气可嘉,但判断力欠缺;达西,拥有一颗高贵的心,但情商显然不够;简,过分温柔与包容显得懦弱;彬格莱,真诚、敦厚,可惜毫无主见,倒是与简绝配;Bennet先生,孤芳自赏,宽于待己却严于责人;Bennet夫人,就一个字蠢。书末说Bennet夫人最终变聪明了,这简直是天底下最大的笑话。蠢过了中年的人绝对要蠢一辈子,如果还有什么变化,那只会越来越蠢。 (展开)
0 有用 蒋碧玉 2009-10-29 23:27:20
the felling of love
0 有用 Silvara澈 2008-10-01 17:02:40
25元购于西单图书大厦。
14 有用 [已注销] 2020-07-21 04:44:32
看过好多男的写的文学评论,嫌弃奥斯汀的小说格局小没“家国情怀”。我简直震惊了🙂这是真无知还是装傻。不知道奥斯汀那时候的女性不能单独出门,她即没有机会去旅行更不可能游历诸国,她连写小说都是偷着写怕被人发现。女性被压制在一亩三分地里,竟然被嫌格局小。我认为那个时代的女性在重压下写出这类杰作是非常了不起和有勇气的。