兰斯顿·休斯在20世纪20年代的哈莱姆
A poet, novelist, and playwright, Langston Hughes was one of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance. In the following passage from his autobiography, The Big Sea, Hughes describes how Harlem became a tourist destination for white New Yorkers during the 1920s.兰斯顿·休斯是一位诗人、小说家和剧作家,是哈莱姆文艺复兴时期的主要人物之一。在自传《大海》的下面一段中,休斯描述了20世纪20年代哈莱姆区如何成为纽约白人的旅游胜地。
Notice how his predominately paratactic style (along with his reliance on series in paragraphs four and five) gives the writing a casual, conversational flavor. (For another perspective on Harlem in the 1920s, see "The Making of Harlem," by James Weldon Johnson.)注意他主要的意合式风格(以及他对第四段和第五段中的系列的依赖)是如何赋予写作一种随意、对话的味道的。(关于20世纪20年代哈莱姆区的另一种观点,请参阅詹姆斯·韦尔登·约翰逊的《哈林的形成》)
When the Negro Was in Vogue
from The Big Sea* by Langston Hughes
White people began to come to Harlem in droves. For several years they packed the expensive Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites. They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community. Nor did ordinary Negroes like the growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang, and where now the strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers--like amusing animals in a zoo.白人开始成群结队地来到哈林区。几年来,他们把勒诺克斯大街上昂贵的棉花俱乐部打包了。但我从未去过那里,因为棉花俱乐部是一个黑帮和白种人聚集的俱乐部。他们不喜欢黑人的赞助,除非你是像博詹格尔斯那样的名人。因此,哈莱姆区的黑人不喜欢棉花俱乐部,也从来没有欣赏过它在黑人社区核心的吉姆·克劳政策。普通的黑人也不喜欢日落后越来越多的白人涌入哈莱姆区,充斥着以前只有有色人种欢笑和唱歌的小歌舞厅和酒吧,现在陌生人被安排在最好的桌前桌旁,坐在那里盯着黑人顾客——就像动物园里有趣的动物一样。
The Negroes said: "We can't go downtown and sit and stare at you in your clubs. You won't even let us in your clubs." But they didn't say it out loud--for Negroes are practically never rude to white people. So thousands of whites came to Harlem night after night, thinking the Negroes loved to have them there, and firmly believing that all Harlemites left their houses at sundown to sing and dance in cabarets, because most of the whites saw nothing but the cabarets, not the houses.黑人说:“我们不能去市中心,坐在你的俱乐部里盯着你看。但他们没有大声说出来,因为黑人对白人几乎从不粗鲁。因此,成千上万的白人夜夜来到哈莱姆区,以为黑人喜欢他们在那里,并坚信所有的哈莱姆区人在日落时分都会离开他们的房子去歌舞厅唱歌跳舞,因为大多数白人只看到了歌舞厅,而不是房子。
Some of the owners of Harlem clubs, delighted at the flood of white patronage, made the grievous error of barring their own race, after the manner of the famous Cotton Club. But most of these quickly lost business and folded up, because they failed to realize that a large part of the Harlem attraction for downtown New Yorkers lay in simply watching the colored customers amuse themselves. And the smaller clubs, of course, had no big floor shows or a name band like the Cotton Club, where Duke Ellington usually held forth, so, without black patronage, they were not amusing at all.哈莱姆区俱乐部的一些老板,对大量的白人光顾感到高兴,他们犯了一个严重的错误,按照著名的棉花俱乐部的方式,禁止自己的种族。但这些人中的大多数很快就失去了生意,倒闭了,因为他们没有意识到,哈莱姆区吸引纽约市中心居民的一大原因,就是仅仅是看着有色人种的顾客自娱自乐。当然,较小的俱乐部没有大型的舞台表演,也没有像艾灵顿公爵经常举办的棉花俱乐部那样的名牌乐队,因此,没有黑人的赞助,它们一点也不好玩。
Some of the small clubs, however, had people like Gladys Bentley, who was something worth discovering in those days, before she got famous, acquired an accompanist, specially written material, and conscious vulgarity. But for two or three amazing years, Miss Bentley sat, and played a big piano all night long, literally all night, without stopping--singing songs like "St. James Infirmary," from ten in the evening until dawn, with scarcely a break between the notes, sliding from one song to another, with a powerful and continuous under beat of jungle rhythm. Miss Bentley was an amazing exhibition of musical energy--a large, dark, masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor while her fingers pounded the keyboard--a perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm. . . .然而,有些小俱乐部有像格拉迪斯·本特利这样的人,在她成名之前,她有一个值得发现的东西,在她成名之前,获得了一个伴奏,特别是书面材料和自觉的粗俗。但是有两三年的神奇时光,宾利小姐坐在那里,整晚不停地弹着一架大钢琴,从晚上十点一直唱到天亮,像《圣詹姆斯疗养院》这样的歌,几乎没有一个音符间的停顿,从一首歌滑到另一首,伴随着强烈而持续的丛林节奏。宾利小姐是一个音乐能量的惊人展示——一个身材高大、黝黑、男性化的女士,她的脚在地板上敲击,手指在敲击键盘——一件完美的非洲雕塑作品,以她自己的节奏为动画片。
But when the place where she played became too well known, she began to sing with an accompanist, became a star, moved to a larger place, then downtown, and is now in Hollywood. The old magic of the woman and the piano and the night and the rhythm being one is gone. But everything goes, one way or the other. The '20s are gone and lots of fine things in Harlem night life have disappeared like snow in the sun--since it became utterly commercial, planned for the downtown tourist trade, and therefore dull.(By Richard Nordquist)但当她演奏的地方变得太出名了,她开始和伴奏者一起唱歌,成为一个明星,搬到一个更大的地方,然后是市中心,现在是在好莱坞。女人和钢琴、黑夜和节奏合一的古老魔力已不复存在。但不管怎样,一切都是这样。20年代已经过去了,许多美好的东西在哈莱姆区的夜生活中消失得无影无踪,因为它完全商业化了,计划在市中心进行旅游贸易,因此变得枯燥无味。
美国哈莱姆文艺复兴
兰斯顿休斯
Zora Neal Hurston
路易斯阿姆斯特朗
棉花俱乐部
保罗罗伯森
约瑟芬贝克
亚伦道格拉斯
哈莱姆文艺复兴结束
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