美国意象派诗人艾米·洛威尔传记
Amy Lowell Biography
Amy Lowell didn't become a poet until she was years into her adulthood; then, when she died early, her poetry (and life) were nearly forgotten -- until gender studies as a discipline began to look at women like Lowell as illustrative of an earlier lesbian culture. She lived her later years in a "Boston marriage" and wrote erotic love poems addressed to a woman.艾米·洛厄尔直到成年几年后才成为一名诗人；然后，当她早逝时，她的诗歌（和生活）几乎被遗忘了——直到作为一门学科的性别研究开始把像洛厄尔这样的女性视为早期女同性恋文化的例证。她晚年过着“波士顿婚姻”的生活，写过情诗写给一个女人。
T. S. Eliot called her the "demon saleswoman of poetry." Of herself, she said, "God made me a businesswoman and I made myself a poet."艾略特称她为“诗歌的恶魔推销员”，她自己说，“上帝使我成为一个商人，我使自己成为诗人。”
Background
Amy Lowell was born to wealth and prominence. Her paternal grandfather, John Amory Lowell, developed the cotton industry of Massachusetts with her maternal grandfather, Abbott Lawrence. The towns of Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, are named for the families. John Amory Lowell's cousin was the poet James Russell Lowell.艾米·洛厄尔出生于富有和显赫的地位。她的祖父约翰·艾默里·洛威尔（John Amory Lowell）和她的外祖父阿伯特·劳伦斯（Abbott Lawrence）一起发展了马萨诸塞州的棉花产业。马萨诸塞州的洛厄尔和劳伦斯镇是以这些家族命名的。约翰·艾默里·洛威尔的堂兄是诗人詹姆斯·罗素·洛威尔。
Amy was the youngest child of five. Her eldest brother, Percival Lowell, became an astronomer in his late 30s and founded Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He discovered the "canals" of Mars. Earlier he'd written two books inspired by his travels to Japan and the Far East. Amy Lowell's other brother, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, became president of Harvard University.艾米是五岁中最小的孩子。她的大哥珀西瓦尔·洛厄尔在30多岁时成为一名天文学家，并在亚利桑那州弗拉格斯塔夫建立了洛厄尔天文台。他发现了火星的“运河”。早些时候，他写了两本受日本和远东之行启发的书。艾米·洛威尔的另一个弟弟，阿伯特·劳伦斯·洛威尔，成为哈佛大学校长。
The family home was called "Sevenels" for the "Seven L's" or Lowells. Amy Lowell was educated there by an English governess until 1883, when she was sent to a series of private schools. She was far from a model student. During vacations, she traveled with her family to Europe and to America's west.这个家庭的家被称为“七个L”或洛厄尔。艾米·洛厄尔在那里接受一位英国家庭教师的教育，直到1883年，她被送到一系列私立学校。她远非模范学生。度假期间，她和家人去了欧洲和美国西部。
In 1891, as a proper young lady from a wealthy family, she had her debut. She was invited to numerous parties, but did not get the marriage proposal that the year was supposed to produce. A university education was out of the question for a Lowell daughter, although not for the sons. So Amy Lowell set about educating herself, reading from the 7,000 volume library of her father and also taking advantage of the Boston Athenaeum.1891年，作为一个出身富裕家庭的正派年轻女士，她首次登台亮相。她被邀请参加许多聚会，但没有得到那一年应该产生的求婚书。对于一个洛厄尔的女儿来说，大学教育是不可能的，尽管儿子们不可能。因此，艾米·洛厄尔开始自学，从她父亲的7000册图书馆中阅读，并利用波士顿雅典娜宫。
Mostly she lived the life of a wealthy socialite. She began a lifelong habit of book collecting. She accepted a marriage proposal, but the young man changed his mind and set his heart on another woman. Amy Lowell went to Europe and Egypt in 1897-98 to recover, living on a severe diet that was supposed to improve her health (and help with her increasing weight problem). Instead, the diet nearly ruined her health.她大多过着富有的社会名流的生活。她开始了一生的藏书习惯。她接受了求婚，但那个年轻人改变了主意，把心放在了另一个女人身上。艾米洛厄尔在1897-1998年到欧洲和埃及恢复健康，生活在一个严格的饮食，应该是改善她的健康（并帮助她增加体重的问题）。相反，节食几乎毁了她的健康。
In 1900, after her parents had both died, she bought the family home, Sevenels. Her life as a socialite continued, with parties and entertaining. She also took up the civic involvement of her father, especially in supporting education and libraries.1900年，父母双双去世后，她买下了家里的房子，Sevenels。她的社交生活仍在继续，有聚会和娱乐活动。她还接受了父亲的公民参与，特别是在支持教育和图书馆方面。
Early Writing Efforts
Amy had enjoyed writing, but her efforts at writing plays didn't meet with her own satisfaction. She was fascinated by the theater. In 1893 and 1896, she had seen performances by the actress Eleanora Duse. In 1902, after seeing Duse on another tour, Amy went home and wrote a tribute to her in blank verse -- and, as she later said, "I found out where my true function lay." She became a poet -- or, as she also later said, "made myself a poet."艾米很喜欢写作，但她写剧本的努力并没有使她自己满意。她被戏剧迷住了。1893年和1896年，她看过女演员埃莉诺拉·杜斯的表演。1902年，艾米在另一次旅行中看到杜斯后，回家用无韵诗给她写了一篇悼词——正如她后来所说，“我发现了我真正的功能所在。”她成了一名诗人——或者，正如她后来所说，“使自己成为一名诗人。”
By 1910, her first poem was published in Atlantic Monthly, and three others were accepted there for publication. In 1912 -- a year that also saw the first books published by Robert Frost and Edna St. Vincent Millay -- she published her first collection of poetry, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.到1910年，她的第一首诗在《大西洋月刊》上发表，另外三首也被接受出版。1912年，也就是罗伯特·弗罗斯特和埃德娜·圣文森特·米莱出版的第一本书的那一年，她出版了她的第一本诗集《一个彩色玻璃穹顶》。
It was also in 1912 that Amy Lowell met actress Ada Dwyer Russell. From about 1914 on, Russell, a widow who was 11 years older than Lowell, became Amy's traveling and living companion and secretary. They lived together in a "Boston marriage" until Amy's death. Whether the relationship was platonic or sexual is not certain -- Ada burned all personal correspondence as executrix for Amy after her death -- but poems which Amy clearly directed towards Ada are sometimes erotic and full of suggestive imagery.也是在1912年，艾米·洛威尔认识了女演员阿达·德怀尔·罗素。大约从1914年开始，比洛厄尔大11岁的寡妇拉塞尔成了艾米旅行和生活的伴侣和秘书。他们以“波士顿婚姻”的方式生活在一起，直到艾米去世。这段关系是柏拉图式的还是性的还不确定——艾米死后，艾达把所有的私人信件都烧掉了，作为埃米死后的执行官——但艾米明确指向艾达的诗歌有时是色情的，充满了暗示性的意象。
Imagism
In the January 1913 issue of Poetry, Amy read a poem signed by "H.D., Imagiste." With a sense of recognition, she decided that she, too, was an Imagist, and by summer had gone to London to meet Ezra Pound and other Imagist poets, armed with a letter of introduction from Poetry editor Harriet Monroe.在1913年1月的《诗歌》杂志上，艾米读了一首署名为“H.D.，Imagiste”的诗，怀着一种认同感，她认定自己也是一名意象派诗人，到了夏天，她就带着诗歌编辑哈丽特·门罗的介绍信，去伦敦见了埃兹拉·庞德和其他意象派诗人。
She returned to England again the next summer -- this time bringing her maroon auto and maroon-coated chauffeur, part of her eccentric persona. She returned to America just as World War I began, having sent that maroon auto on ahead of her.第二年夏天，她又回到了英国——这一次，她带来了一辆栗色汽车和一身栗色衣服的司机，这是她古怪性格的一部分。她在第一次世界大战刚刚开始的时候回到了美国，把那辆栗色的汽车开到了前面。
She was already by that time feuding with Pound, who termed her version of Imagism "Amygism." She focused herself on writing poetry in the new style, and also on promoting and sometimes literally supporting other poets who were also part of the Imagist movement.那时，她已经和庞德结下了仇，庞德把自己的意象主义称为“变形金刚”。她专注于用新的风格写诗，也致力于推广和有时实际上是支持其他诗人，他们也是意象派运动的一部分。
In 1914, she published her second book of poetry, Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds. Many of the poems were in vers libre (free verse), which she renamed "unrhymed cadence." A few were in a form she invented, which she called "polyphonic prose."1914年，她出版了她的第二本诗集《剑刃与罂粟籽》。许多诗歌都是自由诗，她将其改名为“无韵韵律”，还有一些是她发明的一种形式，她称之为“复调散文”
In 1915, Amy Lowell published an anthology of Imagist verse, followed by new volumes in 1916 and 1917. Her own lecture tours began in 1915, as she talked of poetry and also read her own works. She was a popular speaker, often speaking to overflow crowds. Perhaps the novelty of the Imagist poetry drew people; perhaps they were drawn to the performances in part because she was a Lowell; in part her reputation for eccentricities helped bring in the people.1915年，艾米·洛厄尔出版了一本意象派诗歌选集，随后在1916年和1917年出版了新的诗集。她自己的巡回演讲始于1915年，当时她谈论诗歌，也阅读自己的作品。她是个很受欢迎的演说家，经常对拥挤的人群讲话。也许意象派诗歌的新奇吸引了人们；也许他们被吸引到表演中，部分原因是她是一个洛厄尔人；部分原因是她古怪的名声吸引了人们。
She slept until three in the afternoon and worked through the night. She was overweight, and a glandular condition was diagnosed which caused her to continue to gain. (Ezra Pound called her "hippopoetess.") She was operated on several times for persistent hernia problems.她一直睡到下午三点，整夜工作。她超重，并被诊断出腺体疾病，导致她继续增长。（埃兹拉·庞德称她为“河马”。）她因持续性疝气问题接受了几次手术。
Style
Amy Lowell dressed mannishly, in severe suits and men's shirts. She wore a pince nez and had her hair done -- usually by Ada Russell -- in a pompadour that added a bit of height to her five feet. She slept on a custom-made bed with exactly sixteen pillows. She kept sheepdogs -- at least until World War I's meat rationing made her give them up -- and had to give guests towels to put in their laps to protect them from the dogs' affectionate habits. She draped mirrors and stopped clocks. And, perhaps most famously, she smoked cigars -- not "big, black" ones as was sometimes reported, but small cigars, which she claimed were less distracting to her work than cigarettes, because they lasted longer.艾米·洛厄尔穿着男装，穿着严肃的西装和男式衬衫。她戴着一个别针，头发通常是由艾达·拉塞尔做的，蓬帕杜式的发型使她的五英尺高了一点。她睡在一张定做的床上，正好有16个枕头。她一直养着牧羊犬——至少在第一次世界大战的肉类配给制度迫使她放弃牧羊犬之前——她不得不给客人毛巾放在腿上，以保护它们不受狗狗们多情的习惯的影响。她挂上镜子，把钟停了下来。而且，也许最著名的是，她抽的是雪茄——不是有时报道的那种“大的，黑的”的，而是小雪茄，她声称比起香烟来，小雪茄对她的工作影响更小，因为它们持续的时间更长。
Later Work
In 1915, Amy Lowell also ventured into criticism with Six French Poets, featuring Symbolist poets little known in America. In 1916, she published another volume of her own verse, Men, Women and Ghosts. A book derived from her lectures, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry followed in 1917, then another poetry collection in 1918, Can Grande's Castle and Pictures of the Floating World in 1919 and adaptations of myths and legends in 1921 in Legends.1915年，艾米·洛厄尔还大胆地与六位法国诗人进行了批评，这些诗人都是美国鲜为人知的象征主义诗人。1916年，她又出版了自己的诗集《男人，女人和鬼魂》。1917年，她出版了《美国现代诗歌趋势》一书，1918年又出版了另一本诗集，1919年出版了《坎格兰德的城堡和漂浮世界的图画》，1921年改编了神话传说。
During an illness in 1922 she wrote and published A Critical Fable -- anonymously. For some months she denied that she'd written it. Her relative, James Russell Lowell, had published in his generation A Fable for Critics, witty and pointed verse analyzing poets who were his contemporaries. Amy Lowell's A Critical Fable likewise skewered her own poetic contemporaries.在1922年的一次疾病中，她以匿名的方式写并发表了一篇批评性的寓言。几个月来她一直否认是她写的。她的亲戚，詹姆斯罗素·洛威尔，在他那一代出版了一本寓言，为评论家们写了一篇寓言，诙谐而尖锐地分析了与他同时代的诗人们。艾米·洛厄尔的一个批判寓言同样也刺伤了她同时代的诗人。
Amy Lowell worked for the next few years on a massive biography of John Keats, whose works she'd been collecting since 1905. Almost a day-by-day account of his life, the book also recognized Fanny Brawne for the first time as a positive influence on him.接下来的几年里，艾米·洛厄尔为约翰·济慈撰写了一本巨著，她从1905年起就开始收集他的作品。这本书几乎每天都在讲述范妮·布劳恩的生活，并首次承认范妮·布劳恩对他产生了积极的影响。
This work was taxing on Lowell's health, though. She nearly ruined her eyesight, and her hernias continued to cause her trouble. In May of 1925, she was advised to remain in bed with a troublesome hernia. On May 12 she got out of bed anyway, and was struck with a massive cerebral hemorrhage. She died hours later.不过，这项工作对洛厄尔的健康造成了负担。她几乎毁了视力，疝气继续给她带来麻烦。1925年5月，有人建议她因疝气而卧床休息。5月12日，她还是从床上爬了起来，被大面积脑出血击中。几个小时后她死了。
Legacy
Ada Russell, her executrix, not only burned all personal correspondence, as directed by Amy Lowell, but also published three more volumes of Lowell's poems posthumously. These included some late sonnets to Eleanora Duse, who had died in 1912 herself, and other poems considered too controversial for Lowell to publish during her lifetime. Lowell left her fortune and Sevenels in trust to Ada Russell.艾达·罗素，她的执行人，不仅烧掉了艾米·洛威尔导演的所有私人信件，而且在死后又出版了三卷洛威尔的诗集。其中包括一些写给埃莉诺拉·杜斯的晚期十四行诗，她本人也于1912年去世，还有其他一些被认为是争议太大的诗，以至于洛厄尔在有生之年无法出版。洛厄尔把她的财产和7英镑交给了艾达·拉塞尔。
The Imagist movement didn't outlive Amy Lowell for long. Her poems didn't withstand the test of time well, and while a few of her poems ("Patterns" and "Lilacs" especially) were still studied and anthologized, she was nearly forgotten.意象派运动并没有比艾米·洛厄尔活得久。她的诗没有很好地经受住时间的考验，虽然她的一些诗（特别是“图案”和“丁香花”）仍被研究和编选，但她几乎被遗忘了。
Then, Lillian Faderman and others rediscovered Amy Lowell as an example of poets and others whose same-sex relationships had been important to them in their lives, but who had -- for obvious social reasons -- not been explicit and open about those relationships. Faderman and others re-examined poems like "Clear, With Light Variable Winds" or "Venus Transiens" or "Taxi" or "A Lady" and found the theme -- barely concealed -- of the love of women. "A Decade," which had been written as a celebration of the ten year anniversary of Ada and Amy's relationship, and the "Two Speak Together" section of Pictures of the Floating World were recognized as love poetry.后来，莉莲·法德曼和其他人重新发现艾米·洛厄尔是诗人和其他人的一个例子，他们的同性关系在他们的生活中很重要，但由于明显的社会原因，他们对这些关系并不明确和开放。或是“女人”或“飘忽不定的女人”和“飘忽不定的爱”的诗句《十年》是为庆祝艾达和艾米结婚十周年而写的，而《两个在一起说》一节被认为是爱情诗。
The theme had not been completely concealed, of course, especially to those who knew the couple well. John Livingston Lowes, a friend of Amy Lowell's, had recognized Ada as the object of one of her poems, and Lowell wrote back to him, "I am very glad indeed that you liked 'Madonna of the Evening Flowers.' How could so exact a portrait remain unrecognized?"当然，这个主题并没有完全隐藏起来，尤其是对那些熟悉这对夫妇的人来说。艾米·洛厄尔的一位朋友约翰·利文斯顿·洛伊斯认出了艾达是她的一首诗的对象，洛厄尔给他回信说：“我真的很高兴你喜欢‘晚花圣母’，这么精确的肖像怎么会被人认出来呢？”
And so, too, the portrait of the committed relationship and love of Amy Lowell and Ada Dwyer Russell was largely unrecognized until recently.因此，直到最近，艾米·洛威尔和阿达·德怀尔·罗素之间的亲密关系和爱情的写照基本上还没有被人认识。
Her "Sisters" -- alluding to the sisterhood that included Lowell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson -- makes it clear that Amy Lowell saw herself as part of a continuing tradition of women poets.（By Jone Johnson Lewis）她的“姐妹们”——暗指包括洛厄尔、伊丽莎白·巴雷特·布朗宁和艾米莉·狄金森在内的姐妹情谊，清楚地表明，艾米·洛厄尔将自己视为女性诗人延续传统的一部分。
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