Beacon Fire and Shooting Star《还没看，先摘译一点提要》

据说作者正在自己翻译这书，09年中华就要出中译本。我刚看了Introduction，先摘抄一点，剩下的都是撮要概述，并非确译。

关于魏晋南北朝的传统观点

Wedged between Han and Tang the two energetic and enduring empires this period has traditionally considered a social and political “dark age” a stage of preparation for the brilliant accomplishments of the Tang literary masters and consequently a phase of transition an almost four-century-long hyphen between great empires.

Chapter 1 The Rule of Emperor Wu

叙述梁武帝一朝的政治文化背景，破斥传统认为齐梁皇室出身寒庶的看法，对寒人、寒士作了区分。最后一节也讨论了有关梁武佞佛的史实及其在佛教史上的影响。

Chapter 2 Mapping the Cultural World (I): Managing Texts

讨论了文学生产的物质文化运作，包括总集的编纂，汇注，遴选诸方面，同时也指出之前处于边缘的低等士族和土著南人构成了梁代的文化精英群体。

Chapter 3 Mapping the Cultural World (II): Contextualizing Taste

破斥传统文学史叙述中的派别观念。研究者一般认为梁朝文坛存在者复古，趋新和中间三派，尤其是萧统和萧纲统领的两个文人集团，其文学观点传统上认为是对立的。作者认为这种观点是帝国晚期的意识形态建构。当时文人游走于不同营垒之间，很多观点都具共识。所谓不同，不过是个人才性所偏，或者时代迁变所致。

Chapter 4 The Pleasure of the Superfluous: Palace style Poetry

讨论宫体诗，先破斥两个谬见。一是宫体诗的定义，传统认为描写宫人，闺房之物，艳情；二是选本，传统认为代表作是徐陵的《玉台新咏》。作者都表反对。

Serving no practical function in the management of the state resisting political allegory and canonization many Palace style poems are furthermore about useless superfluous objects such as dust a broken bridge and reflections in water; as such they pose a serious threat to a totalizing cultural system that demands any surplus be appropriated and contained.

Chapter 5 Illusion and Illumination: A New Poetics of Seeing

挖掘宫体诗背后蕴含的佛教教条。宫体诗是一种感受和捕捉高度个别的瞬间（highly particular moments）的诗学。这种新诗学的核心，是佛教关于念（thought instant）的观念。这一章集中讨论了一组有关灯、烛的文学文本。

The fleeting images of light and shadow observed by the court poets with fascination and intensity best illustrate the new poetics of seeing embodied in this body of literature.

Chapter 6 “Suppression of the Light”: Xiao Gang Prince and Poet

简文帝萧纲的个案研究。作者认为萧纲诗才卓异，后人毁谤颇多。

Chapter 7 The Cultural Construction of the North and South

讨论南北对比的文化建构过程，

In the Chinese cultural imagination the North and South have long been associated with a set of fixed characteristics or gender stereotype: the North is tough austere and masculine; the South soft sensuous and feminine.

包括南朝边塞诗的产生；南北双方以采莲表现“江南”的诗歌；以及南朝宫廷里的南北方民歌之保存与演唱。作者认为这是南北双方积极构建地域身份认同的结果(a consequence of the active construction of regional identities in discursive forms)。这一过程肇始于3-4世纪，其盛期却并非在南北朝晚期出现，而是在大一统的隋唐。

Chapter 8 Parting Ways

讨论南朝诗人侯景之乱后的反应。作者选取了三位作家——沈炯、颜之推和庾信，分别代表不同的个人遭际和文学风格。沈炯从北方回到南朝，他的诗赋描画了创伤（trauma）之后的故乡。由南入北的颜之推则是南朝廷臣的普遍代表：

Well educated sophisticated proud of his elite clan lineage and keen to pass on family’s cultural heritage to his descendents. To Yan Zhitui the fall of the Liang was more than just the collapse of one dynasty; it equaled the devastation of civilization itself.

但最终颜对家族延续的关切超越了对国家的责任感，他试图用一种切实理性的方式安置南朝倾颓带给他的悲伤。

In many ways Yan Zhitui was writings provide the perfect foil for those of Yu Xin. If Yan Zhitui was prosaic in his sentiments and in his choice of literary median Yu Xin was the quintessential poet.

在北周位望通显的庾信，却似乎从来没有像颜之推那样无奈地接受南朝灭亡的命运，那对他来说，是一个结。

Taken together Shen Jiong’s Yan Zhitui’s and Yu Xin’s writings speak eloquently to us of personal human tragedies against a vast canvas of war destruction and displacement.

Epilogue The Aftermath and the Romanticization of the Liang

梁代在后代的形象—忧郁，肉感，颓废—其实是晚唐的想象。梁代特有的东西，不是颓废，而是一种蓬勃饱满的精神，深深地迷恋着初始和新变。

The Epilogue “The Aftermath and the Roamnticization of the Liang” looks at how the Liang was romanticized during the Tang and how the most enduring image of the Liang—melancholy sensuous and decadent—was in fact fashioned by the late Tang poets and reflects the cultural ambience of the late Tang rather than of the Liang dynasty itself. The Liang was an energetic era characterized not by decadence but by a robust spirit fascinated with beginning and innovations.

案：个人认为尾声倒是全书的华彩，特别欣赏作者对梁代的概括(a robust spirit)。我一直坚信，在文化上，南朝不是死路，而是起飞。

书名取自庾信《拟咏怀》第十二，“流星夕照境，烽火夜烧原”。在庾信看来，南朝是一片逐渐变暗的土地，一瞬间被一种摄人的美丽点亮。后人的研究，也不过是在历史远去的暗夜里，寻找诗语中瞬间的微光。周遭被战乱与毁灭裹挟着，庾信的对句让人想起烛光，远为脆弱，微小的烛光。它代表着人类为了日常的生活而驱赶黑暗的一点点脆弱的努力。