Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land-克莱尔：圣地的诗歌与朝圣

作者：Herman Melville

书名：Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land《克莱尔：圣地的诗歌与朝圣》

中文背景：克莱尔：《圣地的诗歌与朝圣》（1876年）是美国作家赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的史诗，最初出版两卷。克莱尔是美国文学中最长的一首诗，长达近18000行（甚至比《伊利亚特》、《埃涅伊德》和《失乐园》等欧洲经典作品还要长）。克莱尔的作品不仅篇幅很长，而且是梅尔维尔晚年的主要作品。

英文简介：Melville’s long poem Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876) was the last full-length book he published. Until the mid-twentieth century even the most partisan of Melville’s advocates hesitated to endure a four-part poem of 150 cantos and almost 18,000 lines about a naive American named Clarel, on pilgrimage through the Palestinian ruins with a provocative cluster of companions.

But modern critics have found Clarel a much better poem than was ever realized. Robert Penn Warren called it a precursor of The Waste Land. It abounds with revelations of Melville’s inner life. Most strikingly, it is argued that the character Vine is a portrait of Melville’s friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Clarel is one of the most complex theological explorations of faith and doubt in all of American literature, and this edition brings Melville’s poem to new life.