前天课后，有学生拿一张纸条问我，让我帮忙解释这两句话：

1) Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

2) If you're looking for my husband, he's gone fishing，just walk down to the bridge until you find a pole with a worm on each side.

 

关于第一句，我记得是美国一作家的名言。

搜索一下，结果如下：

The sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and "A rose is a rose is a rose" is probably her most famous quotation, often interpreted as meaning "things are what they are," a statement of the law of identity, "A is A". In Stein's view, the sentence expresses the fact that simply using the name of a thing already invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it. As the quotation diffused through her own writing, and the culture at large, Stein once remarked "Now listen! I’m no fool. I know that in daily life we don't go around saying 'is a ... is a ... is a ...' Yes, I’m no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years." (Four in America)

Gertrude Stein's repetitive language can be said to refer to the changing quality of language in time and history. She herself said to an audience at Oxford University that the statement referred to the fact that when the Romantics used the word "rose" it had a direct relationship to an actual rose. For later periods in literature this would no longer be true. The eras following romanticism, notably the modern era, use the word rose to refer to the actual rose, yet they also imply, through the use of the word, the archetypical elements of the romantic era. It also follows the rhetoric law of thricefold repetition to emphasize a point, as can be seen in speeches dating back to the sophists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_is_a_rose_is_a_rose_is_a_rose

The line is from Gertrude Stein's poem Sacred Emily, written in 1913 and published in 1922, in Geography and Plays. The verbatim line is actually, 'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose':

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters,
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Pages ages page ages page ages.

When asked what she meant by the line, Stein said that in the time of Homer, or of Chaucer, "the poet could use the name of the thing and the thing was really there." As memory took it over, the thing lost its identity, and she was trying to recover that - "I think in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years."

Stein was certainly fond of the line and used variants of it in several of her works:

- Do we suppose that all she knows is that a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. (Operas and Plays)

- ... she would carve on the tree Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose until it went all the way around. (The World is Round)

- A rose tree may be a rose tree may be a rosy rose tree if watered. (Alphabets and Birthdays)

- Indeed a rose is a rose makes a pretty plate. (Stanzas in Meditation)

 

The meaning most often attributed to this is the notion that when all is said and done, a thing is what it is. This is in similar vein to Shakespeare's 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'.

斯泰因做为一位先锋派小说家，在文学创作中大量运用重复的手段来强调她的“持续现在时”。她在《有用的知识》（Useful Knowledge）一文中作了这样奇特的论述：“一加一加一加一加一……” 她继续这样数下去，一直达到一百。她认为这才是“一百”的真实涵义，每个“一”都是完整的独立存在。她的名言是：“玫瑰是一朵玫瑰是一朵玫瑰是一朵玫瑰。”（Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.）理解这句话如同观看一条电影胶片，片中的一系列画格中的图像几乎完全一样，然而每个画格都表达一个独立瞬间的图像，读者看到的是一个瞬间接着一个瞬间的画面的组合。

女作家用这样的文字，阐释了“白马非马，玫瑰是玫瑰”这样一个简单的命题。

玩文字游戏，这恐怕也算是高手了。

 

第二句，我认为也是在玩文字游戏，其中有几个词是多义的，如pole，worm等。

不同的理解，就有不同的阐释方式。

有趣。

 

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