In the summer of 1891, Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, the pair of British women who wrote under the pseudonym Michael Field, arrived in Paris to begin their grand tour of European art. They were preparing to compose their ekphrastic volume, Sight and Song, which would "translate," as they put it, selected European paintings into poetry. (1) Having recovered from a rough crossing of the English Channel, the women set out, refreshed, to start their tour by inspecting a few corpses at the morgue. In their coauthored journal Works and Days, Edith writes, Sunday June 8th The Morgue To the morgue this morning quite early in the glowing sunshine. It has been our worship; that temple of death, to us the temple of the living God. Liberte, egalite, fraternite--true there--realised--the gray marred faces within laid brotherlike freed from the mesh of life & equal at last in their destiny--bound all these voyagers for God. I saw first an old man lying very calm--the whites of his eyes giving the appearance of spectacles-- so that he looked like time lying dead in glasses--then a deeply bronzed face, full one would say of sin & experience, finally a rather kindly, commonplace fellow, gentle enough in his fixity. It is Michael's church that little morgue & he found it quite impossible to remain after-wards in Notre Dame, amide [sic] the mumbling &. the lights. God has provided for worship in the facts of life. If we will but look deep into birth &. death-- unflinchingly--accepting all the physical re-pulsion & read on through the letter of the indwelling mystery, we shall learn how to conduct ourselves between--under the tri-colour, &. with the triune Gospel written on our hearts. (2) This is a peculiar entry, even for this admittedly eccentric pair. (3) Why begin an art tour with a visit to the local morgue? Perhaps they were rehearsing the old link between anatomy and art or seeking the body in its cold, gray materiality before seeking art that celebrated the human form. Maybe they were attending a sort of "death" studio instead of a "life" modeling class. But the journal entry focuses both on artistic and on ethical questions, of how to regard the corpses, and finally what lessons to take away about the Fields's own "conduct," about how to live "between" the bare, material "facts" of birth and death. Their aesthetic adventure is grounded in a meditation on their own behavior, derived from their observations of human remains. They commit to unflinching observation under the banner of French materialism and to "reading" the text of the psyche, which they figure as a form of mystical worship. Of course, Victorian tourists had a history of visiting the Paris morgue. The morgue displayed unclaimed corpses ostensibly for purposes of identification by friends and relatives, but it drew crowds of onlookers. Featured in middle-class tour guides and essays by the likes of Frances Trollope and Charles Dickens, the morgue attracted Victorian Britons anxious to witness--and to condemn--the evidence of French decadence. Accounts by Victorian travelers typically register anxiety about the ethics of viewing dead bodies; viewers are magnetically attracted to the morgue, almost involuntarily, but wish to deny any cheap fascination with the spectacle, a motive that is usually then attributed to French observers. Thus Dickens in his account is "dragged by invisible force into the Morgue" but hurries away--he cannot bear it; the sight "costs" him. (4) Similarly, in Walter Hartwright's fictional visit to the morgue in The Woman in White, he reluctantly joins a crowd of "chattering Frenchwomen" to view Count Fosco's body. Drawn irresistibly in amid the crowd, Hartwright reports, "for a few moments, but not for longer, I forced myself to see," but then, painfully, he can describe "at no greater length": "for I saw no more." (5) The French, in many British accounts, seem unequivocally to enjoy the spectacle, while the British visitor bravely overcomes his qualms only to hurry away. …

中文翻译：

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在迈克尔菲尔德的 Ekphrastic 诗歌中观察死者

1891 年夏天，凯瑟琳·布拉德利 (Katharine Bradley) 和伊迪丝·库珀 (Edith Cooper) 这对化名迈克尔·菲尔德 (Michael Field) 的英国女性抵达巴黎，开始了他们的欧洲艺术盛大之旅。他们正准备撰写他们的 ekphrastic 卷《视与歌》，用他们的话说，这本书将“翻译”，将欧洲绘画选为诗歌。(1) 从艰难穿越英吉利海峡中恢复过来后，妇女们精神焕发，开始在太平间检查几具尸体，开始她们的旅程。在他们合着的期刊《Works and Days》中，Edith 写道， 6 月 8 日星期日 停尸房 今天早上在炽热的阳光下很早就到达停尸房。它一直是我们的崇拜；死亡之殿，对我们来说是永生神的殿。自由，平等，兄弟会——真的在那里——意识到——从生活的网格中解放出来的兄弟般的灰色受损面孔，他们最终在命运中平等——将所有这些航海者都束缚在了上帝的面前。我首先看到一位老人非常平静地躺着——他的眼白给人一种眼镜的感觉——以至于他看起来像是戴眼镜的时间已经死了——然后是一张深古铜色的脸，充满了罪恶和经历，终于是一个相当善良、平凡的家伙，他的固执足够温和。那个小停尸房是迈克尔的教堂，他发现在巴黎圣母院之后几乎不可能继续呆下去，酰胺[原文如此]喃喃自语&。灯光。上帝已经在生活的事实中提供了敬拜。如果我们深入研究出生&。死亡——坚定不移地——接受所有身体上的排斥并通读内在的神秘信件，我们将学习如何在三色下，& 之间行事。将三位一体的福音写在我们的心上。(2) 这是一个奇特的条目，即使对于这对古怪的夫妇来说也是如此。(3) 为什么要从参观当地停尸房开始艺术之旅？也许他们正在排练解剖学和艺术之间的旧联系，或者在寻找庆祝人类形式的艺术之前，在寒冷、灰色的物质性中寻找身体。也许他们正在参加一种“死亡”工作室而不是“生活”建模课程。但是这篇日记既关注艺术问题，也关注伦理问题，如何看待尸体，最后从菲尔兹自己的“行为”中吸取了什么教训，如何在赤裸裸的物质“事实”之间“生活”。出生和死亡。他们的审美冒险基于对自己行为的沉思，源于他们对人类遗骸的观察。他们致力于在法国唯物主义的旗帜下坚定不移地观察，并“阅读”他们认为是一种神秘崇拜形式的心灵文本。当然，维多利亚时代的游客有参观巴黎太平间的历史。太平间展示了无人认领的尸体，表面上是为了让亲友辨认身份，却引来围观群众。在弗朗西斯·特罗洛普 (Frances Trollope) 和查尔斯·狄更斯 (Charles Dickens) 等人的中产阶级导游和随笔中，停尸房吸引了维多利亚时代的英国人，他们急切地想要见证——并谴责——法国颓废的证据。维多利亚时代旅行者的描述通常表现出对观看尸体道德的担忧；观众几乎是不由自主地被停尸房吸引住了，但他们希望否认对这一奇观的任何廉价迷恋，这一动机通常归因于法国观察者。因此，狄更斯在他的叙述中“被无形的力量拖入停尸房”，但匆匆离开——他无法忍受；视线“花费”了他。(4) 同样，在《白衣女人》中沃尔特·哈特赖特虚构的对停尸房的访问中，他不情愿地加入了一群“喋喋不休的法国女人”，观看福斯科伯爵的尸体。在人群中不可抗拒地被吸引，哈特赖特报告说，“有一会儿，但不是更长时间，我强迫自己去看，”但随后，痛苦地，他可以描述“没有更长的时间”：“因为我再也看不到了。 ” (5) 在许多英国人看来，法国人 似乎毫不含糊地享受这一奇观，而英国游客勇敢地克服了他的疑虑，只是匆匆离开。…