第1个回答 2016-05-09
The Old Man and the Sea served to reinvigorate Hemingway's
literary reputation and prompted a reexamination of his entire body of
work. The novella was initially received with much popularity; it
restored many readers' confidence in Hemingway's capability as an
author. Its publisher, Scribner's, on an early dust jacket, called the
novella a "new classic," and many critics favorably compared it with
such works as William Faulkner's "The Bear" and Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick.
Following such acclaim, however, a school of critics
emerged that interpreted the novella as a disappointing minor work. For
example, critic Philip Young provided an admiring review in 1952, just
following The Old Man and the Sea's publication, in which he stated that
it was the book "in which Hemingway said the finest single thing he
ever had to say as well as he could ever hope to say it." However, in
1966, Young claimed that the "failed novel" too often "went way out."
These self-contradictory views show that critical reaction ranged from
adoration of the book's mythical, pseudo-religious intonations to
flippant dismissal as pure fakery. The latter is founded in the notion
that Hemingway, once a devoted student of realism, failed in his
depiction of Santiago as a supernatural, clairvoyant impossibility.
Joseph
Waldmeir's essay entitled "Confiteor Hominem: Ernest Hemingway's
Religion of Man" is one of the most famed favorable critical readings of
the novella—and one which has defined analytical considerations since.
Perhaps the most memorable claim therein is Waldmeir's answer to the
rhetorical question,本回答被网友采纳