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  • 奥布里: 短促的生命
    AUBREY: Brief Lives
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• • 奥布里: 短促的生命 / AUBREY: Brief Lives
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  • John AubreyBrief Lives John Aubrey, probably English literature’s greatestcollector of gossip, anecdotes and personal trivia, lived through difficulttimes. The English Civil War, with the downfall and execution of Charles I,dominated his life. An attentive observer of his contemporary world, Aubreynevertheless felt himself to be an antiquarian, a collector and guardian of thevalues and manners of an earlier age. To his contemporaries, he failed tofulfill the promise of his youth; to us, he remains the pre-eminent compiler ofthe doings and sayings of the major and minor figures of the 16th and 17thcenturies. To each of the figures he recalls, he adds his own particular voice— sometimes melancholic but, more often than not, wittily ribald. The voice thatemerges from a reading of Brief Lives is that of a kindly, intelligent,sometimes querulous, but always generous human being. Born in Wiltshire in 1626, Aubrey spent much of his lifeengaged in lengthy, expensive legal actions against relatives, selling off bitsand pieces of his estates in order to pay lawyers. He spent just four months asa student at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1642, but so enjoyed the company hefell in with there that he never lost his affection for the town. He died andwas buried there in 1697, having endured the massive upheavals of the CivilWar, the regicide of Charles I and the eventual restoration of the monarchy inthe person of Charles II. Essentially a Royalist, Aubrey nevertheless had friendsacross the often-confused political spectrum of the day. So much did he enjoycarousing with his friends that this gifted scholar and antiquarian couldhardly ever bring himself to complete any of the numerous writing projects heundertook. He published only one book in his lifetime, Miscellanies, being fartoo busy hob-knobbing with the intelligentsia of the time, such as thephilosopher Thomas Hobbes. The origin of his Brief Lives lies in work he undertook forthe Oxford scholar Anthony Wood. In 1667 Aubrey began compiling notes forWood’s Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis (published 1674) and AthenaeOxonienses (published 1691-2). By quirk of history — and Aubrey’s gift forlively anecdotal reminisces — it is Aubrey’s work which has survived in popularesteem.The original manuscripts of Aubrey’s Lives fill 66 volumesin the Bodleian Library at Oxford and other libraries; he wrote more than 420Lives, which range in length from just two words to one of 23,000 words; manyof them have little or no intrinsic interest today, being simply collections ofdates and facts. His general technique was to alight upon a Life, thenimmediately write down everything he could remember about the individualconcerned, leaving blanks for dates and facts he could not immediately recall,which were to be filled in later. Often the blanks remained as Aubrey, true tohis own nature, was off onto another project, or another Life. Aubrey himself described his Lives as “like fragments of ashipwreck”. He was very conscious of his role as a harvester of transient life,which he hoped to preserve in the face of oblivion. He was also conscious thathis jottings — occasionally inaccurate though they are — took on a particularimportance, given the context of the massive social upheaval he and hismemories lived through. “So that the retrieving of these forgotten Things fromOblivion in some sort resembles the Art of a Conjuror, who makes those walkeand appeare that have layen in their grave many hundreds of yeares: and torepresent as it were to the eie, the places, Customes and Fashions, that wereof old Times”.What comes through these Lives most strongly is Aubrey’s ownpersonality. Sometimes crotchety, mostly genial, Aubrey loves a joke almost asmuch as he loves learning. Occasionally sad — as when he recalls the funeral ofa dear friend, or the wanton destruction of a rare manuscript — but usuallywry, what emerges is a picture of an elderly, avuncular, kindly figure, full ofregret for the absurdities and frailties of the world and humanity. One of hisfavorite sayings was “the best of men are but men at the best”. What it musthave been to have shared a bottle with John Aubrey, certainly one of “the bestof men”! Notes by Gary Mead Brian Cox Brian Cox is one of Britain’s leading actors. His twoOlivier awards represent highlights in decades of leading roles with the RSCand Royal National Theatre (including King Lear, Richard III and TitusAndronicus) though he also played Captain Ahab in Moby Dick on Broadway. His TVand film work is equally varied, among them being Rob Roy, Braveheart,Manhunter and Hidden Agenda. He is now increasingly active as a director(Richard III and The Master Builder).
  • • 作品列表
    • • CD01
      • 作品编号：23245  Brief Lives

      • Desiderius Erasmus 1466–1536

      • John Colet 1467-1519

      • Sir Thomas More 1478–1535

      • Thomas Cooper 1517–1594

      • Sir William Fleetwood 1535–1594

      • William Butler 1535–1618

      • Thomas Allen 1542–1632

      • Sir Walter Raleigh 1552–1618

      • Sir Edward Coke 1552–1634

      • Lancelot Andrews 1555–1626

      • Thomas Hariot 1560–1621

      • Francis Bacon 1561–1626

      • William Shakespeare 1564–1616

      • Ben Jonson 1573–1637

      • Sir Everard Digby 1578–1606

      • William Harvey 1578–1657

      • Edmund Gunter 1581–1626

      • Richard Corbet 1582–1635

      • CD02
      • 作品编号：23245  Brief Lives

      • David Jenkins 1586–1663

      • Thomas Hobbes 1588–1679

      • Rene Descartes 1569–1650

      • Thomas Chaloner 1595–1661

      • Venetia Digby 1600–1633

      • Henry Marten 1602–1680

      • William Chillingworth 1602–1624

      • Sir Henry Blount 1602–1682

      • Sir William Davenant 1606–1668

      • James Harrington 1611–1677

      • Samuel Butler 1612–1680

      • Sir Jonas Moore 1617–1679

      • Thomas Harcourt 1618–1679

      • Abraham Cowley 1618–1667

      • Edmund Halley 1656–1742