| 词组 | protagonist |
| 释义 | protagonist Fowler 1926 first made protagonist a usage issue. It was he who brought in the Greek roots of which the word is composed to deride plural use of the word as absurd, and it was he who suggested the influence of pro- "in favor of in the development of the sense meaning "proponent, advocate." Thus we have two main lines of dispute, right down to the present time. The first of these two disputed uses is the longer-lived one. Criticism of it is summed up reasonably succinctly here: • Thus the worthy Irving Howe writes, on the front page of the New York Times Book Review (April 9, 1978), about "main protagonists." Now, the protagonist is the main actor in something and has, since Greek times, always been used in the singular. "Protagonists" is incorrect (unless you are referring to the protagonists of two or more dramas), and "main protagonists" (main main actors) is redundant to boot—Simon 1980 There are a few weaknesses in Simon's statement. To begin with, "always been used in the singular" is wrong: the earliest citation for the word in English is plural (it is from Dryden), and the OED editors are not certain whether Dryden was using the sense Simon says is acceptable (the original OED editor thought so) or the sense Simon says is incorrect (the Supplement editors think it is this sense). And Simon has overgeneralized; the limitation to a single protagonist is true of Greek drama, but it is not therefore necessarily true in English literary tradition, as the Supplement editors observe. Now the evidence for protagonist in each of the two senses given in the OED is quite slight. The word, it seems, did not establish itself as one of frequent use in literature and journalism until the early 20th century, too late to come to the attention of the original OED editors (the volume containing protagonist was published in 1909). So when Fowler found a lot of examples in the 1920s, it is not surprising he failed to find similar uses well represented in the OED. To understand how protagonist is used, we have to begin with 20th century use. So if in ancient Greek drama the protagonist was the main character, in a modern work with more than one main character, there might be more than one protagonist. This is no more than taking the central notion of a word and stretching it to meet new conditions. • In the entire treatment of the theme there is a morning freshness that sorts well with the callow years of the protagonists —The Nation, 30 Sept. 1909 • ... the protagonists of "The Mysterious Stranger" are the boys —Van Wyck Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, 1920 • Burton Rascoe's forthcoming novel, "Gustibus," has a living person ... as its principal protagonist — Emporia (Kans.) Gazette, 30 June 1928 • The wicked world enters the scene as a protagonist —Francis Steegmuller, NY. Times Book Rev., 11 Apr. 1954 • The end of the novel dissolves into a fantasia in which the narrator ... places the protagonists on trial—Times Literary Supp., 14 Nov. 1968 • This water tank is the nemesis for all three of the story's protagonists —Anne Fremantle, Commonweal, 9 Oct. 1970 There is nothing inherently unreasonable so far—if a literary work (a Greek drama, say) has but one central character, it has but one protagonist; if there are several main characters, there are several protagonists. Now let us suppose that we liken a real-life situation to a drama. Might not the central figure then be the protagonist? And if there were two central figures? • ... William III. and Louis XIV., the protagonists in the struggle —Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1910 • ... but they usually come from minor actors, and not till now have we seen the protagonists falling foul of each other as Roosevelt and Taft are doing —The Nation, 2 May 1912 • To everybody except the protagonists ... marriage is nothing but a nuisance —Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver, 1940 • ... the memoirs of the political and military protagonists, Mr. Churchill, General Eisenhower, Lord Cunningham —Times Literary Supp., 4 Jan. 1952 • The chief losers in all this are the two original protagonists—Britain and Persia —Andrew Shonfield, London Calling, 7 Oct. 1954 • Ostensibly, this great medical row was about the correct treatment of the ailing Fuhrer, and the protagonists in it were Dr. Theodor Morell, Hitler's physician, and Dr. Karl Brandt, his surgeon —Hugh Trevor-Roper, American Scholar, Winter 1981/1982 The unetymological sense "proponent, advocate, champion, supporter" was spotted by the OED in use as early as 1877. This sense is postulated to have been influenced by pro- "in favor of because in many examples the context shows that the person or thing called protagonist is not necessarily the main one or a main one. This sense seems to have become established in the 1920s: • ... Raymond Poincaré, bitter anti-German, determined anti-bolshevist, protagonist of strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles —The Nation, 25 Jan. 1922 • He is the protagonist of that great majority —H. L. Mencken, Prejudices, 2d Series, 1920 • The true university is the protagonist of liberty and tolerance—Science, 5 Mar. 1926 • ... Mr. Darwin, Evolution's best known protagonist —America, 16 July 1927 • The Greeks were the first intellectualists. In a world where the irrational had played the chief role, they came forward as the protagonists of the mind — Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way to Western Civilization, 1930 • Thoreau will be remembered ... as a protagonist of man against the state —Henry Seidel Canby, Thoreau, 1939 • He became a protagonist of the New Realism — Maxwell Geismar, The Last of the Provincials, 1947 • ... Sir Winston proclaimed himself a protagonist of high-level talks without agenda —New Statesman & Nation, 28 Nov. 1953 The loss of the notion of primacy is often signaled by the use of an adjective such as chief or principal: • ... the chief protagonist of the Government in the Paris press —Manchester Guardian Weekly, 2 Sept. 1921 • Mrs. Sanger, Marie Stopes, Ettie Rout and Miss Bocker, the principal protagonists of birth-control — The Bulletin (Sydney, Australia), 2 Sept. 1926 • ... the Socialists, who are the leading protagonists of the "Anschluss" movement —N. Y. Herald Tribune, 13 Nov. 1927 • Indeed he and Arnold Bennett were the chief protagonists in London of unusual evening shirts —Osbert Sitwell, Noble Essences, 1950 • ... the communist parties ... became the chief protagonists of nationalism —John K. Fairbank, New Republic, 20 Jan. 1968 Historically, then, protagonist in English was first applied to Greek drama and then extended to English drama and English fiction. At first it was usually used only of a single leading character. In the late 19th century it was applied to the leading figure in a real-life situation, and also to a prominent supporter or champion of a cause. In the 20th century, the word became frequently used in the plural, to account for multiple leading characters, real and literary, and multiple proponents. Adjectives such as main, chief, and principal are used more frequently with the "proponent" sense than with the others. The OED Supplement has British evidence for the "proponent" sense as late as 1979, but we have little American evidence for it since the 1960s. The "proponent" sense may possibly be on the wane in American use. These uses are all standard. The traditional bases for objection have been demolished by the evidence in the OED Supplement. |
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