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高级英语一课文翻译(2)

其他类 时间:2021-08-31 手机版

  我介绍这些背景情况是因为我认为要判定一个作家的写作动机,就得对其早年的经历有所了解。

  I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development.

  作家的题材总是由他所处的时代决定的,至少在我们这个动荡不安的时代是如此。但他在提笔著文之前,总会养成一种在后来的创作中永远不能彻底磨灭的情感倾向

  His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in —at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own—but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.

  毫无疑问,作家有责任控制自己的禀性,使之不至于沉溺于那种幼稚的阶段,或陷于违反常理的心境中。但如果他从早年的熏染和志趣中脱胎换骨,他就会虐杀自己的写作热情。

  It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, or in some perverse mood: but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write.

  除去以写作为谋生之计不谈,我认为写作有四种动机,至少小说和散文写作是如此。

  Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose.

  这四种动机或多或少地存在于每个作家身上,在某一个作家身上,它们会因时代的不同和生活环境的不同而变化。它们是:

  They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:

  一、纯粹的自我主义。想显示自己的聪明;想成为人们的议论中心;想身后留名;想报复那些小时候压制、指责过自己的成年人等等。不承认这是动机,是一种强烈的动机,完全是自欺欺人。

  (1) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc. , etc. It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. . .

  二、对美的狂热。能感觉身外世界的美,或者词语及其妙语连珠的美。对一个读音作用于另一个读音的音响效果,对充实缜密的行文或一篇小说的结构,感到乐趣无穷,赏心悦目。有心与人们分享一种认为有价值、不应忽略的'经历。

  (2) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed…

  三、历史感。有志按事物的原貌来观察理解事物;有心寻找确凿的事实,收集储存以飨后人。

  (3) Historical impulse. Desire to see things, as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

  四、政治上的目的。这里指的是最广泛意义的政治:有志推动世界向某个方向前进;改造人们的观念,劝勉人们追求某种理想社会。就像美感因素一样,没有一本书能真正消除政治倾向。那种认为艺术与政治不相干的论点本身就是一种政治态度。

  (4) Political purpose —using the word “political” in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to ater other people's idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

  可以看出,这些不同的动机会互相抵触,会因人因时发生变化。

  It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time.

  由于我的天性——“天性”这里指刚成年时的状态,在我身上前三种动机远远超过第四种。

  By nature —taking your “nature” to be the state you have attained when you are first adult—I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth.

  在和平年代,我或许会写些词藻华美或专写事物写景的书,几乎意识不到我政治上的取舍。

  In a peaceful age! might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties.

  可结果我却不得不成了一个写小册子的作家。

  As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer.

  最初,我在一个很不合适的职业中度过了5年,那是在缅甸的印度帝国警察署。随后,我经历了贫困,体会到穷困窘迫是何滋味。这使我对权势的本能的嫉妒变得更强烈,我开始意识到劳动阶级的存在,缅甸的职业使我对帝国主义的本质有所了解,但这一切并不足以赋予我明确的政治倾向。

  First I spent five years in an unsuitable profession (the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma), and then I underwent poverty and the sense of failure. This increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the firs t time fully aware of the existence of the working classes, and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism; but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation.

  接着希特勒出现了,西班牙战争爆发了,各种事件频频发生。

  Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc.

  到1935年底,我仍没有能决定何去何从。西班牙内战以及1936至1937年之间的其他事件扭转了这种状况,从此我认准了我的立场。

  By the end of 1935 I had still failed to reach a firm decision. The Spanish war and other events in 1936 - 1937 turned the scale and thereafter I know where I stood.

  1936年以来,我的严肃作品中的每一行都是为间接或直接地反对极权主义,拥护我所理解的民主社会主义而写的。

  Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.

  认为在我们这样的年代,作家可以回避这种题材,在我看来是无稽之谈。


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