威廉福克纳1949年的诺贝尔文学奖感言:人类的精神（中英）
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
我感到这份奖赏不是授予我个人的，而是授予我的工作的，——授予我一生从 事关于人类精神的呕心沥血的工作。我从事这项工作，不是为名，更不是为利，而 是为了从人的精神中创造出一些从前不曾有过的东西。因此，这份奖金只不过是我 保管而已。做出符合这份奖赏的原意与目的，与其奖金部分有相等价值的演讲并不 难，但我还愿意利用这个时刻，利用这个举世瞩目的讲坛，向那些可能听到我说话 或巳献身于同一艰苦劳动的男、女青年致敬。他们中肯定有人有一天也会站到我现 在的位置。
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
我们今天的悲剧是我们普遍存在一种生理上的恐惧，这种恐惧存在已久，以致 我们已经习惯了。现在不存在精神上的问题，唯一的问题是：我什么时候会被炸得 粉身碎骨？正因如此，今天从事写作的男、女青年已经忘记了人类内心的冲突。然 而，只有接触到这种内心冲突才能创作出好作品，因为这是唯一值得写、值得呕心 沥血地去写的题材。
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed-love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
他一定要重新认识这些问题。他必须使自己明白世间最可鄙的事情莫过于恐 惧。他必须使自己永远忘却恐惧，在他的工作室里除了心底古老的真理之外，不 允许任何别的东西有容身之地。没有这古老的普遍真理，任何小说都只能是昙花一 现，不会成功；这些真理就是爱情、荣誉、怜悯、自尊、同情与牺牲等感情。若是 他做不到这样，他的气力终归会白费。他不是写爱情而是写情欲，他写的失败是没 有人失去可贵东西的失败，他写的胜利是没有希望、更糟地是没有怜悯或同情的胜 利。他不是为遍地白骨而悲伤，所以留不下深刻的痕迹。他不是在写心灵而是在写 器官。
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure： that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
在他重新懂得这些之前，他写作时，就犹如站在处于世界末日的人类中去观 察末日的来临。我不接受人类末日的说法。因人能传宗接代而说人是不朽的，这很 容易。说即使最后一次钟声已经消失，消失在再也没有潮水冲刷的映在落日余晖里 的海上的最后一块无用礁石旁时，还会有一个声音，人类微弱的、不断的说话声， 这也很容易。但是我不能接受这种说法。我相信人类不仅能传宗接代，而且能战胜 一切而永存。人之所以不朽不是因为在动物中唯独他永远能发言，而是因为他有灵 魂，有同情心、有牺牲和忍耐精神。
The poet and writer's responsibility is to write about these things. The poet and writer’s special honour is to inspire people morale, people remember the past had been the glory of human had of the courage and honor, hope and pride, and compassion, compassion and sacrifice-has already reached the immortal. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, is to endure and human beings should get victory, the pillars.
诗人和作家的责任就是把这些写出来。诗人和作家的特殊光荣就是去鼓舞人的 斗志，使人记住过去曾经有过的光荣——人类曾有过的勇气、荣誉、希望、自尊、 同情、怜悯与牺牲精神——已达到不朽。诗人的声音不应只是人类的记录，而应是 使人类永存并得到胜利的支柱和栋梁。
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