拜伦雪莱华兹华斯……看他一一点评

2017-08-19 英语环球广播 英语环球ChinaPlus

周末好！今天小编要为大家推荐的是一位英国大批评家写的文章哦~

作家简介

马修•安诺德（1822-1888），英国著名诗人及批评家。英国维多利亚时代诗人、文学和社会评论家，尤以对当时的“野蛮人”、“非利士人”和“群氓”的各种情趣和时尚进行权威性抨击而著称，宣扬以文化来抵抗当时英国社会缺乏准则和方向感的“无政府状态”。主要著作有《新诗集》、《评论一集》、《评论二集》、《文化与无政府状态》等。他写了不少评论集和诗选。最著名的长篇叙事诗是《索拉与罗斯教》。

我们先来熟悉一下文中出现的部分词汇~

manifest ['mænɪfest] vt. 显示；证实；表露

exempt [ɪɡ'zempt] adj. 免除的

permeate ['pɜːmieɪt] v. 弥漫；渗透；普及

vivify ['vɪvəˌfaɪ] v. 弥漫；渗透；普及

contemporary [kən'temprəri] n. 同时代的人

impenetrable [ɪm'penɪtrəbl] adj. 不能穿过的；不可理喻的

aristocratic [ˌærɪstə'krætɪk] adj. 贵族的；赞成贵族政治的；爱挑剔的

intelligent [ɪn'telɪdʒənt] adj. 聪明的；智能的

plunge [plʌndʒ] v. 使投入；跳入；栽进

constitute ['kɒnstɪtjuːt] vt. 构成；组成

passionate ['pæʃənət] adj. 热情的；激情的

下面我们就一起来听这篇文章吧~由沈汀朗读，译文由张炳飞翻译。

Ideas in England

We in England, in our great burst of literature during the first thirty years of the present century, had no manifestation of the modern spirit, as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe’s works or Heine’s. And the reason is not far to seek. We had neither the German wealth of ideas, nor the French enthusiasm for applying ideas. There reigned in the mass of the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, that Philistinism, —to use the German nickname, —which reacts even on the individual genius that is exempt from it. In our greatest literary epoch, that of the Elizabethan age, English society at large was accessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to a degree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique greatness in English literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries; they were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation; they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas, —the ideas of the Renaissance and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the great English middle class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose intelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakespeare, entered the prison of Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundred years. He enlargeth a nation, says Job, and straiteneth it again. In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. Aristocracies are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individual members have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man of genius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in the aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they could not succeed in it; the resistances to baffle them, the want of intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their literary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakespeare and Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, is a failure. The best literary creation of that time in England proceeded from men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. What, from men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. What, in fact, was the career of the chief English men of letters, their contemporaries? The greatest of them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle-Age phrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged himself in the inward life, he voluntarily cut himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge took to opium. Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. Keats passionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty for interpreting nature; and he died of consumption at twenty-five. Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats have left admirable works; far more solid and complete works than those which Byron and Shelley have left. But their works have this defect; --they do not belong to that which is the main current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not apply modern ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, minor currents, and all other literary work of our day, however popular, which has the same defect, also constitutes but a minor current. Byron and Shelley will long be remembered, long after the inadequacy of their actual work is clearly recognized, for their passionate, their Titanic effort to flow in the main stream of modern literature; their names will be greater than their writings.

思想之在英国

在我们英国这里，在本世纪文学兴盛的前三十年间，我们并没有显示出现代精神，这种精神曾在歌德和海涅的著作中显示。而这种原因不难找到。我们既没有德国人所拥有的丰富思想资源，也没有法国人应用思想的激情。那时在全国人民中占主导地位的东西则是根深蒂固地与各类思想绝缘，即那市侩哲学——借用德国谑语——而其影响之广，连少数几个天才也难以幸免。在我们最伟大的文学时期，即伊丽莎白时代，英国社会普遍来说，则是能接受各类思想的，并深受其感染，为之而兴奋，那情形日后的英国再也没有。因此在英国文学史上出现了莎士比亚以及其同时代人的空前盛况。他们精神上的支柱是民族的思想生活，他们把各种新思想——文艺复兴的思想和宗教改革的思想，自由地应用到文学中。数年之后，作为民族核心的庞大英国中产阶级，其学识足已推赏莎士比亚，却陷入了清教主义的牢笼，使其精神禁锢长达两百年。正如约伯所说，他曾扩大国家，又缩小其国。19世纪初期的文学运动中，在英国发出将这种现代精神自由运用的信号的，是两个贵族阶级中的成员，拜伦和雪莱。一般来说，贵族阶级天性排斥思想，但其中的个别成员却往往有着极大的打破桎梏的勇气和倾向：而作为一位天才人物，一位这种思想的产儿，如其出身于贵族阶级，往往会对妨碍其自由发挥这种思想的种种障碍感到极为不满。但是在把这种现代精神自由运用于英国文学这点上，拜伦和雪莱并没有成功；他们是不可能成功的；想要阻挠他们的阻力太大了。而他们对引领和支持他们的思想同情的需要也太大了。他们的文学创作，无论是与莎士比亚和斯宾塞相比，还是与歌德和海涅相比，都只能称得上失败。那个时期英国最好的文学创作并非出自于那些与拜伦和雪莱同样大胆敢为的人们。那么，和他们同时代的人，那个时期的英国文坛的主要人物是个怎样的情形呢？他们中最伟大的一位，华兹华斯（用一句中世纪的话说），已经遁入空门。我的意思是说，他已经完全沉浸在内心世界里，自动地将自己与现代精神隔绝开来。柯勒律治吸食了鸦片。斯科特成了封建主义皇家史官。济慈耽溺于他那兴发美感的天赋和解释自然的才能；而且他年仅25岁便死于肺病。华兹华斯、斯科特和济慈都给世人留下了值得赞美的作品；远远比拜伦和雪莱留下的作品坚实和完美。但是他们的作品却有这样一个缺点——它们没有将近代思想应用到生活中去，他们都不属于近代文学的主流；因此，它们只构成若干支流，而我们今天的许多文学作品，无论当时如何风行一时，只要具有这一缺点的也只能算是支流。拜伦和雪莱将长存于人民的记忆中，即使在其世纪作品中的种种不足久已为人洞察之后，人们依然会记得他们的热情，它们在近代文学的主流中劈风斩浪的努力；他们的名字将比他们的著作更为伟大。

在你心中，优秀的文学作品该传递怎样的思想和精神呢？拿你最爱的文学作品来说说吧~

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