翻译天堂  2016-09-08

论英文的写作

If rhetorics, composition books, manuals, guides could of themselves assure the writing of good English, our prose style should now be purer than Chaucer’s well; but a multitude of textbooks is no more a guarantee of good writing than a million of books on etiquette is a warrant of good manners. It remains to be proved that the congregations who heard two sermons each Sunday were more moral thaw their agnostic descendants. 比如果修辞学、文章作法、手册指南等等本身便足以教会人写出优美的英文，那么我们今天的散文风格就应比乔臾的诗泉更要纯净；但事实上成批的教科书并没有保证了优秀的写作，正如大量的讲礼节的书没有培育出彬彬有礼的举止。教徒们每礼拜听上一两次讲道，其道德是否便比不信教的子孙为高，也都属于值得研究的事。

That there is so much imperfect English after such a pressure of honest endeavor in teaching, is best explained by the vast number now to be educated, who in the past would not have written at all, and who may properly regard their slovenly grammar and stilted phrasing as so much won from illiteracy. But what of the more fortunately gifted who surely with the impact of so many books, such determined counsellors from earliest youth up to correspondence courses for thee middle-aged, should have developed a new prose style for modern America arid justified the concern of their elders? We have good writers of course, but only the least fastidious in our tongue could name this an age of supple, or beautiful, or rich, or forceful, or anything but varied and useful styles in English. 在经过这么千辛万苦的一番认真教授之后，而不少英文仍旧写得这么欠佳，对此最好的解释便是，现在受教育者的人数空前多了，这许多人若在过去，是根本不会动笔的，而且还会很有理由地认为，即使他们的语句拖沓，用词造作，这已经比完全不能读写强似多多了。但问题是那些幸好还有些才分的人又如何了呢？以他们所接触过的那么许多书藉，和以他们自幼年起到中年念函授课程为止所受过的那么许多耐心的教诲而论，他们总该能为今日的美国创制出一种新的文章风格，也好不负长一辈人对他们的期望吧！当然我们还是有优秀的作家的；但是即使我们对自己的语言并不过事挑剔，我们也很难认为我们这个时代的英语，除了多样与实用二者外，在谈到灵动、优美、丰富、气势等等不拘哪一方面，还有什么真正特色可言。

If we get little style in English, the textbooks teach even less. Good English in their view is first and last clear English, which means English where the meaning jumps to the eye at a glance. Not the infinite complexities of my emotions, nor the baffled struggling of my thought, but what I can readily express in easy sentences neither too long nor too short, is what the rhetorics teach. 如果说我们在英文上缺乏风格，我们的教科书所传授的就更有限。依照这类书籍的看法，所谓好的英文说到头也无非就是清楚的英文，是那种用不着想一见就懂的英文。我感情上的千头万绪，我思想上的痛苦挣扎，这一切都与修辞学无涉；修辞学所教授的只是我如何把易达之意安放于浅显之句，既不太长，也不太短，如此而已。

They are right to teach thus, for the mind of thee young writer is a yeasty mass of unformulated desires and undirected emotions. It surges with aspirations which begin as mighty heavings of the dough and emerge as bursting bubbles. Order, restraint, clarity are steps in a discipline which the most imaginative need most; and failure to mark them would result in floods of wild words. Fortunately undisciplined writers like clocks without pendulums, soon tick themselves into silence. 当然这种教法也是对的，因为一位青年作者的心灵，正好比一块酵母，往往充满着种种不定型的欲念与缺乏疏导的感情。各种愿望激荡于其间，开始时膨胀得如面团般大，最后又不免如皂泡一样断然破灭。条理、节制、明晰等都是训练上的必要步骤，是想象特别丰富的人所最不可缺少的；忽略了这些势必造成用字上的枝蔓无度，泛滥成灾。不过倒也不必担心，那些缺乏训练的作者，正如没有摆的钟一样，滴答的时间不会长久。

Yet the textbooks are wrong when they make, in effect they do make, a sermon on accuracy sum of good English. Accuracy is enough for the dictator of business letters; for the professional writer it is only the first step. He can be as accurate as a slate roof and as clear as a plate glass window and yet have no more life in him than a billboard or a declension. He will never develop a style worthy of the name unless he struggles with half meanings, gropes in personality, yields to passion, fancy, intuitions, and much else opposed in every way to simple clarity. 然而当这些教科书高谈准确便是好英文的全部时（这些书就是这么谈的），它们却不对了。准确对于一个商业函件的口授者已经够了；对于一位职业作家则还仅是初步。一个人尽可以准确得像个石板屋顶，清楚得像张窗户玻璃，而照旧像个广告牌或词尾表一样的不具一丝生气。除非一个人肯在意思的醒豁上下功夫，在性格的复杂中做探索，以及甘受热情、幻想、直觉乃至一切远非仅仅单纯明了的意念的驱遣，他就永远也形不成一种称得起风格的东西。

There must be two Muses at the elbow of every writer ambitious of the best in English, one to back while the other pulls on, one for discipline the other for expansiveness; one to teach grasp, the other reach; one with a set of principles, the other with a vision of truth, beauty, hope, and unlimited accomplishment. 对于励志写成佳妙英文的每一位作者来说，他的腕下都必须有两个缪斯从旁呵护：一个帮他勒抑，一个帮他推进；一个重在节制，一个重在扩展；一个传授把握之才，一个传授达意之术；一个整套义法在手，以文规墨矩相绳，一个则在启其境界，以领会真善之旨与发展之美。

And if one asks why so many clear and simple books produce so many dull and flat writers, the answer may be that there is too much starching and ironing of poor material. We laugh at the older rhetorics with their talk of the sublime, of the great style, of dignity, of eloquence. But at least the authors of these treatises promised to able writers something more inspiring than unity, coherence, and emphasis. They implied, even if they took no means to secure it, an active intellect, stirred by passionate ideas, and quite as desirous to express itself as to discover how to be obvious to others. 如果有人要问，何以不少旨在授人以清楚与简易的书籍竟产生了这么多枯燥平庸的作者，那答案将是，文字本身不佳，而又浆洗与熨贴过度。旧日修辞书关于崇高事物、宏伟风格以及庄严与畅达等每每谈得过多，因而不免使人感到好笑，但是这些论述的作者所给予写作人的启发却远在只讲“一致、连贯、强调”的现行书籍之上。他们的心目之中至少还有一个活跃的心智（尽管他们对如何才能达到这个也往往无能为力），其胸中有激切之思，笔下有欲达之意，并非但求易解而已。

The weakest element in American literary prose is its style. In the novel, in drama, in poetry, in the essay, whether our work is superior or inferior to the English product, it is usually inferior in this respect. And if Americans lack style it is partly because they have been taught for a generation that good writing is clear writing, which is true, and that clear writing must be excellent writing, which is false. Water, except by the miracle of style, does not become wine. 美国文章的最大弱点即在它的风格。在小说、剧作、诗歌与小品文方面，姑不论我们的制品与英人的孰优孰劣，在风格这方面我们却往往逊于英人。如果说美国短于风格，这也多少与近几十年来的传授有关，即总认为好的文章必是清楚的文章——这当然是对的，而清楚的文章也必是好文章——这却是不对的了。不经风格的点染，水是变不成酒的。