经典名人英语演讲稿59：肩负起作为一名作家的责任（威廉.福克纳诺贝尔文学奖演讲词）mp3
59. Shoulder the Responsibility of Being a Writer
59. 肩负起作为一名作家的责任
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 women 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.
当今人们普遍存在着一种生理上的恐惧，这种恐惧由来已久，以致我们都已经习惯了。现在不存在精神上的问题，惟一的问题是——我什么时候会爆炸？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，而这种冲突恰恰是创作的源泉，因为这是惟一值得写、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 grieves grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes the glands.
创作者必须重新学会这一切；必须教会自己认识到一切事物的本质是恐惧；教会自己学会忘记一切恐惧；在自己的创作空间里不给其他东西留任何空间，惟一拥有的是心灵的真谛。世界上放之四海而皆准的真理是：任何创作一旦缺乏爱，荣誉，同情，自豪，怜悯和牺牲都将是短暂的，是注定要失败的。如果创作者不能做到这一点，那么就永远无法写出佳作。他不是写爱情而是写情欲，他写的失败是不会被认为可贵的，他写的胜利是没有希望的，甚至是没有怜悯和缺乏同情的。因为他的悲伤不是出自世上生灵，不是发自内心，所以留下不深刻的痕迹。
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 ding-dong 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. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
只有懂得这些，他才能创作——仿佛身临其境般地去创作世人所关注的人类的最终结局。我拒绝接受人类的终结。我们有足够的理由相信——人类是永但的，是世代相传的。因为人类懂得承受。当最终的结局在那个血色的死亡夜晚从最后的那个毫无价值的高悬不动的巨石上鸣叫远去时，一定还有另外一种微弱的，无穷尽的声音在述说。我拒绝接受这一观点。我相信人类不只是承受，人类将会战胜一切。人类是永怪的，不是因为在大自然所创造的所有生灵中只有人类拥有不竭的声音，而是因为人类拥有心灵——一种让人能怜悯，能牺牲，能承受的精神。
The poet, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
诗人和作家的责任在于抒写这些东西。他们的荣誉在于通过完善人类的心灵，提醒人类要拥有勇气，要有荣誉感，要拥有希望，要有自豪感，要有怜悯心，同情心和牺牲精神——这一切优秀品质是人类过去历程的光荣。诗人的呐喊不只是记录人类的历史，诗人的呐喊应该是一根擎夭大柱，帮助人类去承受，去战胜。