现代大学英语精读第六册U12 Notes on the English Character.docx
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现代大学英语精读第六册U12 Notes on the English Character.docx
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现代大学英语精读第六册U12NotesontheEnglishCharacter
现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:
U12NotesontheEnglishCharacter
第十二单元英国人性格的笔记
E·M·Forster
E·M·福斯特
First note. I had better let the cat out of the bag at once and record my opinion that the character of the English is essentially middle class. There is sound historical reason for this, for, since the end of the eighteenth century, the middle classes have been the dominant force in our community. They gained wealth by the Industrial Revolution, political power by the Reform Bill of 1832; they are connected with the rise and organization of the British Empire; they are responsible for the literature of the nineteenth century. Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in every country, but in England they are national characteristics also, because only in England have the middle classes been in power for one hundred and fifty years. Napoleon, in his rude way, called us "a nation of shopkeepers." We prefer to call ourselves "a great commercial nation"-it sounds more dignified—but the two phrases amount to the same. Of course there are other classes:
there is an aristocracy, there are the poor. But it is on the middle classes that the eye of the critic rests—just as it rests on the poor in Russia and on the aristocracy in Japan. Russia is symbolized by the peasant or by the factory worker; Japan by the samurai; the national figure of England is Mr. Bull with his top hat, his comfortable clothes, his substantial stomach, and his substantial balance at the bank. Saint George may caper on banners and in the speeches of politicians, but it is John Bull who delivers the goods. And even Saint George—if Gibbon is correct—wore a top hat once; he was an army contractor and supplied indifferent bacon. It all amounts to the same in the end.
首先,我最好和盘托出并且点明我的观点,从根本上来说,英国人的性格特点是中产阶级的性格特点。
此观点拥有翔实的历史渊源,因为自18世纪末起中产阶级就成了英国社会的主导阶级。
中产阶级凭借工业革命发家,凭借1832年的《改革法案》掌权。
他们与大英帝国的崛起和构成休戚相关,他们也是19世纪文学的缔造者。
稳重、谨慎、正直、高效、缺乏想象力、虚伪是每个国家中产阶级的特点,然而在英国,上述特点也是全体英国人的特点,因为只有英国的中产阶级掌权长达150年。
拿破仑无礼地称我们为“店老板民族”;而我们更喜欢称自己为“伟大的商业民族”,后者听起来更有尊严,但是二者在本质上是相同的。
但是,(在英国)最吸引评论者关注的是中产阶级,正如在俄国人们关注穷人,在日本人们关注贵族一样。
俄国的典型形象是农民和工人;日本的典型形象是武士;英国的典型形象是布尔先生,他头戴高顶大礼帽,身穿合体的衣服,挺着大肚皮,数着银行的大笔存款。
圣·乔治也许会出现在标语上和政治演说中,而约翰·布尔则会去送货。
如果吉本的观点是正确的,甚至圣·乔治也曾戴上高顶大礼帽。
他是一位军队物资承包商,并且供应质量低劣的熏肉。
最终的结果都是一样的。
Second Note. Just as the heart of England is the middle classes, so the heart of the middle classes is the public school system. This extraordinary institution is local. It does not even exist all over the British Isles. It is unknown in Ireland, almost unknown in Scotland (countries excluded from my survey), and though it may inspire other great institutions—Aligarh, for example, and some of the schools in the United States—it remains unique, because it was created by the Anglo-Saxon middle classes, and can flourish only where they flourish. How perfectly it expresses their character—far better for instance, than does the university, into which social and spiritual complexities have already entered. With its boarding-houses, its compulsory games, its system of prefects and fagging, its insistence on good form and on esprit de corps, it produces a type whose weight is out of all proportion to its numbers.
其次,正如中产阶级是英格兰的核心一样,英国公学制度是中产阶级的核心。
这种超乎寻常的体制具有地域性,它还没有扩展到英伦三岛。
爱尔兰和苏格兰都不存在这种体制(这两个地区不在我的调查之列),尽管这样有利于其他优秀体制的出现,比如仅限于美国某些学校所采用的阿里加体制,因为它产生于安格鲁一撒克逊中产阶级,而且只能在上述阶级中实行。
英国公学制度比大学更充分地、更好地诠释了英国中产阶级的特性,因为社会与精神的复杂性已经进入大学。
学生寄宿、必修运动项目、高年级同学役使和欺侮低年级同学,以及高度重视身材与团队精神是英国公学制度的四大特点,正是这些特点使公学的影响力远远超过其数量。
On leaving his school, the boy either sets to work at once-goes into the army or into business, or emigrates—or else proceeds to the university, and after three or four years there enters some other profession—becomes a barrister, doctor, civil servant, schoolmaster, or journalist.(If through some mishap he does not become a manual worker or an artist.) In all these careers his education, or the absence of it, influences him. Its memories influence him also. Many men look back on their school days as the happiest of their lives. They remember with regret that golden time when life, though hard, was not yet complex, when they all worked together and played together and thought together, so far as they thought at all; when they were taught that school is the world in miniature and believed that no one can love his country who does not love his school. And they prolong that time as best they can by joining their Old Boys' society:
indeed, some of them remain Old Boys and nothing else for the rest of their lives. They attribute all good to the school. They worship it. They quote the remark that "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." It is nothing to them that the remark is inapplicable historically and was never made by the Duke of Wellington, and that the Duke of Wellington was an Irishman. They go on quoting it because it expresses their sentiments; they feel that if the Duke of Wellington didn't make it he ought to have, and if he wasn't an Englishman he ought to have been. And they go forth into a world that is not entirely composed of public-school men or even of Anglo-Saxons, but of men who are as various as the sands of the sea; into a world of whose richness and subtlety they have no conception. They go forth into it with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts. And it is this undeveloped heart that is largely responsible for the difficulties of Englishmen abroad. An undeveloped heart—not a cold one. The difference is important, and on it my next note will be based.
毕业后,男生们要么立刻开始工作、参军从商或者移民,要么进入大学深造,经过三至四年的学习后从事律师、医生、公务员、教师或记者等职业(如果他们无缘成为体力工人或艺术家。
)在上述事业中,他所受到的教育,或者说没有受到的教育,深深地影响着他。
回忆也会影响他们。
许多人都把在学校的日子视为人生中最快乐的时光。
他们带着遗憾的心情怀念那段金色时光。
那时,生活虽然艰苦,但还不算复杂。
那时,他们同学习、同游戏、同思考,如果说他们思考的话。
他们受到的教导告诉他们,学校是个微型世界,他们相信,一个人如果不爱自己的学校,那他就不可能爱自己的国家。
而且他们通过加入“老朋友”社团尽量使那段岁月延长,事实上他们中某些人一生都没有离开这个社团。
他们认为学校万事好。
他们崇拜学校并引用这样的评论来赞誉学校:
“打赢滑铁卢战役的基础是在伊顿公学的球场上奠定的。
”他们并不在乎这句评论在历史上是不适用的,也不在乎它并不是惠灵顿公爵发表的,而且惠灵顿公爵是一位爱尔兰人。
他们反复引用这句评论,因为它表达了他们的情感。
他们认为,即使惠灵顿公爵没有这样说,他也应该这样说;即使他不是英国人,他也应该是英国人。
他们所生活的社会并不完全由公学学生或安格鲁-撒克逊人组成的,而是由形形色色的人组成的,对于这个社会中的财富与难以捉摸的东西,他们完全摸不着头脑。
他们进入社会时,体魄健全,智力一般,感情匮乏(身体锻炼得十分结实,大脑的开发一般,而心的发育则不健全)而恰恰就是感情匮乏使英国人在国外遇到了许多困难。
感情匮乏并不是冷酷无情,这一差别相当重要,也是我下一个论点的基础。
For it is not that the Englishman can't feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow or even open his mouth too wide when he talks—his pipe might fall out if he did. He must bottle up his emotions, or let them out only on a very special occasion.
并不是英国人没有感情,而是英国人害怕有感情。
在公学中他们所受的教育是,感情是有害的。
他们不应该表现出大喜大悲,甚至在谈话时不应该把嘴巴张得过大,否则他们的烟斗会从口中掉落。
他们必须掩饰自己的情绪,或者仅在特殊场合才可以表达自己的感情。
Once upon a time (this is an anecdote) I went for a week's holiday on the Continent with an Indian friend. We both enjoyed ourselves and were sorry when the week was over, but on parting our behaviour was absolutely different. He was plunged in despair. He felt that because the holiday was over all happiness was over until the world ended. He could not express his sorrow too much. But in me the Englishman came out strong I reflected that we should meet again in a month or two, and could write in the interval if we had anything to say; and under these circumstane I could not see what there was to make a fuss about. It wasn't as if we were parting forever or dying."Buck up," I said,"do buck up." He refused to buck up, and I left him plunged in gloom.
从前(这是一件逸事),我与一位印度朋友到欧洲度假,为期一周。
我们玩得很愉快,当一周结束时我们都感到十分难过。
然而在分别时,我们的行为却是截然相反的。
我的朋友完全陷入了绝望。
他认为假期结束了,所有的幸福也将随之而去,而且痛苦的日子将一直持续至世界末日。
他将伤心表达到了极点,到了无以复加的程度。
但是我身上则表现出强烈的英国人特性。
我想到我们可以在一至两个月以后再次见面,如果我们在此期间有话要说,可以通信,而且在这种情况下我认为这不值得大惊小怪。
这并不是生离死别。
“振作起来,”我说,“振作起来。
”他拒绝振作,于是我任由他陷入郁闷。
The conclusion of the anecdote is even more instructive. For when we met the next month our conversation threw a good deal of light on the English character. I began by scolding my friend. I told him that he had been wrong to feel and display so much emotion upon so slight an occasion; that it was inappropriate. The word "inappropriate" roused him to fury."what?
" he cried."Do you measure out your emotions as if they were potatoes" I did not like the simile of the potatoes, but after a moment's reflection I said:
"Yes, I do; and what's nore, I think I ought to. A small occasion demands a little emotion just as a large occasion demands a great one. I would like my emotions to be appropriate. This may be measuring them like potatoes, but it is better than slopping them about like water from a pail, which is what you did." He did not like the simile of the pail."If those are your opinions, they part us forever," he cried, and left the room. Returning immediately, he added:
"No—but your whole attitude toward emotion is wrong. Emotion has nothing to do with appropriateness. It matters only that it shall be sincere. I happened to feel deeply. showed it. It doesn't matter whether ought to have felt deeply or not."
这件事的结尾更说明问题。
因为当我们于次月见面时,我们的谈话对了解英国人的性格大有神益。
一开始我便指责朋友,我告诉他不应该在这种小事上牵动并体现出这么多感情,这并不妥当。
“妥当”这个字眼儿激怒了他,“什么?
”他大声说道,“你是不是像分配土豆一样分配你的感情?
”我不喜欢土豆这个比喻,但是沉思片刻后我说,“是的,我是这样;而且,我认为应该这样。
小事需要的感情少,大事需要的感情多。
我希望我的感情分配得当。
我也许是像分配土豆一样分配感情,但是要胜过你像桶里的水一样乱溅。
”他不喜欢水桶这个比喻。
“如果是这样想的,那么我们绝交,他喊道,然后离开了房间,而后又立刻转回来,补充说道,“不——但是你对于感情的整个态度是错的。
感情与妥当无关,感情只在于是否真诚。
我碰巧是个感情丰富的人,于是我流露我的感情;你是否应该感情丰富这并不重要。
”
This remark impressed me very much. Yet I could not agree with it, and said that I valued emotion as much as he did, but used it differently; if I poured it out on small occasions I was afraid of having none left for the great ones, and of being bankrupt at the crises of life.
这些话给我留下了深刻印象。
然而我不同意他的看法,并且要说明我与他一样重视感情,只是表达的方式不同而已。
如果我在小事上随意挥洒感情,我害怕在大事上无感情可施,比如破产、人生危机这样的大事。
Once upon a time (this is an anecdote) I went for a week's holiday on the Continent with an Indian friend. We both enjoyed ourselves and were sorry when the week was over, but on parting our behaviour was absolutely diff
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