The Spirit of Man
威廉·福克纳 / William Faulkner
威廉·福克纳（1897—1962），1949年诺贝尔文学奖得主。其文以人物心理的细微刻画及复杂迂回的形式结构见胜。因其两度获普利策奖，而赢得“美国伟大小说家”的美誉。本文是他获得诺贝尔奖时发表的著名演说，文中勉励作家必须提升自己的心灵，时时以爱、怜悯与牺牲来唤醒人类亘古的真理。
Pre-reading Activity
Read this article with the questions below, and answer them respectively.
1. According to the author, who or what should be awarded by this prize? Why?
2. What subjects are worth writing about by young men and women?
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.
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.
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.
参考译文
我觉得这个奖并不是给我个人的，而是给我的工作——包含人类精神苦痛和挣扎的终生工作，不为荣耀，也绝不为任何利益，而是为了创造出人类精神中的某些事物——一些前所未有的事物。所以这个奖只是暂时属于我。为这份奖金找一篇与它原始目的及重要性相当的献词并不难。不过，我也想趁此机会礼赞一番，作为我人生的巅峰，如此那些同样遭遇过苦难与艰辛的青年男女方能倾听我说话。有一天你们之中也会有人站在我这个位置上。
今天，我们的悲剧是一种全人类的肉体恐惧，它维持的时间之久——直到现在，以至于我们都可以忍受它了。那儿已经不再有精神上的问题，只有这样的问题：什么时候我将被轰炸？因此，如今从事写作的青年男女，已经忘却人类精神自相矛盾冲突的问题，而只有这个问题才能成就好的作品，因为只有它才值得写作，值得我们去经历痛苦和挣扎。
人类必须再次学习它们。他必须使自己认识到，任何事物卑贱的底层都令人害怕；教会自己在工作岗位上永远忘记它，只留下心灵深处古老的真理与真相，如果这些古老、普遍的真理缺少了，任何故事都将瞬间消失——这些真理就是爱、荣耀、怜悯、自豪、同情和牺牲。
历史链接
福克纳是“南方文学”流派的代表人物，他的作品大多以约克纳帕塔法为背景，站在道德、宗教的立场上批判现代资本主义的物质文明，反映美国南方社会的历史状况。福克纳于1939年被选为国家艺术文学协会会员，1949年获得诺贝尔文学奖，1955年赢得普利策奖。
Chunks in Use
Match each of the following words with its meaning.
(1) anguish a. to provide enough of what somebody or something
needs in order to live or exist
(2) sustain b. severe pain, mental suffering or unhappiness
(3) verity c. lasting or used for only a short period of time
(4) ephemeral d. a belief or principle about life, the world, etc., that is
accepted as true
Chunks in Practice
Mark the following statements true or false, and underline the section of
the aritcle that supports your answer.
Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
________ (1) The author believes that the prize is the peak of life.
________ (2) Youngsters who specialized in writing to writing have always
remember the problems of conflicts among people.
________ (3) As a human being, we should always remember the old universal truths.
Now a Try
Fill in the blank with the proper words according to the given sentences.
1. I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, _______ to my work.
我觉得这个奖并不是给我个人的，而是给我的工作。
2. Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long _______ by
now that we can even bear it.
今天，我们的悲剧是一种全人类的肉体恐惧，它维持的时间之久——直到现
在，以至于我们都可以忍受它了。
3. He must teach himself that the _______ of all things is to be afraid.
他