第23章 人类的精神 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长。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。

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 h uman 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 mon ey part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its orig in.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 s ustained by now that we can even bear it.There are no longer problems o f the spirit.There is only the question:When will I be blown up?Becau se of this,the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the probl ems 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 th e sweat.

He must learn them again.He must teach himself that the basest of a ll 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 a nd sacrifice.

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开始目的及重要性相当的献词并不难。不过，我更愿意在欢呼声中做同样的致谢，把这个激动人心的时刻献给那些可能正在聆听我讲话的、同样献身于艰苦的文学事业的年轻男女们，这些人当中肯定有人将来会站在我现在站着的地方。

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。告诉自己，永远忘记它，在自己的工作室里不给任何东西留下位置，除了那些古老的真理和心灵的真实。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。