第七课 Lucidity 最新0101213.doc

Lucidity, Simplicity, EuphonyBy W. Somerset MaughamI have never had much patience with the writers who claimdemanddemand from the reader an effort to understand their meaning. You have only to go to the great philosophers你只要读读大哲学家的著作就可以知道to see that it is possible to express with lucidity the most subtledelicate reflectionsA thought or an opinion resulting from such careful consideration. A thought or an opinion resulting from such careful consideration. You may find it difficult to understand the thought of Hume, and if you have no philosophical training its implicationsAn implied meaning will doubtless escape you; but no one with any education at all can fail to understand exactly what the meaning of each sentence is. Implications Something that is implied, especially: a. An indirect indication; a suggestion.b. An implied meaning; implicit significance.c. An inference. Socrates argued that a statue雕像，塑像inferred the existence of a sculptorFew people have written English with more grace than Berkeley. 贝克莱 (Irish prelateprelit高级教士and philosopher of idealist philosophy), 贝克莱（George Berkeley 5bE:kli,16951753） 近代西方主观唯心主义哲学的鼻祖，是英国唯心主义经验论心理学思想的主要代表，其空间知觉学说对心理学有重要贡献，影响马赫主义、实证主义，并促进联想主义心理学的发展。 grace: charm and elegance优美, 雅致, 优雅There are two sorts of obscurity that you find in writers. One is due to negligence and the other to willfulness Willfulness任性；故意: the trait of being prone to disobedience and lack of discipline negligence粗心大意；忽视；疏忽: failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances . People often write obscurely because they have never taken the trouble to learn to write clearly. Have never been trained in writingThis sort of obscurity you find too often in modern philosophers, in men of science, and even in literary critics. Here it is indeed strange. You would have thought that men who passed their lives in the study of the great masters of literature would be sufficiently sensitive to the beauty of language to write if not beautifully at least with perspicuity. Perspicuity 7pE:spi5kju(:)iti n. 明白明晰；简明The quality of being perspicuous; clarity simplicity and lucidity:Yet you will find in their works sentence after sentence that you must read twice to discover the sense. Must read twice to discover the sense : too obscure, ambiguous that requires repeated reading Often you can only guess at it, for writers have evidently not said what they intended. 词不达意 the words fail to express the meaningThe words fail to express what is meant. The language cannot convey the ideas intended.*When they are all pronounced wrongly in a strange accent.Another cause of obscurity is that the writer is himself not quite sure of his meaning.He has a vague impression of what he wants to say, but has not, either from lack of mental power or from laziness, exactly formulated it in his mind and it is natural enough that he should not find a precise expression for a confused idea. Brainstorming This is due largely to the fact that many writers think, not before, but as they write. The pen originates the thought. The disadvantage of this, and indeed it is a danger against which the author must be always on his guard, is that there is a sort of magic in the written word. 文字中有一种魔术般的东西 这句的正常顺序是The disadvantage of this is that there is a sort of magic (charm, mesmerizing effect ) in the written word 指的是 The disadvantage of writing evasive难以捉摸的 word ）is a danger against which the author must be always on his guard。 The idea acquires substance by taking on a visible nature, and then stands in the way of its own clarification. The idea ,being written down, becomes substantial (something tangible, concrete)after it takes on a visible nature (it is written down)through language, and thus become an obstacle that further confused the author.But this sort of obscurity merges very easily into the willful.Willful: habitually disposed to有.倾向的disobedience and opposition, by conscious design or purpose; intentional damage; a knowing attempt to defraud; a willful waste of time有意的；任性的；故意的 Some writers who do not think clearly are inclined to suppose that their thoughts have significance greater than at first sight appear. It is flattering谄媚的；奉承的, to believe that they are too profound to be expressed so clearly that all who run may read,那种以为自己的思想太深刻而不能清晰地得到表述进而无法使普通人理解的想法是能够满足人的虚荣心的。 Flattering : To please or gratify the vanityHandwriting on the wall : Etymology语源，语源学: based on a story in the Bible about Daniel, who reads the handwriting on the wall that predicts the end of the kingdom of BabylonThe writing on the wall不祥之兆，灾难将降临的预兆；不祥之兆，凶兆，厄运降临的预兆 (or sometimes handwriting on the wall biblical allusion) is an expression that suggests a portent 前兆；of doom or misfortune. It originates in the Biblical book of Daniel - where supernatural writing foretells the demise死亡，终止of the Babylonian Empire, but it has come to have a wide usage in language and literature. and very naturally it does not occur to such writers that the fault is with their own minds which have not the faculty能力of precise reflection. Faculty才能, 本领, 能力 power (sociology), e.g. Intelligence is the faculty of understanding. Sociologists usually define power as the ability to impose ones will on others, even if those others resist in some way.Here again the magic of the written word obtains获得流行. Obtains (Archaic古体的) : to succeed. 【古语】 成功. To succeed in gaining possession of as the result of planning or endeavor; acquire. It is very easy to persuade oneself that a phrase that one does not quite understand may mean a great deal more than one realizes. Flattering feeling, a delusive feeling that convince oneself that the obscure word has a deeper meaning beyond ones understanding From this there is only a little way to go to fall into the habit of setting down ones impressions in all their original vagueness.如果谁那样想的话，他就极其容易养成那种习惯了） there is only a little way to go to refers to nearly , on the brink of , at the edge of, Fools can always be found to discover a hidden sense in them.能够在那些东西中挖掘出隐藏意义的傻瓜，天下总是有的。 There is another form of willful obscurity that masquerades伪装as aristocratic有贵族气派的exclusiveness排外性；排他性；独占.还有一种故意装扮成阳春白雪的晦涩。 Exclusiveness : tendency to associate with only a select group, implying highbrow art and literature The author wraps his meaning in mystery so that the vulgar shall not participate in it. The author conveys his meaning in a way that is not fully understood by the common folks.understood or that baffles or eludes逃避，躲避the understanding so that the common folks will no be able to understand His soul is a secret garden into which the elect被选的人；特殊阶层；上帝的选民may penetrate only after overcoming a number of perilous危险的，冒险的obstacles. But this kind of obscurity is not only pretentious自命不凡的；炫耀的；做作; it is short-sighted.（鼠目寸光 cannot see beyond ones nose） For time plays it an odd trick(unusual act of mischief). If the sense is meager (with little sense) time reduces it to a meaningless verbiage (wordiness, 陈词滥调hackneyed and stereotyped expressions)that no one thinks of reading.Simplicity is not such an obvious merit优点as lucidity(the good quality of lucidity is apparent or noticeable, but simplicity does not possess such quality). I have aimed at it because I have no gift for richness华美绚丽的5. 简单的用词并不像清楚的表达那样有明显的优点，我之所以选择它是因为我没有辞藻华丽的天赋。Within limits I admire richness in others, though I find it difficult to digest in quantity. 在一定程度上，我赞美他人的华美用词，但是我无福消受大量的华丽词藻的堆砌I can read one page of Ruskin罗斯金 6 with delight, but twenty only with weariness (tiredness, exhaustion). 我可以愉快的欣赏一页罗斯金的文章，但要读上20页，我只会感到厌倦。The rolling period7(rhetorical term for a sentence, esp one with several clauses), the stately堂皇的，宏伟的epithet性质词 (5epiWet :adj; grand elegant attributive adj. descriptive word or phrase; vivid verbal description; ), the noun rich in poetic associations(linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry), the subordinate clauses that give the sentence weight(分量Ponderous quality ) and magnificence(华丽Brilliance The quality of being brilliant; splendor; glitter; great brightness,), the grandeur(The quality or condition of being grand; magnificence: Nobility) like that of wave following wave in the open sea(undulating movement of the seas ; rising and falling or movement to alternating sides; movement in waves); there is no doubt that in all this there is something inspiring (Tending to arouse or heighten ; Stimulating the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity. :).这是全篇中最繁杂的句子，作者故意模仿他所批评的那种过于矫饰的风格，可以算是“现身说法”的例子。那些起伏的章节，冠冕的叙述，富于诗意联想的名词，使句子充实而有分量的从句，就像广阔的大海上滚滚波涛一样庄重。毫无疑问，这些用词都有它们使人激情澎湃的地方。 Words thus strung together fall on the ear like music. The appeal is sensuous rather than intellectual, 这样的单词组合听在耳中就像音乐一样美妙。比起知识层面上的，它们更像感官上的享受。Sensual Relating to or affecting any of the senses or a sense organ; sensory. Physical rather than spiritual or intellectual.Intellectual : Of or relating to the intellect. b. Rational rather than emotional. and the beauty of the sound leads you easily to conclude that you need not bother about the meaning. 听觉上的美好感觉更能轻易地使你觉得根本不必费心于词本身的意思。 The melody of the sentence leads you to the conclusion that meaning is not important in this context.But words are tyrannical things, they exist for their meanings, and if you will not pay attention to these, you cannot pay attention at all. Your mind wanders.（engaged in day dreaming, digression, mind involving in a low level of conscious activity. , engaged in a fantasy while awake. inattentiveness:, AM, deviation, go side tract ） 但词语是专横的东西，它们存在的意义就是它们的意思。一旦你忽略了词语的意思，你就无法集中思维，你的思绪就会迷失方向。(你就无法专心。)Tyrannical : characterized by absolute rule; having absolute power without any compromiseThis kind of writing demands a subject that will suit it. 罗斯金这样的风格只适用于某些内容。 It is surely out of place to write in the grand style of inconsiderable things. ( Inconsiderable: Too small or unimportant to merit attention or consideration; trivial.) 用华美的风格来记叙一些琐碎的事情，谁都会觉得别扭的。But if richness 华丽 needs gifts with which everyone is not endowed天赋, simplicity by no means comes by nature. 但是如果说辞藻华丽要求的天赋不是每个人都有的话，那么简单表达的能力也绝不是与生俱来的。 To achieve it needs rigid discipline (controlled behavior resulting from demanding, unyielding , uncompromising and unsympathizing disciplinary training。). 要做到它需要严格的训练。So far as I know ours is the only language in which (1)it has been found necessary to give a name to the piece of prose which is described as the purple patch9, it(2) would not have been necessary to do so unless it(3) were characteristic. 据我所知，我们英语是唯一一门需要为辞藻华丽的散文段落专门创造名词的语言，要不是因为典型的话，这是没有必要的。it (1)，指代不定式短语 to give a name to the piece of prose it (2)，指代不定式 to do so it (3)，指代的是 the piece of prose which is described as the purple patch9. purple patch : Purple means very ornate and elaborate, andpatch a passage. The purple patch is a highly florid passage in a literary work which is otherwise undistinguished. English prose is elaborate rather than simple比起简明，英语散文更加注重精美。. It was not always so. 但也不是一味如此。 Nothing could be more racy (Having a distinctive and characteristic quality or taste.保持原味的, 活泼的,) straightforward and alive than the prose of Shakespeare; but it must be remembered that this was dialogue written to be spoken. 比如莎士比亚的作品，没有什么比它们更原汁原味，简明易懂，生动活泼的了。但是我们不能忘了它们是对话体，是让人说的。 We do not know how he would have written if like Corneille he had composed prefaces to his plays. It may be that they would have been as euphuistic夸饰的，浮华的 ,ju:fju:istik as the letters of Queen Elizabeth. 我们不知道如果莎士比亚像曾为他的戏剧作序的高乃依那样写作会是怎样，也许写出来的文章会像女王陛下的信一样华丽。 But earlier prose, the prose of Sir爵士（Sir）是英国荣誉制度中，对骑士和从男爵的一种敬称。Thomas More, for instance, is neither ponderous笨重的；沉闷的；呆板的, flowery nor oratorical雄辩的. It smacks带有风味of the English soil. 但是更早期的文章，比如托马斯莫尔骑士的散文，它既不冗长花哨，也不过分修辞，带着泥土一样芬芳的最纯粹的英文的味道。To my mind King Jamess Bible has been a very harmful influence on English prose我认为，詹姆士国王的圣经对英文散文的有着非常负面的影响。. I am not so stupid as to deny its great beauty. 我不是愚蠢的否定它的美妙， It is majestical mdestikl adj. 庄严的；宏伟的；高贵的 . 它是庄严的。 But the Bible is an oriental book. Its alien imagery has nothing to do with us. 但是圣经是东方的文学，它里面那些泊来的比喻跟我们完全没有关系。Those hyperboles, those luscious甘美的；满足感官的metaphors, are foreign to our genius. I cannot but think that not the least of the misfortunes that the Secession脱离；分离sisen from Rome brought upon the spiritual life of our country is that this work for so long a period became the daily, and with many the only, reading of our people. 我认为，脱离罗马教皇的改革给我们国家的精神生活带来的很大的不幸之一，就是使这本书在很长的一个时期内成为人们的日常读物，甚至成为许多人的唯一读物。Those rhythms, that powerful vocabulary, that grandiloquence rndilkwns 豪言壮语，豪语；夸张之言, became part and parcel of the national sensibility ,sensibiliti感觉；识别力；情感. The plain, honest English speech was overwhelmed淹没with ornament. Blunt Englishmen twisted their tongues to speak like Hebrew prophets. There was evidently something in the English temper to which this was congenial, perhaps a native lack of precision in thought, perhaps a naive delight in fine words for their won sake, an innate eccentricity and love of embroidery, I do not know; but the fact remains that ever since, English prose has had to struggle against the tendency to luxuriance. cf. That way of speaking is congenial to something in the English temper.cf. That way of speaking is congenial to something in the English temper. 这种说话方式很投合英国人性情中的某种东西。When from time to time the spirit of the language has reasserted itself, as it did with Dryden and the writers of Queen Anne, it was only to be submerged once more by the pomposities of Gibbon and Dr. Johnson. 英语的精神只不过是再一次地被 Gibbon 和 Dr. Johnson 的浮华的风格所湮没When English prose recovered simplicity with Hazlitt, the Shelley of the letters and Charles Lamb at his best, it lost it again with De Quincey, Carlyle, Meredith and Walter Pater. It is obvious that the grand style is more striking than the plain. Indeed many people think that a style that does not attract notice is not style.They will admire Walter Paters, but will read an essay by Matthew Arnold without giving a moments attention to the elegance, distinction and sobriety with which he set down what he had to say. Walter Pater 的风格是夸张的，而 Matthew Arnold 的风格是平实的。The dictum that the style is the man is well known. It is one of those aphorisms that say too much to mean a great deal. 文如其人的说法众所周知。格言重复过多而沦为陈词滥调了。Where is the man in Goethe, in his birdlike lyrics or in his clumsy prose? 歌德作品中有敏捷轻快的抒情诗，也有粗俗笨拙的散，请问他的为人何在？ And Hazlitt?还有哈兹里特的情况也是一样。But I suppose that if a man has a confused mind he will write in a confused way, if his temper is capricious任性的；反复无常的his prose will be fantastical空想的；捕风捉影的, and if he has a quick, darting冲动 intelligence that is reminded by the matter in hand of a hundred things, he will, unless he has great self-control, load his pages with metaphor and simile. There is a great difference between the magniloquence (grandsounding 夸张的话；豪语；大言) of the Jacobean詹姆士一世时期的 1603-1625 writers, who were intoxicated喝醉的；极度兴奋的with the new wealth that had lately been brought into the language, and turgidity肿胀；浮肿；虚夸 bombastic style of Gibbon and Dr. Johnson, who were the victims of bad theories.这句讨论的是difference between the magniloquence and the turgidity，目的是说明，风格上类似的东西后面的作者是很不相同的。因此文如其人的说法是不准确的. I can read every word that Dr. Johnson wrote with delight, for he had good sense知书达理, charm魅力 and wit 机智(cleaver sayuing). No one could have written better if he had not willfully set himself to write in the grand style. He knew good English when he saw it. No critic has praised Drydens屈莱顿（英国诗人）prose more aptly(suitably). He said of him that he appeared to have no art other than that of expressing with clearness what he thought with vigor活力(powerful mind). And one of his Lives (n23) he finished with the words: Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar亲切体贴 but not coarse粗俗, and elegant but not ostentatious卖弄的；夸耀的；铺张的(unnecessary showing of language), must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison. But when he himself sat down to write it was with a very different aim. He mistook the orotund夸大的；做作的for the dignified庄重高贵. He had not the good breeding教养（training and education）to see that simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction卓越.Whether you ascribe (attribute to , consider) importance to euphony悦耳之音；悦耳；和谐的声音, the last of the three characteristics that I mentioned, must depend on the sensitiveness of your ear. A great many readers, and many admirable令人钦佩的writers, are devoid缺乏的；全无的of this quality. Poets as we know have always made a great use of alliteration头韵. They are persuaded that the repetition of a sound gives an effect of beauty. I do not think it does so in prose. It seems to me that in prose alliteration should be used only for a special reason; when used by accident it falls on the ear very disagreeably不合口味地；不愉快地. But its accidental use is so common that one can only suppose that the sound of it is not universally到处offensive讨厌的. Many writers without distress will put two rhyming words together, join a monstrous巨大的；怪异的；荒谬的；畸形的long adjective to a monstrous long noun, or between the end of one word and the beginning of another have a conjunction of consonants that almost breaks your jaw下巴. These are trivial and obvious instances. I mention them only to prove that if careful writers can do such things it is only because they have no ear. Words have weight重要性 意义, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.I have read many books on English prose, but have found it hard to profit by them; for the most part they are vague, und