2013年CATTI二级笔译考试中英精选范文(7)
What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst thethoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little
logic is required to disturb that definition. The most thoughtless person is
easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some
relation to a general and common interest of man—so that what applies only to a
local, or professional, or merely personal interest, even though presenting
itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to Literature. So far the
definition is easily narrowed; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is
much that takes a station in books not literature; but inversely, much that
really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons of
Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the
popular mind—to warn, to uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm—does not attain
the sanctuary of libraries in the ten-thousandth part of its extent. The Drama
again—as, for instance, the finest of Shakespeare's plays in England, and all
leading Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage—operated as a
literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of
that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representation
some time before they were published as things to be read; and they were
published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they
could have had as books during ages of costly copying or of costly printing.
我们所说的“文学”是什么呢?人们，尤其是对此欠考虑者，普遍会认为：文学包括印在书本中的一切。可这种定义无需多少理由便可被****。最缺乏思考的人也很容易明白，“文学”这一概念中有个基本要素，即文学或多或少都与人类普遍而共同的兴趣有关;因此，那些仅适用于某一局部、某一行业或仅仅处于个人兴趣的作品，即便以书的形式面世，也不该属于“文学”。就此而论，文学之定义很容易变窄，而它同样也不难拓宽。因为不仅有许多跻身于书卷之列的文字并非文学作品，而且与之相反，不少真正的文学著作却未曾付梓成书。譬如基督教世界每星期的布道，这种篇什浩繁且对民众精神影响极广的讲坛文学，这种对世人起告戒、鼓励、振奋、安抚或警示作用的布道文学，最终能进入经楼书馆的尚不及其万分之一。此外还有戏剧，如英国莎士比亚最优秀的剧作，以及雅典戏剧艺术鼎盛时期的全部主流剧作，都曾作为文学作品对公众产生过影响。这些作品在作为读物出版之前，已通过观看其演出的观众而“出版”了(这正是“出版”一词最严格的意义)。在抄写或印刷都非常昂贵的年代，通过舞台形式“出版”这些剧作远比将它们出版成书效果更佳。
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