小说的艺术外文翻译资料

Title: THE ART OF FICTION

Author: Henry James

Publisher: Longmans Magazine

Publish Year: September 1884

Literature should be either instructive or amusing, and there is in many minds an impression that these artistic preoccupations, the search for form, contribute to neither end, interfere indeed with both. They are too frivolous to be edifying, and too serious to be diverting; and they are, moreover, priggish and paradoxical and superfluous. That, I think, represents the manner in which the latent thought of many people who read novels as an exercise in skipping would explain itself if it were to become articulate. They would argue, of course, that a novel ought to be 'good,' but they would interpret this term in a fashion of their own, which, indeed would vary considerably from one critic to another. One would say that being good means representing virtuous and aspiring characters, placed in prominent positions; another would say that it depends for a 'happy ending' on a distribution at the last of prizes, pensions, husbands, wives, babies, millions, appended paragraphs and cheerful remarks. Another still would say that it means being full of incident and movement, so that we shall wish to jump ahead, to see who was the mysterious stranger, and if the stolen will was ever found, and shall not be distracted from this pleasure by any tiresome analysis or 'description.' But they would all agree that the 'artistic' idea would spoil some of their fun. One would hold it accountable for all the description, another would see it revealed in the absence of sympathy. Its hostility to a happy ending would be evident, and it might even, in some cases, render any ending at all impossible. The 'ending' of a novel is, for many persons, like that of a good dinner, a course of dessert and ices, and the artist in fiction is regarded as a sort of meddlesome doctor who forbids agreeable aftertastes.

It goes without saying that you will not write a good novel unless you possess the sense of reality; but it will be difficult to give you a recipe for calling that sense into being. Humanity is immense and reality has a myriad forms; the most one can affirm is that some of the flowers of fiction have the odour of it, and others have not; as for telling you in advance how your nosegay should be composed, that is another affair. It is equally excellent and inconclusive to say that one must write from experience; to our supposititious aspirant such a declaration might savour of mockery. What kind of experience is intended, and where does it begin and end? Experience is never limited and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web, of the finest silken threads, suspended in the chamber of consciousness and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative--much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius--it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations.

The novel and the romance, the novel of incident and that of character--these separations appear to me to have been made by critics and readers for their own convenience, and to help them out of some of their difficulties, but to have little reality or interest for the producer, from whose point of view it is, of course, that we are attempting to consider the art of fiction. The case is the same with another shadowy category, which Mr. Besant apparently is disposed to set up-that of the 'modern English novel;' unless, indeed, it be that in this matter he has fallen into an accidental confusion of standpoints. It is not quite clear whether he intends the remarks in which he alludes to it to be didactic or historical. It is as difficult to suppose a person intending to write a modern English, as to suppose him writing an ancient English, novel; that is a label which begs the question. One writes the novel, one paints the picture, of ones language and of ones time, and calling it modern English will not, alas! make the difficult task any easier. No more, unfortunately, will calling this or that work of ones fellow artist a romance-unless it be, of course, simply for the pleasantness of the thing, as, for instance, when Hawthorne gave this heading to his story of Blithedale. The French, who have brought the theory of fiction to remarkable completeness, have but one word for the novel, and have not attempted smaller things in it, that I can see, for that. I can think of no obligation to which the romancer would not be held equally with the novelist; the standard of execution is equally high for each. Of course it is of execution that we are talking-that being the only point of a novel that is open to contention. This is perhaps too often lost sight of, only to produce interminable confusions and cross-purposes. We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, what the French call his donneacute;e; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. Naturally I do not mean that we are bound to like it or find it interesting: in case we do not our course is perfectly simple--to let it alone. We may believe that of a certain idea even the most sincere novelist can make nothing at all, and the event may perfectly justify our belief; but the failure will have been a failure to execute, and it is in the execution that the fatal weakness is recorded. If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions, and some of the most interesting experiments of which it is capable are hidden in the bosom of common things. Gustave Flaubert has written a story about the devotion of a servant-girl to a parrot, and the production, highly finished as it is, cannot

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标题：小说的艺术

作者：亨利·詹姆斯

出版社：Longman杂志

出版年：1884年9月

文学应该是有启发性的，也可以是有趣的，在许多人的脑海中有这样一种印象:这些艺术上的追求，对形式的追求，虽然不改变两者的最终结果，但是对两者都有影响。他们太过轻浮，不可能被编辑，也太严肃而不能被转移;此外，他们还显得有些过于严肃、自相矛盾和多余。我认为，这代表了许多人在阅读小说时的潜在想法，如果他们想要表达自己的想法，那么他们就会自我解释。当然，他们会争辩说，一部小说应该是“好”，但他们会以自己的方式来诠释这个词，而且，不同的批评家，确实会有很大的不同。有人会说，“好”意味着表现出高尚的、有抱负的角色，被置于突出的位置;但也有人会说，这取决于在最后一个奖品、养老金、丈夫、妻子、婴儿、数百万、附加段落和欢快的话语中分配的“幸福结局”。还有人会说，这意味着充满了事故和行动，所以我们希望向前跳跃，看看谁是那个神秘的陌生人，如果偷来的人被发现了，也不会因为任何无聊的分析或描述而分心。但他们都同意，“艺术”的想法会破坏他们的乐趣。一个人会对所有的描述负责，另一个会在没有同情心的情况下看到它。它对幸福结局的敌意是显而易见的，甚至在某些情况下，它甚至可能导致任何结局都不可能。小说的结尾，对许多人来说，就像一顿丰盛的晚餐，一道甜点和冰，而小说中的艺术家则被认为是一名不喜欢令人愉快地回味的医生。

不用说，除非你拥有现实的感觉，否则你就不会写出一本好的小说;但是，要给你一个把这种感觉称之为“感觉”的诀窍，就很难了。人性是巨大的，现实有无数种形式;最能肯定的是，有些小说的花朵有它的气味，而有些则没有;就像事先告诉你，你的花束应该是怎样组成的，那是另一回事。声称一个人必须从经验中写作是同样的优秀和不确定的;对于我们这类人来说，这样的宣言可能是一种嘲弄。有什么样的经验，它从哪里开始和结束?经验从来都不是有限的，它永远也不完整;它是一种巨大的情感，一个巨大的蜘蛛网，它是一种最细的蛛丝，悬浮在意识里，捕捉它组织中的每一种空气传播的粒子。它是心灵的一种气氛;当头脑充满想象力时——当它碰巧是一个天才时——它就会把生命的微弱迹象变成现实，它把空气中的脉动转化为启示。

小说和浪漫、事件和人物的小说——评论家和读者为了他们自己的便利形成的这些角色让我帮助他们走出一些困难,但从他们的角度,没有现实或兴趣的生产商,当然,我们正试图考虑小说的艺术。这一案件与另一个神秘的类别是一样的，Besant显然倾向于建立“现代英语小说”;事实上，除非在这件事上，他已经陷入了一个意外的困惑。目前尚不清楚，他是否有意将这一言论作为说教或历史的暗示。假设一个想要写现代英语的人在写古英语小说，这是很难想象的，这是一个回避问题的标签。一个人写小说，图片的要点，不会把它叫做现代英语，让困难的任务变得更容易。不幸的是，他会把这个或他的艺术家的作品称为浪漫，除非是简单的事情，比如，当Hawthorne讲述他的故事的时候。法国人把小说的理论写得非常完整，只有一个词来形容这部小说，而且我还没有尝试过一些更小的东西，我可以看到。我想不出有什么义务让“浪漫者”不被小说家平等地看待;对于每个人来说，执行的标准也同样高。当然，我们正在讨论的是一部小说的唯一观点，而这正是小说的唯一观点。这也许经常被忽视，只是产生了无休止的混乱和交叉的目的。我们必须赋予艺术家他的主题，他的想法，法国人称之为他的donne;我们的批评只适用于他所做的。当然，我并不是说我们一定会喜欢它，或者觉得它很有趣:如果我们不这样做，我们的课程就会非常简单——让它单独出现。我们可能相信，即使是最真诚的小说家也无法做出任何事情，而这件事也能完全证明我们的信念;但失败将是一个失败的过程，而在执行过程中，致命的弱点被记录下来。如果我们假装尊重艺术家，我们就必须让他自由选择，在表面上，在特定的情况下，无数的假设，选择将不会有结果。艺术的大部分好处在于它在假设的情况下飞行，而一些最有趣的实验是隐藏在普通事物的怀抱里的。Gustave Flaubert写了一篇关于一个仆人对鹦鹉的忠诚的故事，而这部作品的制作完成得很好，不能被称为“成功”。我们完全可以自由地发现它是平的，但我认为它可能是有趣的;而我，对我来说，非常高兴他应该写它;它是对我们所能做或不能做什么的知识的贡献。Ivan Turgeacute;nieff写了一个关于一个聋哑的农奴和一只狗狗的故事，这是一件感人的、爱的、一件杰作。他击中了Gustave Flaubert错过的生命的笔记，他在一个假设的面前飞行，并取得了胜利。

当然，没有什么东西会取代“喜欢”一件艺术作品或不喜欢它的好旧时尚;更有改进的批评不会废除那种原始的、终极的、测试的东西。我提到这一点，是为了防止自己被指责说，小说或图片的主题，并不重要。在我看来，这在最高程度上是很重要的，如果我能祈祷的话，那就是艺术家们应该选择最富有的人。有些人，正如我已经加速承认的那样，比其他人更有实质性，这将是一个幸福的被安排的世界，在这个世界里，想要治疗他们的人应该免于困惑和错误。我担心，这一幸运的条件只会在同一天，批评人士被从错误中清除。与此同时，我重申，我们不会公正地评判艺术家，除非我们对他说:“哦，我同意你的出发点，因为如果我不这样做，我就应该给你开处方，但愿我不要这样做。”如果我假装告诉你，你不能拿走的东西，你就会叫我告诉你，你必须拿走什么;在这种情况下，我会被抓住的！而且，直到我接受了你的数据，我才可以开始测量你。我有这个标准，我根据你的建议来评判你，你必须在那里寻找我。当然，我可能根本不关心你的想法;我可能认为它是愚蠢的，或者是陈旧的，或者是不干净的;在这种情况下，我完全把你的手洗干净了。我可能会满足于相信你不会成功地成为一个有趣的人，但是我当然不会尝试去证明它，你会对我和对你自己一样冷漠。我不需要提醒你，有各种各样的口味:谁能更好地了解它?有些人，出于一些很好的理由，不喜欢读关于木匠的书;还有一些人，出于更好的理由，不喜欢读关于妓女的书。许多反对美国人。其他人(我相信他们主要是编辑和出版商)不会去看意大利人。有些读者不喜欢安静的主题;有些读者不喜欢热闹的主题。有些人喜欢完全的幻觉;有些人则沉迷于完全的欺骗。他们会选择自己的小说，如果他们不关心你的想法，他们就不会关心你对待他们的态度。”

在这一点上，道德感和艺术感是非常接近的;也就是说，根据一个显而易见的事实，艺术作品的最深层的品质永远是生产者精神的品质。在小说、图画、雕像等方面，我们的思想是丰富而高贵的，它的内涵是美与真理的本质。在我看来，构成这些要素是有目的的。没有一本好的小说能从表面的思想中走出来;对我来说，这对我来说是一个公理，对于小说中的艺术家来说，它将涵盖所有必要的道德基础;如果年轻的有志者把它放在心上，它将为他照亮许多“目的”的奥秘。“还有很多其他的有用的东西可以告诉他，但是我已经到了我的文章的结尾，只有在我经过的时候才会去碰它们。”我所引用的“布尔广场公报”的批评家，在谈及小说的艺术时，引起了人们对这种危险的关注。我想，他所想到的危险是，尤其是在Besant的启发性演讲中，有一些综合的言论，除了那些在Besant的演讲中体现出来的人，他也可能会对这个天真的学生发表演讲。我应该首先提醒他，对他来说，那是一种伟大的形式，它能让你看到如此少的限制和无数的机会。相比之下，另一种艺术似乎受到限制和阻碍;它们所运用的各种条件都是如此的严格和明确。但是我能想到的唯一的条件是，我已经说过了，它很有趣。这种自由是一种了不起的特权，年轻小说家的第一课就是要学会去做它。“尽情享受吧，”我应该对他说，“抓住它，最大限度地探索它，揭示它，为它高兴。”所有的生命是属于你的,不要听信那些限制你的言论,告诉你,艺术的栖息场所只有这里或那里,或者那些人会说服你这天堂信使以外的生活方式,让她远离事物的真理。

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