作者简介


威廉福克纳（1897—1962），美国作家，先后创作了十几篇长篇小说和几十篇短篇小说，描述了以美国南方200年来南北战争为中心事件的社会变迁，各种家族的兴衰，各种人物的沉浮。他的小说常描写美国的黑暗面，1949年获得诺贝尔文学奖。本篇是他在接受该奖时所发表的演讲。这是一篇脍炙人口的演讲词。然而，由于福克纳本人对语言运用的独特性和精深性，所以对初学者来说，这篇美文也许颇有些难度。

文本

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.

参考翻译
我认为这个奖项不是授给我个人而是授给我的工作---------一项艰辛而痛苦的毕生投入的人类精神的工作,既不为名也不土利,而是要从人类的精神原材料中创造一些前所未有的东西。因此这个奖项我只是代为保管。要该奖项的款项按照最初的目的和意义并不难。但我更欢迎这样做，利用这一时机，把它作为一个顶点，向听我话的有志于此的年轻人发出号召，他们中必定有人会站在我今天的位置。

我们的悲剧在于长期与来我们一直承受着肉体上的恐惧，不再有任何精神方面的问题。有的只是一个问题，我什么时候会被炸的粉身碎骨？因此，如今年轻人的作品已经忘记了处于矛盾冲突中的人类心灵问题，而这本身就能够创造出好作品，因为这值得去写，值得为此辛劳。

人们一定要了解这些，一定要叫自己认识到最可鄙莫过于害怕，一定告戒自己永远不要忘记，工作中除了心灵的正直诚实不要给任何东西留有空间，过去的那些正直诚实的普遍品质包括爱情、荣誉、怜悯、尊严、同情和牺牲，缺乏了它们任何作品都是短暂的和注定要失败的。