第32届韩素音国际翻译大赛

The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power

byThomas De Quincey 

知识文学与力量文学托 马斯·昆西 

What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, 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㇐切。可这种定义无需多少理由便可被推翻。最缺乏思考的人也很容易明白， “文学”这㇐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㇐局部、某㇐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㇐。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”㇐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。

Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea coextensive and interchangeable with the idea of Literature; since much literature, scenic, forensic, or didactic (as from lecturers and public orators), may never come into books, and much that does come into books may connect itself with no literary interest. But a far more important correction, applicable to the common vague idea of literature, is to be sought not so much in a better definition of literature as in a sharper distinction of the two functions which it fulfills. In that great social organ which, collectively, we call literature, there may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend and often do so, but capable, severally, of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is—to teach; the function of the second is—to move: the first is a rudder; the second, an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon calls dry light; but, proximately, it does and must operate—else it ceases to be a literature of power—on and through that humid light which clothes itself in the mists and glittering iris of human passions, desires, and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally by way of germ or latent principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed, but never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth— namely, power, or deep sympathy with truth.  What  is  the  effect,  for  instance,  upon  society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven—the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly—are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz. the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery book? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph.But would you therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power—that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth: whereas the very first step in power is a flight—is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.

由此可见，书之概念与“文学”之概念不可相提并论，互相替换，因为许多文学作品， 如戏剧演出或演讲者，雄辩家的说教和辩论，也许永远都不会付印成书，而不少印成书册的作品却可能与文学趣味并不相关。不过更为重要的是，要纠正人们对文学普遍的模糊观念，与其去为文学找一个更好的定义，不如更明确地划分文学的两种功能。在那两个被我们统称为文学的庞大社会媒体中，可以分辨出两种不同的功能。两种功能可能混合，而且经常混合，但各自又具有一种绝缘性，而且天生就互相排斥。这二者之一乃“知识文学”，之二则为“力量文学”。知识文学的作用在于教诲，力量文学的功能在于感化。前者可谓舵艄，后者则是桨桡或蓬帆。前者只有助于纯粹的推理悟解，后者则总是通过愉悦之情和恻隐之心的影响，最终激发出更高的悟性，或曰理性。远而望之，仿佛它可以通过培根称之为“理性之光”中的某个目标，近而观之，方知它必须通过那道被世人七情六欲之蒙蒙薄雾和闪闪彩虹包裹的“感性之光”发挥其作用，不然它就不再是㇐种“力量”的文学。世人对文学这两个更为重要的作用思之甚少，所以如果有人说赋予知识是书本平庸或次要的用途，此说便被视为悖论。但只有在悖论亦真这个意义上，此说方为悖论。每当我们用平常语言谈论求学求知的时候，总以为这些字眼与某种绝对新奇的事务有联系。然而，能在人类关注的事物中占据极高地位的真理之所以伟大，就在于它对最卑微者而言也绝非新奇；无论在最卑微者还是最高贵者心中，真理永远都以种子或潜在原理的方式存在，他只需去培育或发现，而无需去种植或创造。能够被移植是判断一个真理属于低级真理的直接标准。除此之外，还有一种比真理更珍贵的东西，那就是力量，或曰对真理的深切认同。举例而言，儿童对社会有何作用呢？儿童的无助、天真和单纯所唤起的怜悯、柔情和种种特殊的爱慕之意，不仅可强化和升华世人与生俱来的仁爱之心，就连那些在上帝眼中最为珍贵的品质，诸如唤醒宽容的柔弱、象征神圣的天真、以及超凡脱俗的单纯，也都会在永恒的记忆中得以保持，其完美典范亦会不断更新。更高层次的文学，即力量的文学，要实现的正是与此相同的目的。从弥尔顿的《失乐园》中你能获取什么知识呢？一无所获。从一本烹调书中你能学到什么呢？从每一段中你都能学到某种新的知识，某种你不曾知晓的知识。可你能因此而认为那本微不足道的烹调书比那部神圣的诗作更高明吗？你应该感谢弥尔顿的不是他给了你什么知识，因为获取一百万条互不相干的知识，也不过是在茫茫尘世向前走了一百万步；你应该感谢的是他给予你“力量”，使你能发挥并拓展与无限世界产生共鸣的潜能。在无限世界中，每一次脉动和心跳都是上升的一步，犹如沿雅各的天梯从地面攀向远离凡尘的神秘高 处。知识的步伐，自始至终都让你在同一层面行进，但绝不可能使你从古老的人间尘世上升一步；而力量迈出的第一步就是飞升—— 升入另一种境界，一种使你忘却凡尘的境界。