接受诺贝尔文学奖时的演说
Acceptance Speech on Nobel Literature Prize
威廉·福克纳
By William Faulkner
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，既不为名也不为利，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。要按照最初的目的和意义讲清该奖项的款项并不难。但我更欢迎这样做，利用这一时机，把它作为一个顶点，奉献给听我讲话的同样痛苦和艰辛工作的年轻人，他们中必定有人将会站在我今天的位置。
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work— life’s work in the agony a nd 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 where I am standing.
我们的悲剧在于长期以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，我什么时候会被炸得粉身碎骨？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，值得为此痛苦和辛劳。
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.
他一定要重新了解这些，一定要叫自己认识到最可鄙莫过于害怕，一定告诫自己永远不要忘记，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。他把情欲而不是把爱情当做写作题材，把失败当做写作题材，描写的是没有任何人损失任何价值东西的微不足道的失败；把胜利当做题材时，描写的是没有任何希望的胜利，而最糟糕的是没有怜悯和同情。他的悲伤不是刻骨铭心的，而是轻描淡写的。他写的不是心灵而是分泌腺体的器官。
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 universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
在他重新了解这些之前，他的写作态度就像无可奈何看着世界末日到来。我拒绝接受世界末日的观点。不是简单地说人类能够持续就说人类是永恒的。当命运的最后钟声敲响，当傍晚的最后一抹红色从平静无浪的礁石退去，甚至不再有其他声音，人类的无尽的不倦声音还在争鸣，我不认输。我相信人类不仅会延续，还会胜利。他是永生的，不是因为只有他在万物生灵中拥有不倦的声音，而在于他有灵魂，能够同情、牺牲和忍受的灵魂。
Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
诗人和作家的职责就是歌颂这些。通过提升人类的心灵，提醒他们牢记勇敢、荣誉、希望、尊严、同情、怜悯和牺牲这些昔日的光荣，来帮助人类生存下去，这是作家的荣幸。诗人的声音不仅是人类的简单记录，而且还是能够帮助人类持续和获胜的支柱之一。
The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
威廉·福克纳（1897—1962）美国作家，生于美国密西西比州新奥尔巴尼的一个庄园主家，南北战争后家道中落。最有代表性的作品是《喧哗与骚动》。
1949年，福克纳作品《我弥留之际》获诺贝尔文学奖。他在斯德哥尔摩发表的获奖感言是诺贝尔文学奖最精彩的感言之一。这席发言和他的性格十分吻合。他捐献了自己获得的奖金，要“成立一个基金以支持鼓励文学新人”，最后建立了国际笔会·福克纳小说奖。
