超經典英語美文帶翻譯
閱讀經典美文是拓寬思維、增長見識、豐富情感、涵養素質的最有效手段。小編精心收集了，供大家欣賞學習!
篇1
藝術與生命
My parents owned six books between them. Two of those were Bibles and the third was aconcordance to the Old and New Testaments. The fourth was The House At Pooh Corner. Thefifth，The Chatterbox Annual 1923 and the sixth, Malory’s Morte d’Artliur.
I found it necessary to smuggle books in and of the house and I cannot claim too much for theprovision of an outside toilet when there is no room of one’s own. It was on the toilet that Ifirst read Freud and D. H. Lawrence, and perhaps that was the best place, after all. We kept arubber torch hung on the cistern, and I had to divide my money from a Saturday job, betweenbuying books and buying batteries. My mother knew exactly how long her Ever Readys wouldlast if used only to illuminate the hap that separated the toilet paper from its .
Once I had tucked the book back down my knickers to get it indoors again, I find somewhere tohide it, and anyone with a single bed, standard size, and paperbacks, standard size, willdiscover that seventy seven can be accommodated per layer under the mattress. But as mycollection grew, I began to worry that my mother might notice that her daughter’s bed wasrising visibly. One day she did. She burned everything.
I had been brought up to memorize very long Bible passages, and when I left home and wassupporting myself so that I could continue my education, I fought off loneliness and fear byreciting. In the funeral parlor I whispered Donne to the embalming fluids and Marvell to thecorpses. Later, I found that Tennyson’ s ‘Lady of Shalott’ had a soothing, because rhythmic,effect on the mentally disturbed. Among the disturbed I numbered myself at that time.
The healing power of art is not a rhetorical fantasy. Fighting to keep language, languagebecame my sanity and my strength. It still is, and I know of no pain that art cannot assuage.For some, music, for some, pictures, for me, primarily, poetry, whether found in poems or inprose, cuts through noise and hurt, opens the wound to clean it, and then gradually teaches itto heal itself. Wounds need to be taught to heal themselves.
The psyche and the spirit do not share the instinct of damaged body. Healing is automaticallytriggered nor is danger usually avoided. Since we put ourselves in the way of hurt it seemslogical to put ourselves in the way of healing. Art has more work to do than ever before but itcan do that work. In a self-destructive society like our own, it is unsurprising that art as ahealing force is despised.
For myself, when I returned to my to my borrowed room night after night, and there were mybooks, I felt relief and exuberance, not hardship and exhaustion. I intended to avoid thefate of Jude the Obscure, although a reading of that book was a useful warning. What I wanteddid not belong to me by right and whilst it could not be refused tome in quite same way, we stillhave subtle punishments for anyone who insists on what they are and what they want. Walledinside the little space marked out for by family and class, it was the limitless world of imaginationthat it possible for me to scale the sheer face of other people’s assumptions. Inside booksthere is perfect space and it is that space which allows the reader to escape from the problemsof gravity.
By Jeanette Winterson
藝術與生命
我父母兩人共有六本書。其中兩本是聖經、第三本是新舊約用語索引、第四本是《噗噗熊街角的屋子》***TheHouse at Pooh Corner***、第五本是《1923年話匣子年鑑》***The Chatterbox 1923 Annual***，而第六本是馬洛禮***Malory***的《阿瑟王之死》***Mortd’Arthur***。
我發現有必要把書偷運進出家裡，而且沒有屬於自己的房間時，對於於屋外廁所的供應品，我不能要求太多。我第一次讀到弗洛依德和D. H. 勞倫斯，是坐在馬桶上的，而或許，那終究是最佳之處。我們在馬桶水箱上懸吊了一個橡膠手電筒，而我必須將週六那份工作賺來的錢，平分花在買書和買電池上面。我母親清楚知道，她那些永備牌電池，如果光是用來照明區分衛生紙和其功能的空隙，可以維持多久。
有一回我又把書塞在內褲裡，好帶進屋裡。我必須找個地方把書藏起來，而任何人，若擁有一張單人床，標準尺寸的，以及平裝書籍，標準尺寸的，就會發現，床墊底下每一層可容納七十七本。可是當我的收集品增加時，便開始擔心母親會注意到，用眼睛就看得出女兒的床正逐漸升高。有一天她真的發現了。她全給燒了…。
……我成長過程中，必須背下很長的聖經段落。到我離開家庭，自己賺錢以便繼續求學時，便靠背誦來抵擋寂寞和恐懼。在殯儀館裡，我稍稍對著防腐香料液念約翰 ?多恩***Donne***、對著屍體念安德魯?馬維爾***Marvel***。後來，我發現丁尼生***Tennyson***的〈夏洛特〉***“Lady of Shalott”***，因為有節焰感，對於心智失衡者具有一種安撫作用。在那個時候我把自己也算在失衡者之列。
藝術的療愈力量並非誇大其詞的幻想。我奮力留住語言，語言因而讓我心智正常，具有力量。到現在仍是如此，而且我所知道的痛苦，無一不透過藝術而得到舒緩。對某此人來說，是音樂，另一些人，是繪畫，對我來說，是主要的是，不論出現在詩歌或散文中，詩能夠切穿嘈雜和傷痛，將傷口開啟以清理之，然後逐漸教導它自我療愈。
心靈和精神不像受損了的身體具有一種本能。療愈不會自動給引發，而危險也通常無以避免。既然我們會讓自己受傷，那麼讓自己得到療愈也是合乎邏輯的。比起以往任何時候，藝術要做更多的工作，但是這份工作它是做得來的。像我們這樣一個自我毀滅的社會裡，藝術之為一種療愈的力量，會受到鄙視，並不令人感到訝異。
對我自己而言，夜復一夜回到借來的房裡時，我感到放心且滿溢，而非困苦和疲憊，我意圖避免《無名裘德》***Jude the Obscure***的命運，雖然閱讀那本書是很有用的警告。我所想要的，並不理當屬於我，而雖然它也不能以完全同樣的方式拒我於外，但是任何人若堅持要做某種人或是想要某些東西，我們仍然會給他很微妙的懲罰。當我被關在家庭和階級為我所劃定的小小空間裡，是想象力那片無限的天地，讓我得以刮除他人那些假設的表層。書中自有完美的空間，就是這個空間，讓讀者能夠逃避地心引力的諸般問題。
詹涅特.溫特森 著
篇2
The Joys of Writing
The fortunate people in the world—the only reallyfortunate people in the world, in my mind, arethose whose work is also their pleasure. The class is not a large one, not nearly so large as it isoften represented to be; and authors are perhaps one of the most important elements in itscomposition.They enjoy in this respect at least a real harmony of life. To my mind, to be ableto make your work your pleasure is the one class distinction in the world worth striving for;and I do not wonder that others are inclined to envy those happy human beings who find theirlivelihood in the gay effusions of their fancy, to whom every hour of labour is an hour ofenjoyment, to whom repose—however necessary—is a tiresome interlude. And even a holidayis almost deprivation. Whether a man writes well or ill, has much to say or little, if he caresaboutwriting at all, he will appreciate the pleasures of composition. To sit at one's table on asunny morning, with four clear hours of uninterruptible security, plenty of nice white paper,and a Squeezer pen—that is true happiness. The complete absorption of the mind upon anagreeable occupation—what more is there than that to desire? What does it matter whathappens outside?The House of Commons may do what it likes, and so may the House ofLords. The heathen may rage furiously in every part of the globe. The bottom may be knockedclean out of the American market. Consols may fall and suffragettes may rise. Nevermind, forfour hours, at any rate, we will withdraw ourselves from a common, ill-governed, anddisorderly world, and with the key of fancy unlock that cupboard where all the good things ofthe infinite are put away.
by Winston Churchill
寫作的樂趣--溫斯頓·丘吉爾
在我看來，世上幸運的人——世上唯一真正幸運的人，是那些以工作為樂的人。這個階層的人並不多，還沒有人們常說的那樣多。也許，作家是其中最重要的組成部分之一。就幸運而言，他們至少享受著生活中真正的和諧美。依我看，能使工作成為樂趣，是世人值得為之奮鬥的一種崇高的榮譽;而且，我毫不懷疑別人會羨慕這些幸福的人，因為他們在快樂地噴湧的幻想中找到了生計，對他們來說，每勞動一小時，就是享受一小時，而休息——無論多麼有必要——是令人討厭的插曲，甚至度假也幾乎成了一種損失。無論寫得好壞，寫成多少，只要在意，就可嚐到謀章佈局的樂趣。在一個陽光明媚的早晨，臨桌而坐，整整四個小時不受打擾，有足夠數量的雪白稿紙，還有一支“擠壓式”妙筆——那才叫真正的幸福。全心全意地投入一項令人愉快的職業——此願足矣!外面發生什麼事又有何妨?下院想幹什麼就幹什麼吧，上院也可如此。異教徙可以在全球各地大發作。美國市場可以徹底崩潰。證券可以下跌;女權運動可以興起。沒有關係，不管怎麼說，我們有四個小時可以躲開這俗氣的、治理不善的、雜亂無章的世界，並且用想象這把鑰匙，去開啟藏有大千世界一切寶物的小櫥。
篇3
It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses ofothers.
讓人奇怪的是，和別人的過錯比起來，我們自身的過錯往往不是那樣的可惡。
I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and somanage to excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others.
我想，其原因應該是我們知曉一切導致自己犯錯的情況，因此能夠設法諒解自己的錯誤，而別人的錯誤卻不能諒解。
We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untowardevents to consider them, find it easy to condone them.
我們對自己的缺點不甚關注，即便是深陷困境而不得不正視它們的時候，我們也會很容易就寬恕自己。
For all I know we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and badin ourselves together.
據我所知，我們這樣做是正確的。缺點是我們自身的一部分，我們必須接納自己的好和壞。
But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them,
但是當我們評判別人的時候，情況就不同了。我們不是通過真實的自我來評判別人，
but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything thatoffends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.
而是用一種自我形象來評判，這種自我形象完全摒棄了在任何世人眼中會傷害到自己的虛榮或者體面的東西。
To take a trivial stance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but whocan say that he has ever told not one, but a hundred?
舉一個小例子來說：當覺察到別人說謊時，我們是多麼地蔑視他啊!但是，誰能夠說自從未說過謊?可能還不止一百次呢。
There is not much to choose between men.
人和人之間沒什麼大的差別。
They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and tininess, of virtue and vice, of nobility andbaseness.
他們皆是偉大與渺小，善良與邪惡，高尚與低俗的混合體。
Some have more strength of character, or more opportunity, and so in one direction oranother give their instincts for your play, but initially they are the same.
有的人性格比較堅毅，機會也比較多，因而這個或那個方面，能夠更自由地發揮自己的稟賦，但是人類的潛能卻都是相同的。
For my part, I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people, but I know that if Iset down every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind, the world wouldconsider me a monster of depravity.
至於我自己，我認為自己並不比大多數人更好或者更差，但是我知道，假如我記下我生命中每一次舉動和每一個掠過我腦海的想法的話，世界就會將我視為一個邪惡的怪物。
The knowledge that these reveries are common to all, men should inspire one with toleranceto oneself as well as to others.
每個人都會有這樣的怪念頭，這樣的認識應當能夠啟發我們寬容自己，也寬容他人。
It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, even the most eminent andrespectable, with humor, and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously.
假如因此我們得以用幽默的態度看待他人，即使是天下最優秀最令人尊敬的人，而且假如我們也因此不把自己看得過於重要，那是很有裨益的。