Rebecca 你好,

刚才没发好,一下把信发到别的栏目去了。奇怪的是居然很快就有好几位读者看。

白天上班时间看到你的回信,感到非常惊喜。只是工作紧张,没能回信。现在家中,可以心身放松地给多给你写上几句。首先我非常愿意把自己的翻译的东西奉献给美语世界,和大家交流自己的心得体会。经过比较,我发现美语世界的英语学习气氛最浓,最适于我发表自己的东西。因为我的东西主要是翻译作品。当然也有中文的原创诗歌散文,不过所占比例很小。

我从1982年开始我的业余文学翻译生涯。主要是长篇小说的翻译。我翻译过的长篇超过了20部。当然公开发表的只有四五部。另外还喜欢翻译抒情散文。包括发表的和未发表的,我手头上也有不下十多篇。我是1997年来美国的,依然坚持业余文学翻译,在这里翻译了四部长篇。不过至今仍藏在电脑里睡觉。此外,最近南京译林出版社委托我翻译英国早期女作家伍尔夫(Virginia Wolf)的《The London Scene》,现在初稿已经译完。书中包括六篇关于伦敦生活的短篇散文。这当然是我的精心之作。如果可能,我都愿意奉献给咱们的美语世界。其实我最想发表的就是那些长篇。不知该如何发表。我觉得可能不太适合,因为长篇周期太长。网络时代的读者没有那个耐性。都喜欢看短小精悍的快餐式文章。如果是喜好文学的,看抒情散文最合适。

现在我们之间已经不是陌生人了,再者我是个实在人,所以愿意把自己的家底都告诉你。目的也不为别的,只是为的更好地和大家交流。我比较喜欢的那几遍抒情散文,不怕你见笑,有几篇是重译作品,就是有别人翻译过,我又重新翻译的。原因是那些年在国内,想找到合适的东西翻译,非常困难。但是我翻译抒情散文的瘾特别大。实在找不到,看了别人译过的文章,我也想和他比试比试了。其中《秋》《冬》《月》《世界奇观地裂缝--科罗拉多大峡谷》,不过我觉得比他们译得好,尤其是《秋》和《大峡谷》,本来英文就好,因此译出来也不会差。最典型的就是《秋》,我在遣词造句方面颇花了一番心血。后来就此写出的论文,对我在翻译界的影响和评职称等都起到了巨大作用。

至于你提到能帮我查出英文,那再好不过了。只是我能提供的线索太有限。已经是十多年前的事情,早不记得原来的英文题目和作者的名字。因为我来美国时没有把它们带来。只有《春》有英文,因为当时发表时是英汉对照的,再者发表它《春》的《中国翻译》我带来了。英文是〈Spring> James.J.Kilpatrick 此外在大标题后还有个小标题,我也忘记了,中文就是复苏时节。其余各篇,我手头只有中文。连题目带作者都是中文。英文如何拼写,早就忘掉了。

《夏---海》,是天津翻译协会举办的翻译比赛文章,文章发表在当地一份在杂志上。我想参加比赛,虽然交稿是第一个,但是等评委打开一看,我没有把规定的参赛标识剪下来贴在稿件上,因此作废。我当时非常郁闷。由于疏忽大意丧失了参赛资格,丢失了获奖的可能。我一气之下,就投到天津日报副刊上,很快发表了。我这才感到有一点心理平衡。因此我无法提供英文。只记得题目好像是The sea, you love me ,you love me not. 作者中文名是C。门南。《秋》的原来英文题是《The sweet September>,中文名字是H.勃兰特。至于〈冬〉和〈月〉和〈大峡谷〉什么都记不得了。而这几篇的来源是当年的〈英语学习〉和〈英语世界〉。恐怕仅仅凭这点线索很难找到原文。

此外,还有五六篇描写的是美国国家公园,来源是一本地理杂志。文章非常长,这几篇属于摘编译。无法提供确切的英文。如找不到英文,那就单纯地欣赏吧,起不到学习的作用。不过Virginia Wolf的《The London Scene》〈伦敦即景〉可以中英对照。就先说这些吧,这封信太长了。有什么需要补充的下次再说吧。如能帮助我找到那几篇英文原作,就太好了。等过一两天,把〈夏(海)〉发表出去。

谨祝安康愉快!

宋德利 2007年6月27日 (来源:美语世界)





春(复苏时节)(美)J。凯尔帕特里克 著 宋德利 译 来源:美语世界

年年岁岁春常在,岁岁年年春不同。

四月,有时不知怎地一跃,就来到了弗吉尼亚的山坡上——转眼到处生机勃勃。郁金香组成了大合唱,连翘构成了阿拉伯式图案,洋李唱出了婉转的歌声。一夜之间,林木着装,绿叶瑟瑟。


四月有时又蹑手蹑脚,像我的小孙女一样,羞羞答答地在门口戛然止步,避开视线,偷偷向里窥探,尔后又咯咯地笑着走进门厅。“我知道你就在那儿藏着呢。”我喊道。“进来!”于是,春天便溜进了我的怀抱。

山茱萸的蓓蕾,淡绿清雅,表面点缀着褐色斑痕,活像一只完美无缺的小杯,一撮撮种子,半隐半现地藏在里面。我敬畏地观察这些蓓蕾,暗自发问:一个月之前,这些种子在什么地方呢?苹果花开,展示出一片片染了玫瑰红的象牙薄绸。一切冬眠的东西都在苏醒——美丽的樱花,纤细的蝴蝶花,还有蓝色的草夹竹桃。大地开始变暖——这,你既可以嗅到,也可以触到——抓起一把泥土,四月便揉碎在你的手心中。


黛色的蓝岭山,那是我居住的地方,它像臀丰乳高的女郎,依然安睡在浩瀚的天幕之下。后来,她终于伸腰舒臂,慢慢醒来。一阵阵和煦的风,像少女的柔发,在温和的天空驱动状如帆船般的云朵。下雨了——伴人入睡的细雨——像麦片粥一样微暗的原野,起初淡绿素雅,继而翠绿欲滴。这使我想到一个话题,它就像一首乐曲不断萦绕在我的脑际,平淡无奇,却又奥秘无穷:生命绵延不断。一切一切,尽在于此。任何事物,现在如此,以往如此,将来也必定如此。

我是一名新闻工作者,并不是传道士。我决不会就“上帝的存在”而挥笔撰文,上帝不属于我的工作范畴。一天下午,我在院里散步,无意中停下脚步,拾起一颗橡子——那是一颗栗色的,光滑的,摸一摸凉凉爽爽的橡子。冠毛茸茸的顶部早已磨平,酷似保险箱那隆起的球形旋钮。它没有丝毫的出奇之处。成千上万颗这样的种子撒满了草地。

我不知道塔瑟斯的保罗在通向大马士革的大道上,突然被圣光笼罩时看见了什么,然而我知道他的感觉如何。他大吃一惊,情不自禁地颤抖着;而那天下午,我也和他一样。高耸入云的橡树拔地而起,它不正是从一颗如此这般微不足道的种子里迸发出来的吗?而橡树本身蕴藏着的生殖力,足以孕育出一片又一片的橡树林。神秘的色彩,雄伟的气魄,壮观的形象,这一切一切,都封锁在这只微小,然而却奇妙的保险箱内。


这种令人倾倒的时刻,逝去了还会再来。二月里的一天,我下山去拔石楠和忍冬根。我把手伸进腐败的枝叶和碎树皮中去挖。看,在这层毫无生气的枯枝败叶底下,一棵根茎正在朝着那看不见的冬日,伸出一只野性十足的绿芽来。我发现的并非神的启示。我发现的大概不过是一棵野生的蝴蝶花罢了。这株蝴蝶花决不仅仅是为了一已的生存而挣扎,它是在准确无误地按照自然发展的进程而生长着,它是在响应那比人类启蒙时期还要古老的节奏与力量。它是在从久久逝去的冬日里那枯叶中奋力挣得生命。于是,我把这棵势不可挡的幼芽重新埋好,再用铁锹拍了拍,让它稍安毋躁:春天一定会到来。

这个平凡的主题又奏起了一章:春天来了。花园里芸香银莲,花团锦簇,宛若一列列光彩熠熠的小铅兵,整齐地排列在石墙头。山茱萸犹如一片片无拘无束的云朵飘浮在山间。

这是万物复苏的时节。那些已经死去,或貌似死去的东西都复活了——僵硬的枝条柔软起来,暗褐色的大地泛起了绿色。这便是奇迹之所在。这里没有死亡,有的只是千真万确的永恒的生命。


春天,我们用铁锹翻开园子里黑油油的沃土,打碎土块,把地面平整好,再把那些毫无生气的豌豆种子成垄成行地播下去。这都是些平凡至极的劳作,这里有什么激情可言呢?可是你瞧,雨下起来了。阳光也缓和起来了。接着,奇迹就来到了。这便是那萌芽的过程。什么样的萌芽?生命的萌芽,神秘的萌芽,奇迹的萌芽。干瘪的种子裂开了,卷曲的绿叶伸展了。这里包含着一种信息,它胜过任何教会的仪式、任何教义以及任何有组织的宗教。有谁不信,我的豌豆田就可以打消他的疑虑。


春天处处带来赏心悦目的复苏景象。生命在继续,死亡不过是一个早已逝去的季节而已。大自然从不蹒跚移步,从不三心二意。一切都是有条不紊。一切的一切,从来就是如此井然有序。

如果愿意,那你就去看一看吧!看一看芸香银莲,看一看无边的豌豆田,尤其是那萋萋芳草,早已甩开臂膀,穿街过市。这便是世界何以无止境的原因。过去如此,现在如此,将来也永远如此。春回大地,又有谁还惧怕那遥远的秋天呢?


版主您好,

感谢您对拙译的厚爱和推介。也感谢读者的喜欢。我是第一次有博克,还不大会发表文章。

《春》是我1987年左右的译作。从翻译至今正好20个年头。在这段时间里,《春》曾受到很多人厚爱,先后在《天津日报》、《中国翻译》等报刊发表。今年又被朱明炬等选入《英汉名篇名译》一书在译林出版社出版,还被天津市师范大学远程教育选为翻译课教材。我也曾多次就《春》发表论文。

本想把这些附件同《春》一起在贵版发表,但不知该如何做,于是6月24日下班回家自己试验性地先把《春》发表了。我一看已经过了好几天,要发表附件还不能单独发表,“皮之不存,毛将附焉”?没有原文,单独发表没有意义。读者读不到原文还谈什么翻译方法和赏析?因此现在我想补救一下,把附件发出去,不然“毛”离“皮”越来越远,以后再发表就失去了意义。

鉴于我还有一系列被我编辑到《精品抒情散文集》的译作和翻译心得体会想在贵版发表,诸如:夏(海)、秋(九月)、冬(雪)等,故而恳请赐教。谢谢。

宋德利,2007年6月27日新泽西 来源:美语世界

《春》翻译三要点 作者:宋德利 来源:美语世界

一. 译出神韵

最能体现神韵的就是动作,而体现在文字上就是动词。要把动词翻译的准确、鲜明、生动,震云也就译出来了。这三条要以忠实于原文为前提,所以把准确方在首位。

1. 准确:
(1) pause,是暂停,言外之意还要继续走。我译成“戛然而止”,便有此意,因为它能反映儿童天真烂漫而又顽皮的特征。或许是走着走着突然有个鬼点子,于是脚步猝然而止,是个动感极强,而且极有层次感的动作。因此“戛然而止”是个“活”动词。而如果死板地按照原文改译成“倚靠”,则是动感全无,神采平淡的“死”动词。

(2) slip, 本意是“滑”。“滑”有不稳之感,而且没有感情色彩。而译成“溜”,则具有强烈而丰富的感情色彩。“溜”的动作一般是小心谨慎,甚至怕被发现,有一种偷偷摸摸的心理。不过“溜”却含有褒贬两种含义。说褒,是出于善意,起码是无恶意的谨慎,比如说怕惊动他人。说贬,是出于恶意,比如说心怀鬼胎,做坏事时怕人发现才有“溜”的动作。当然此文中十分明显,是说小姑娘无恶意,只是出于顽皮,或至多是恶作剧而已。相形之下,“滑”就显得平淡乏味。

(3) sleep by,核心是by。 by, 有“伴随”之意,所以并不难译。 但我起初想译成“令人陶醉”,显然不很贴切。后来想换成“催人入睡”,我觉得还是欠妥。最后译成“伴”,似乎才贴切。此外,如果再仔细玩味,sleep是入睡。春季里人容易困。俗话有“春困秋乏”之说。因此“春困”是“入睡”的根本原因。也就是说,困是由大候造成,并非春雨的小气候使然。所以我认为春季催人入睡,春雨则伴人入睡。此外,春的美一般在于温柔,不在刚烈。二者相比,“催”的动作刚烈,而“伴”的动作温柔,有春意温馨之感。

2. 鲜明:tiptoe,作“踮脚而行”和“蹑手蹑脚”解。我译成“踮脚潜入”, 这是最切原文之意的。而如果改译成“蹑手蹑脚“,有点词不达义。因为”蹑手蹑脚”的含义一般只是“放轻脚步”,而这一动作并非一定要踮脚,然而踮脚而行必然是蹑手蹑脚。所以用“踮脚潜入”最能令人联想到儿童顽皮的形象。

3. 生动:The trees grow leaves overnight. 此句本来再简单不过了,只要译成 “一夜之间树木都长出叶子”即可。但这样译不生动,文字也味同嚼腊。 我译成“一夜之间,树木着装,绿叶瑟瑟”。这样译,就使原文中的树多 了一个动作,确切地说,是树叶有了动作。“林木着装”,就是树生出了新叶。但如到此为止,叶子并无动作,因而没有丝毫生气。我用“瑟瑟”二字,给树叶赋予了动作。令人想像到,嫩叶即出,乍暖还寒的春风一吹,似乎有点发冷,而用瑟瑟二字表示最为形象。一般来讲,这两个字常常与秋风相连,如“秋风瑟瑟”。


二. 译出文采


文采就是文字要译得美。文字美有三个含义:含义美,形式美,音韵美。

1. 含义美:指读后通过其内在含义产生美的联想。具体讲,如果使人对描绘对象产生好感,则算成功,如果产生反感,甚至厌恶,则不算成功,也就是说译得不美。

(1)…big-breasted and high-hipped,…stretched and then gradually awaken.
这说的是蓝岭山的姿态。big-breasted and high-hipped 就是“巨乳”和“肥臀”。可如果真这样译成 “巨”和“肥”,则未免有失雅致。我译成“臀丰乳高”,则是脱化于中国古典小说中类似的说法。至于stretched,起初我曾译成“伸开懒腰”,也不算美,最后译成“伸腰舒臂”似乎好多了。

(2)…the stubborn weed that thrust its shoulder through a city street. stubborn weed, 如果译成“杂草”,不太贴切。“杂”,令人反感,因为杂草一般都在被铲除之列。这里讲的是春草,虽然茂盛,但是绿茸茸地充满生机,而且还散发着缕缕独特的清香,可爱而不可厌。既不是与庄稼争夺养分的杂草,也不是为蚊虫孳生提供条件的杂草。我译成了“萋萋芳草”。“萋萋”是stubborn 的一中含义,既充满活力,有充满顽强的生命力。我没有用单个的“草”字,而是用了一个偏正结构的“芳草”。至于是否“芳”,那当然要取决于译者的审美情趣。

2.形式美:指遣词造句要精美,其中很重要的一点就是结构美。至于什么样的文字才算美,不同译者有不同的追求标准。我的追求是适当运用一些古色古香的古诗词结构。为达此目的,我注意了几下几点。

(1)化静为动,改变结构,求灵活。
In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap – and all the stage is filled at once, while choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum.

四月,有时不知怎地一跃,就来到了弗吉尼亚的山坡上——转眼之间,到处生机勃勃,酷似一个大舞台。郁金香组成了大合唱,连翘构成阿拉伯式图案,洋李唱出了婉转的歌声。

我用化静为动的方法,对of 所表示的静态所属关系进行改造,加用了“组成”,“构成,”和“唱出”几个动词。这样就成了排比句,形式工整,生动活泼,读起来也顺畅。

(2)化零为整,化乱为工,求节奏。
All was locked in this tiny, ingenious safe - the mystery, glory, the grand design.
神秘的色彩、雄伟的气魄、壮观的景象、这一切一切,都被封锁在这只微小然而奇妙的保险箱内。

我采取化零乱为工整的方法,对原文the mystery, glory, the grand design 三个词进行了改造。原文中前两个词组分别由一个名词组成,第三个则是一个形容词加名词的偏正结构,而我把前两个词从原文的名词形式变成形容词形式,然后分别加上两个原文中没有,但与原文含义并不相悖的名词“色彩”和“气魄”,于是就变成了三个偏正结构,不仅看起来工整,读起来也琅琅上口,颇有一气呵成之感。

(3)重复用词,首尾倒置,求新颖。

Springs are not always the same. 原来我译成:春天并非总是一模一样。但是如果译成“年年岁岁春不同”,似乎也不错。可是如果真的这样译,那最好再加上一句。怎么加呢?依我的习惯,尽量求对偶。汉语多以偶句求稳健工整,这也是出于中国人的“对称求美”的观念。如果造对偶句,可以有不同的方法。可以采用重复用词,首尾倒置方法,对“年年岁岁”进行改造,这样既有节奏感,又不无新意。比如可以造成对句:“年年岁岁春常在,岁岁年年春不同”。仔细玩味,对偶句放在文章之首,比单句似乎更自然完美。

3.音韵美:音韵是有声的,文章是无声的,音韵与文章两者似乎毫不相
干。然而,文章写出来有时是要人念的。一般文章尚且如此,散文就更不用说了。既然要念,就要力求音韵优美,只有如此,才能琅琅上口。为达此目的,译者在选词造句的时候就要注意声调韵律的问题。

(1)one acorn, nut brown, glossy, cool to touch.
那是一颗栗色的,光滑的,摸一摸凉凉爽爽的橡子。我用叠音字“摸一摸凉凉爽爽”,这显然比“摸者凉”读起来要有节奏,要明快响亮得多。

(2)and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green,  then to kelly green.
像麦片粥一样微暗的原野,起初淡绿素雅,继而翠绿欲滴。我本着音调力求和谐的原则,搭配运用了“雅”(仄声)和“滴”(平声)二字。如果把原文死译成“先变成淡绿,后变成翠绿”,两个词组的结尾都是相同的仄声字,读起来就呆板多了。

(3)Look to the rue anemone, if you will, or to the pea patch, or to the stubborn weed that thrusts its shoulders through a city street.
如果愿意,你就去看一看吧!看一看芸香银莲,看一看萋萋芳草,看一看无边的豌豆田,尤其是那萋萋芳草,早已甩开臂膀,穿街过市。

排比句运用得好,可以使文章读起来似大江之水,飞流直下,气势磅礴,锐不可当。为了发挥排比句的作用,在此例中,我试着根据原文,先把“看一看”提出去,成一独立句,而后又造出三个都冠以“看一看”的短句,排列在一起,即“看一看芸香银莲”,“看一看无边豆田”和“看一看萋萋芳草”。为了造成整齐的排比句,我对原文句式结构进行加工,比如萋萋芳草后面原来有一串修饰语,即“早已甩开臂膀,穿街过市”。我把这段修饰语摘下来,放到后面独立成句,而后为了音调和谐,把豆田和芳草的顺序调整一下,于是三个词组的结尾就成了“莲”(平声)、“草”(仄声)、“田”(平声)。读起来不仅押韵,而且音调平仄和谐,因为“平仄平”总比“平平仄”要响亮。

三.译出内涵

我在这里说的内涵就是指原文中隐含的词语和含义。

1.隐含词语:这是指由于英语表达习惯,有时把汉语惯于写出来的词语隐藏起来。例如比喻问题,既不加“像什么”,也不加“是什么”这些明喻和暗喻的标志性词语。有时为满足汉语表达习惯,要把这些隐含的词语从幕后请出来,写出明明白白的比喻句,或明喻,或隐喻。不然就显得缺乏衔接词语,既造成词语空白,又造成语义断层,使读者感到不知所云。

(1)and all stage is filled at once.
按字面译为“舞台立即充满(各种节目)”,但是前文讲的是春天来到弗吉尼亚,下面突然出现“舞台”,读来不知所云。因此需要把一个隐含的比喻说法译出来。比如译成:春回大地,活像一个大舞台。下面再接具体描写,诸如:大合唱、阿拉伯式图案、婉转的歌,就清楚多了。

(2)The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. Within the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled.
前面一句是说山茱萸蓓蕾的颜色。后面紧接这说再完美无缺的杯子里如何。注意定冠词the 极其重要,说明有所指,也就是说刚才已经提到,但cup一词在此句才第一次出现,令人费解,显得cup一词来得突兀。只有加上汉语中表示比喻的标志词“像”、“是”、“犹如”等等,才显得清晰自然。我加了“活像一只只完美无缺的小杯”。

2.隐含语义:就是透过词语看到作者想表达的含义。表达含义的词语要选出两个特点,一是具体,一是普遍。所谓具体,就是仔细推敲,选出含义最具体的词语,才能准确。

(1)the dark Blue Ridge Mountains in which I dwell,
其中的 dark如果译成“黑”则不美。我译“黛”。何为“黛”,什么时候才有“黛”?有诗云:“近山翠,远山黛”。所以“黛”能体现空间层次,产生距离感,立体感。此外,“黛”是淡青色,只有山远才会产生,那是一种说不出具体颜色的模糊颜色,用这个词可以产生一种朦胧美。这是其它颜色所不能表达的。细细体味,原作者是在表示一种空间层次。

(2) a wild rhizome was raising a green, impertinent shaft toward the unseen winter sun.
我起初的译法是:“有一棵野生根茎正朝着那看不见的冬日伸出一个野性十足的绿芽来”。后来我曾经改把其中的“野性”改译成“干劲”。不过我又觉得并不贴切,没有译出隐含的词义。关键词是impertinent, 可作“不礼貌”解,也可作“鲁莽”、“莽撞”或“肆无忌惮”解。如果译成“干劲十足”,不沾边。译成“肆无忌惮”则含贬义,也不恰当。一个幼芽的生长谈不上褒贬的问题。再来推敲“野性”,倒是觉得还算差强人意。我认为这个词是中性偏褒,有天真幼稚,初生牛犊不谙礼仪之义。俗话说“童言无忌”,就是说儿童天真烂漫,虎气十足,但言语动作难免考虑不周,因此会显得唐突失礼,不过由于年幼,反而平添几分可爱。

所谓普遍,就是指把原文过于具体,以致令汉语读者难于理解或欣赏的具体词语,译成带有普遍意义的词语。这有时也为译者提供便利,或可以说在不可译的困境中得以解脱。

比如:milliner’s scraps of ivory silk, rose tinged. 有人把milliner译成“女帽商”,结果全局译成“苹果花像女帽商收集的绸缎碎片般象牙的乳白色”。有人则译成“女帽、妇女头饰设计者的碎绸布片”。既不美,也不确切。译得这么具体,又麻烦,又不清楚,何不译出作者得内在含义?所以选用一些能表达苹果花颜色得普遍性词语即可。我译成:“苹果花开,展示出一片片染了玫瑰红的象牙色薄绸”。仔细玩味,此句缺乏衔接词,故而显得不合逻辑,苹果花怎么展示薄绸?可以改成:“苹果花开,简直是在展示一片片染了玫瑰红的象牙色薄绸”。因为“简直”或“酷似”等词就像润滑剂或缓冲器,可以使语气避免生硬武断的色彩。



《春》应该这样赏析(选自朱明炬、谢少华、吴万伟《英汉名篇名译》)

写这篇赏析文字的时候,正是江城春光融融、无处不飞花的四月。一个人坐在窗前,沐浴在春日的暖阳里,望着窗外蓊蓊的一片新绿,读着上面如诗如画的文字,想到仅仅一个多月前,还是寒风萧萧、阴沉郁闷的冬末,转眼就是柳风柔柔、燕草碧丝的春色春景,不禁要对造物心存感激了。

要感激的岂止是造物?还有那神奇、美妙的汉语。那一个个方块文字组成的优美篇章,将一个个春日美景凝固在纸上,将一片片春光撒播在心底。从“春水无风无浪,春天半雨半晴”的“春光好”,到“船上管弦江面绿,满城飞絮滚轻尘”的“南国正芳春”,从“草色青青柳色黄,桃花历乱李花香”的春日“春思”,到“春江潮水连海平,海上明月共潮生”的“春江花月夜”,古往今来,这样的篇章委实太多太多了,数也数不尽。读着这样的篇章,无论你是在春,在夏,在秋,还是在冬,你的心里总会漾起一层春波,升起一片希望。这不,读着上面译文中形象、动感的文字,你难道不觉得自己振奋了许多,恨不能立刻走出去,活动活动筋骨,呼吸一下春天的气息吗?

实在不想去一字一句地分析宋译《春》的得失成败,也实在没有必要去分析,任何一个懂点英语的人对照原文和译文阅读都能感知宋译是多么出色。读着这样的文字,又有几个人会记得自己是在读译文呢?散文大家朱自清在著名的散文《春》中创造的意境也不过如此。译文中那细腻的描写,那动感的形象,那真挚的情感,简直将春天写活了:“四月,有时不知怎地一跃,就来到了弗吉尼亚的山坡上”、“四月有时又蹑手蹑脚,像我的小孙女一样,羞羞答答地倚在门外,向里探探头,一闪又不见了,只是在门厅里咯咯地笑”、“抓起一把泥土,四月便揉碎在你的手心里了”。象这样的句子,以诗来名之,难道过分吗?

自然,宋译的成功肯定有它的原因。除了在理解时细心揣摩原文,极力抓住原文的意义和风格外,在表达阶段,译者采取了一系列的处理手法,收到了良好的效果。较为突出的有如下三个方面:

一、保留原作的修辞手法(主要是比喻和拟人的手法),再现原文的生动形象。这方面例子译文中很多,如“四月”“不知怎地一跃,就来到了弗吉尼亚的山坡上”、“四月”“像我的小孙女一样,羞羞答答地倚在门外”、“春天这才悄然跑进了我的怀抱”、“黛色的兰岭山”“像臀丰乳高的女郎”等等,不一而足。也正是因为这些修辞手法的运用,原文栩栩如生的形象才在译文中得以存活,原文优美的意境才在译文里得以复现。

二、力求句式多姿多彩,服务情感表达的需要。 Spring 是一篇抒情色彩浓郁的散文。散文作为一种文体,具有取材广泛,自由便捷,结构灵活,表现手法不拘一格,句式多样等特点。尤其是散文的句式,常随情感表达的需要呈现丰富多彩的变化。这一点,在 Spring 原文中可得到直接的引证。宋译《春》显然继承并发扬了原作的这个优点,在句子的长短、句子结构的安排等方面尤多努力,为完美传达原文的风格打下了坚实的基础。特别是在句子结构的安排上,宋译将忠实与创造相结合,表现出灵活多变的特点。译文中破折号的使用尤其夺人眼目,上面不太长的选文里就使用了六个破折号,这在别的文章里是不多见的。这些破折号的使用,给译文带来了一种动感、多变的节奏。同时,为了服务于情感表达的需要,译者还有意增加了句子中间的停顿(如不说“山茱萸的蓓蕾淡绿清雅”而在“蓓蕾”和“淡绿清雅”之间增加了一个逗号,不说“黛色的兰岭山是我居住的地方”而说“黛色的兰岭山,那是我居住的地方”,这样处理,明显文字的抒情意味更浓了),强化了文字背后欢快、喜悦的情绪。

三、有意使用大量动词(词组),造就一种欢快的动感。宋译《春》是一篇以描写为主的散文。象这样一类描写的文字,由于描写的对象多为静物,文字中本不应有多少动作的成分。但《春》却比较特别,由于运用了拟人、比喻等修辞手法,文章中描写的大自然成了具有行为能力的动作主体了,这一点使得动词(词组)的大量使用成为自然而然了。这些动感十足的词语(组),构成了一个个活生生的形象,忠实地服务于原文意境的再现。如果将这些词语去掉,即使能够表达同样的意思,译文的感染力也要大打折扣。这样的词语几乎遍及全文,这里就不一一分析了。

当然,仅有以上三点是不足以成就一篇优秀译文的。翻译处理手法的运用从来都是服务于表达需要的,不同的处理手法在一篇译文中是协同作用的。翻译时如果拘泥于一定的处理手法,则译文一定会生硬,呆板。宋译之所以出色,在于译者在吃透原文总的语言特点、修辞手段、气氛、感情效果的基础上,运用地道、优美的汉语灵活、创造性地表达,力求再现原文的整体意境,从而同原文在笔调、风格上保持一致。也正是在这个意义上,宋译才有其美学上的价值。



宋德利您好,

非常感谢你对【美语世界】论坛的厚爱,非常感谢你分享精彩绝伦的译文和翻译心得,受益匪浅。

关于发附件的问题,如果你的附件是收藏在Microsoft Word, 打开Word Doucument,hold down your left mouse, highlight the whole document, then paste it into your blog. After that, you can post it to 【美语世界】. 不知道是否回答了您的问题?If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me messages.

另外,您也可以告诉我原文的作者的英语名字和文章的英语标题,我可以到网上去查询,帮您发英语原文。比如:如果你告诉我【春】的作者的英语名字,我可以去网上查询,看是否能找到英语原文?

再次感谢您,期待你的 夏(海)、秋(九月)、冬(雪)等精彩好文。



夏安,

Rebecca  (来源 美语世界)



James J. Kilpatrick

James J. Kilpatrick (b. November 1, 1920) is a conservative columnist and grammarian.

Kilpatrick began writing his syndicated political column, "A Conservative View," in 1964, after he had spent many years as an editor of the Richmond News-Leader. Once a fervent segregationist, he changed his position over many years' reflection and subsequently renounced his former thinking, though he remained a staunch opponent of actual or perceived federal encroachments upon the individual states.

But Kilpatrick achieved his fame in the 1970s during nine years as a debater on the 60 Minutes segment "Point-Counterpoint," opposite Nicholas von Hoffman (and subsequently Shana Alexander). He is now a nationally known columnist for the Universal Press Syndicate and is syndicated in over 180 newspapers around the country.

Kilpatrick has long since semi-retired, shifting from a three-times-a-week political column to a weekly column on judicial issues, "Covering the Courts." He also writes a syndicated column dealing with English usage, especially in writing, called "The Writer's Art." He is the author of a book of the same title. His books include The Foxes Union, a recollection of his life in Rappahannock County, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains; Fine Print: Reflections on the Writing Art; and, A Political Bestiary, with former U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy.

In 1998, Kilpatrick, then a widower, married a second time, to liberal Washington-based syndicated columnist Marianne Means.

Source:  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Rebecca 你好,

(重新发一次。刚才慌里慌张没有写你的名字就发出去了。请原谅我还是博克里的一名green hand.)

一大早就看到你帮我找到的《春》作者的介绍。这是我今天收到一份最好的礼物。这对理解《春》以及今后再有机会利用这篇文章提供了弥足珍贵的资料。非常感谢。我再一次感到美语世界真是一个大课堂。我愿意在这里当一名小学生。我说这话不是应酬语,是出自真心的,因为很快你就会看到我的下一步行动。暂且保密,到时候,用不了一两天,我将给你一个始料未及的。。。什么呢?也许可以叫做惊喜?谁知道你喜不喜呢,但惊可能会有点儿。好了,第一次加跟贴,不知道能不能发到正确的地方。也许又发到一个莫名其妙的地方去了。我的工作是编辑,日常工作就是写稿发稿。常出这种事。都是因为我太笨。下次再见。Have a nice day!

宋德利 2007年6月28日晨新泽西 (来源:美语世界)



Sweet September Author: Suzanne Case

Sweet September,
how I long to cast my shadow
by your sunset,
upon the grasses of the lovely plain,
to face the majestic
mountains
that roll upon your eastern horizon.
Sweet September,
you call me into your warm embrace,
my heart is full
of your promise
while I dream of russet and golden leaves
that will dapple us beneath
your peaceful sky,
as the winds of life, meet,
one by one upon our brows.

For I have been asleep,
waiting for your golden hue
to rest upon my silent cry.
You paint with bands of color
upon my heart and soul,
as if show me the strength
within the zebra's thigh
painted, alluring dancer in this valley
and ground on high...where we will walk
to embrace yet one more moment
we shall have always known.

http://www.boloji.com/poetry/0600-0700/0619.htm





Virginia Woolf 简介:

Born: January 25, 1882
London, England
Died: March 28, 1941
near Lewes, East Sussex, England
Occupation: Novelist, Essayist
Influences: James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust
Influenced: Michael Cunningham
Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction".

Life

Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London to Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson) (1846–1895), she was educated by her parents in their literate and well-connected household at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington.

According to her memoirs her most vivid childhood memories, however, were not of London, but of St Ives in Cornwall, where the family spent every summer until 1895. The family stayed in their home called the Talland House, which looked out over the Porthminster Bay. Memories of the family holidays and impressions of the landscape, especially the Godrevy Lighthouse, informed the fiction she wrote in later years, notably To the Lighthouse. She also based the summer home in Scotland after the Talland House and the Ramsay family after her own family.

The sudden death of her mother from influenza in 1895, when Virginia was 13, and that of her half sister Stella two years later, led to the first of Virginia's several nervous breakdowns. The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and she was briefly institutionalised.

Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by drastic mood swings. Though these recurring mental breakdowns greatly affected her social functioning, her literary abilities remained intact. Modern diagnostic techniques have led to a posthumous diagnosis of bipolar disorder, an illness which coloured her work, relationships, and life, and eventually led to her suicide.

In her last note to her husband she wrote:

“ I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. ”


Work

Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness, the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters, and the various possibilities of fractured narrative and chronology. In the words of E. M. Forster, she pushed the English language "a little further against the dark," and her literary achievements and creativity are influential even today.

Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: Woolf is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions.

The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings of most of her novels, even as they are often set in an environment of war. For example, Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organize a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars.

To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centers around the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind.

The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centered novel.

Her last work, Between the Acts (1941) sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation - all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf



【The London Scene 】 简介:

The London Scene is a beautifully packaged sequence of six essays that Virginia Woolf composed for Good Housekeeping magazine in 1931. Collected together in this edition for the first time, these carefully sketched windows on London are so distinctively Woolfian you can almost hear her reading them aloud.

From the first piece to the last, we are given contrasting impressions of the city that was always Woolf's first home. We see London as an abstract industrial machine in the first essay, inspired by a day spent watching the cranes and the ships in the Docklands in March 1931. And in the last, where Woolf paints a portrait of Mrs Crowe – an imagined londoner – glimpsed accidentally through a window, we see the whole of London embodied in an old woman.

The London Scene is an essential addition to the canon, largely due to the characteristic way in which Woolf's complete writings converge both thematically and stylistically. These pieces expand her other works – in particular her short writings. In her 1930 essay a street haunting (collected in The Death of the Moth), Woolf walks out in a trance-like state down a twilit Oxford street to look for a new lead pencil. But it is London itself that seizes her imagination, along with the anonymous selves that haunt its streets. In each piece, she connects the mechanisms of the city with the human: "It is we – our tastes, our fashions, our needs – that make the [Docklands'] cranes dip and swing, that call the ships from the sea. Our body is their master... because one chooses to light a cigarette, all those barrels of Virginian tobacco are swung on shore... as for the umbrella that we swing idly to and fro, a mammoth who roared through the swamps fifty thousand years ago has yielded up its tusk to make the handle." The city and the citizen are inextricable. The bright lights and shop fronts of Oxford Street are, of course, inanimate, and yet at the same time, "the mere thought of age, of solidity, of lasting for ever is abhorrent to Oxford Street". It is paradoxically the most vibrant impression of London that she paints.

The very architecture of the city interacts with the psyche of the characters Woolf draws. In all her works, rooms and living spaces take on an enormous significance, as they at once house and embody the inhabitant. In Great Men and Great Houses, the Carlyles' house has been opened to the public, and she observes the ways in which their home shaped them psychologically – crafting Mr Carlyle into the austere old sage she took such relentless delight in ridiculing. They "had no water laid on. Every drop used... had to be pumped by hand from a well in the kitchen[.] Carlyle with water laid on would not have been Carlyle".

But we are also left with another Woolfian phantom – that of the empty room as a prefiguration of the morbidity that occupied her so intensively. Mrs crowe, like the eponymous hero of Jacob's Room, cannot sit entertaining her neighbours for ever – she can only witness a mere moment of London's vast lifetime. But it is this moment that makes living worthwhile. It is the dichotomy at the heart of Woolf's aesthetic; on the one hand, we can never really know one another – there are too many neuroses – too many unarticulated desires and fears – so many that we cannot truthfully even claim to know ourselves. And yet at the same time, this must not stop us trying. Mrs Crowe, Clarissa Dalloway, and Mrs Ramsay all shy away from intimacy; conversation is kept light and sociable, but through their parties and gatherings, people are brought together, and in contrast to the modernist paranoid fear of the city's alienating properties, human contact is made. It is a tentative illustration that we are not eternally alone.

http://www.spannered.org/books/515/



宋德利好,

谢谢你的回复。

我今天早上在网上查询 ,遗憾的是没有找到相关的英语原文。你的翻译就是再创作,是一篇篇优美的散文,很高兴你愿意和【美语世界】的网友们分享。

如果是长篇译文,你可以分章节发。谢谢你。Virginia Wolf的《The London Scene》〈伦敦即景〉有中英对照,真是太好了,期待着。

Have a nice day,

Rebecca  (来源:美语世界)

Rebecca 你好,

你的办事效率真高,我刚发给你第一个跟贴,一转眼又看到下一个。真是一道道亮丽的风景看得人心花怒放,可谓是“山阴道上,接应不暇”。感谢你的帮助。

你那篇Sweet September 是诗歌,不是散文。不过我很喜欢,等有时间我把它翻译一些。说到这里,我还要告诉你,几年前我还真的翻译过诗歌呢。我突发奇想,选译了美国早期女诗人EMILY DICKINSON 艾米丽。迪金森的诗,大概有一百多首,只是不敢献丑,一直埋在我的电脑里。因为译诗和译散文不同。但愿有机会发出来,请译诗里手指点一下。数量还不少呢,扔掉怪可惜的。

关于伦敦即景,如果考虑发表不会引起译林出版社的反对,我愿意发表。一是让读者先读为快,再者也想公开向高手求助,因为她的语言,正如译林的编辑所说,非常难,翻译她的作品是艰巨的工程。通过翻译我也深有体会。好了,这封跟贴不知道能否发过去。

宋德利。2007年6月28日  (来源:美语世界)

我喜欢EMILY DICKINSON 艾米丽。迪金森的诗。谢谢你。

--- Rebecca   (来源:美语世界)









林贝卡 发表评论于
To Rebecca 来源: [ 美语世界 ] 宋德利利

http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=mysj&MsgID=7552
林贝卡 发表评论于
春 来源: [ 美语世界] 宋德利利

http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=mysj&MsgID=7448
林贝卡 发表评论于
《春》翻译三要点 来源: [ 美语世界] 宋德利利

http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=mysj&MsgID=7502
林贝卡 发表评论于
LiYouCai,

你真是幽默极了。孔子曰:“三人行,必有我师也。”所以我得向你们学习。

谢谢夸奖,我是个平凡的女人。

Have a great day,

Rebecca
LiYouCai 发表评论于
Agree!

我也要像林妹妹那样,向宋德利和李有才学习!

(林妹妹不但talented, 还很虚心。 你又一次赢得才哥我的敬重。回头请吃饭!)
林贝卡 发表评论于
LiYouCai,

我可没有宋德利那样的才华,我得向他和有才的你学习。

晚安,

Rebecca
LiYouCai 发表评论于
哇 --- (不是哭,是吃惊的感叹,才哥发声有时确实与众不同)

如此名人都向林妹妹讨教! 而林妹妹居然平时还肯理俺,俺感到脸上有光,不,脸上发光!

现在才哥我正是决定,放弃Rebecca叫我才哥的要求,就叫有才吧。
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