威廉·福克納獲諾貝爾文學獎受獎演說

　　威廉·福克納獲諾貝爾文學獎受獎演說

　　
　　威廉·福克納（William Faulkner，1897-1962）美國作家，生于美國密西西比州新奧爾巴尼的一個莊園主家，南北戰爭后家道中落。
　　　　第一次世界大戰期間，福克納在空軍服過役。戰后入大學，其后從事過各種職業并開始寫作。《士兵的報酬》（1926）發表后，福克納被列入"迷惘的一代"，但很快與他們分道揚鏢。《薩拉里斯》（1929）問世之后，福克納的創作進入高峰斯。他發現"家鄉那塊郵票般大小的地方倒也值得一寫，只怕一輩子也寫不完"。懷著這樣的信念，他把19篇長篇和70多篇短篇小說紡織在"約克納帕塌法世系"里，通過南方貴族世家的興衰，反映了美國獨立戰爭前夕到第二次世界大戰之間的社會現實，創傷了20世紀的"人間喜劇"。長篇小說《喧嘩與騷動》和《我彌留之際》（1930）、《圣殿》（1931）、《八月之光》（1932）、《押沙龍，押沙龍》（1936）等現代文學的經典之作。 

　　　　福克納后期的主要作品有《村子》（1940）、《闖入者》（1948）、《寓言》（1954）、《小鎮》（1957）和《大宅》（1959）等。此外還有短篇小說、劇本和詩歌。
　　　　福克納雖是南方重要作家，但他的作品當時并不受重視，直到1946年美國著名的文學批評家馬爾科姆·考萊編選了《袖珍本福克納文集》，又寫了一篇有名的序言之后，福克納才在文壇上引起重視。特別是薩特、馬爾洛等人的賞識，使福克納名聲大噪。
　　　　在藝術上，福克納受弗洛伊德影響，大膽地大膽地進行實驗，采用意識流手法、對位結構以及象征隱喻等手段表現暴力、兇殺、性變態心理等，他的作品風格千姿百態、撲朔迷離，讀者須下大功夫才能感受其特有的審美情趣。
　　　　1949年，"因為他對當代美國小說作出了強有力的和藝術上無與倫比的貢獻"，福克納獲諾貝爾文學獎。

　　I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- 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 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 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.

　　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.

　　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.