簡·奧斯汀誕辰250週年|經濟學人文化(推薦)

1
寫在前面
思維導圖作者:
琚兒,女,QE在職,夢想能仗翻譯/音樂/健康走天涯
翻譯組全體成員如下:
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精讀|翻譯|片語
Culture | Reading between the spines 

文化 書堆溯""
英文部分選自經濟學人20250301期科技板塊

Culture | Reading between the spines 
文化 書堆溯""
Jane Austen’s forgotten inspirations 
·奧斯汀被遺忘的靈感源泉
A new book investigates the authors whom Austen revered
一本研究奧斯汀尊崇的作家的新書
Maria Edgeworth
Facing prejudice and pride
(瑪利亞·埃奇沃思)面對傲慢與偏見
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf. By Rebecca Romney. Marysue Rucci Books; 464 pages; $29.99. Ithaka Press; £25
《簡·奧斯汀的書架》,作者:麗貝卡·羅姆尼。瑪麗蘇·魯奇出版社;464頁,售價:$29.99;伊薩卡出版社;£25
Legions of “Janeites” will spend 2025—the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth—truffle-hunting for undiscovered morsels in the life and work of English literature’s most famous woman author. Amid all the “Austenmania”, including balls, festivals, podcasts, television series and new books, what are the odds of finding something new?
2025年是簡·奧斯汀誕辰250週年,"簡迷"軍團將在這位英國文學界最負盛名的女性作家的生活和作品裡用搜尋松露般的勁頭去發掘還不為人所知的點點滴滴。"奧斯汀熱"形式多樣:有舞會、節慶、播客、劇集和新書等等,但新發現的機率有多大?
An American rare-book dealer, Rebecca Romney, has managed it, by searching where Austen’s secrets lie hidden in plain sight: her letters and books. “Jane Austen’s Bookshelf” surveys the female writers she admired and whose novels laid the groundwork for everything from gothic thrillers to today’s romantasy boom.
美國珍本書商麗貝卡·羅姆尼(RebeccaRomney)有了新發現。他們搜尋了奧斯汀的信件和書籍,並在這些公開資料中發現了奧斯汀還不為人知的秘密。《簡·奧斯汀的書架》對奧斯汀欣賞的女性作家們進行了研究——這些女性作家的作品是後續文學作品的基石,不管是哥特驚悚小說還是如今大熱的浪漫奇幻小說,都受到了她們的影響。
Ms Romney is known for her bibliographic sleuthing on “Pawn Stars”, an American TV show that features experts appraising objects brought to a pawnshop in Las Vegas. Embarrassed by her own ignorance and shocked at the erasure of these writers from the canon, she set out to use the tools of her trade to answer a question: did Austen’s predecessors disappear from the canon because their books were simply “trash”?
美國電視節目《典當之星》是一檔專家鑑寶節目,專家們對拉斯維加斯的一家典當行的典當品進行鑑別,而羅姆尼女士因在節目中展現的文獻調查能力而聲名大噪。羅姆尼愧於自己對對這些作家瞭解甚少,也對這些作家被移除經典名家目錄而感到震驚,於是她開始用自己的專業技能來回答一個問題:奧斯汀的前輩們不被正統認可,難道是因為她們的作品一塌糊塗嗎?
No. Take Frances Burney, in whose novel “Cecilia” (1782) the phrase “pride and prejudice” first appears. Burney’s debut, “Evelina”, was a literary sensation, reprinted four times in its first year. Her third, “Camilla”, is cited tongue-in-cheek by Austen in “Northanger Abbey” as “only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed”.
答案是否定的。比如作家弗朗西斯·伯尼 (Frances Burney)傲慢與偏見這個提法首先是在她 1782年的小說《塞西莉亞》中出現。伯尼的第一部作品《埃維莉娜》文學界引起了轟動,出版第一年就加印了四次。她的第三部作品卡米拉》,就被奧斯汀諾桑覺寺中以調侃的口吻引用不是所有的作品都能展現出偉大的思想
Or consider Ann Radcliffe, the mother of the gothic horror novel, whose “The Mysteries of Udolpho” also obsesses characters in Austen’s “Northanger Abbey”. Radcliffe’s novel helped create a new genre that represented one-third of the British fiction market in the 1790s. Austen’s bookshelf also included Charlotte Smith, a poet admired by William Wordsworth, whose first novel, “Emmeline”, Austen read at 16 and praised in her own youthful stories. And her favourite was probably Maria Edgeworth, author of “Belinda”, a society novel, to whom Austen had a copy of her own “Emma” sent in homage.
再比如哥特風格恐怖小說教母安·拉德克利夫 (Ann Radcliffe),奧斯汀《諾桑覺寺》裡的人物都著迷其小說《奧多芙的神秘》拉德克利夫的小說在英國開宗立派,在1790年代佔領了三分之一的小說市場。奧斯汀的書架》中提到了威廉·華茲華斯 (William Wordsworth)崇敬的詩人夏洛特·史密斯(Charlotte Smith)的作品。奧斯汀回憶自己青年時光,曾寫道自己在16歲就讀了夏洛特的第一部小說《城堡的孤兒》並稱贊不已。奧斯汀最喜歡的作家可能是社會小說《貝林達》的作者,瑪利亞·埃奇沃思 (Maria Edgeworth)她曾將自己的作品寄給埃奇沃思以表敬意
If they were so popular in their own time, how did these authors slip “from the spotlight…to the shadows”? Like most Austen fans, Ms Romney was not familiar with most of Austen’s foremothers. She concludes that the authors and books Austen revered, and in some cases consciously emulated, were shunned by male literary critics, falling prey to what scholars call “the Great Forgetting”.
如果這些作家在她們的時代如此有名,那為什麼她們會不再受重視甚至被遺忘?像大部分奧斯汀的粉絲一樣,羅姆尼女士也不熟悉大部分奧斯汀喜歡的或崇拜的作家。她得出的結論是那些奧斯汀尊崇、並有意模仿的書和作家,遭到了男性文學批評家的打壓成為了學者們所說的重大的遺忘的受害者
The Regency era saw both the rise of the modern novel and a backlash against female authors, derided as “scribblers”. Critics’ disdain coincided with the first time in history when more women published novels than men. Each female writer’s fate was slightly different: Radcliffe, for example, was doomed by the creepy genre she popularised. (One male critic spoke for many of his peers when he derided women writers’ “images of the grosser sort” and dismissed the genre as “a species of…literary prostitution”.)
攝政時代既是現代小說興起的年代,也是對女性作家無情打壓的年代女性作家被輕蔑地稱為不入流之輩嘲諷和貶低甚囂塵上,這一時期恰逢女性作家出版的小說數量首次超過男性。每位女性作家的命運各有不同:例如,拉德克利夫因她所推廣的恐怖小說型別而遭受了大量的非議。(一位男性評論家在貶低女性作家的粗俗形象並將這一型別斥為一種文學賣淫時,道出了許多同行的心聲。)
Ms Romney is not the only scholar to describe Austen’s “sister authors”, most of whose books are now available online in the public domain. But the chronicle of her quest to find and explain the importance of their texts is written with a light, wry touch. “Jane Austen’s Bookshelf” is thus a spirited and scholarly rebuke to centuries of literary bias.
羅姆尼女士並非唯一一位研究奧斯汀姐妹作家的學者,這些作家的作品大多現已進入公共領域,可以線上閱讀。但她以輕鬆而略帶諷刺的筆觸,記錄了自己尋找並闡釋這些作品重要性的探索歷程。《簡·奧斯汀的書架》因此成為對幾個世紀以來文學偏見的一次充滿活力且富有學術深度的反駁。
Perhaps the most fascinating lineage she traces is from these 18th-century “romances” (defined as any work with fantastical elements), to Austen’s genteel “courtship novels”, to the dragon-packed love stories flying off shelves today. Such romances give women starring roles and agency, whether in love, marriage or on epic quests. In the case of Austen’s predecessors, too, there is a “happily ever after”: if you have ever wished Jane Austen had written more books, a bookshelf full of her favourite writers is just waiting to be read. 
或許羅姆尼女士追溯的最引人入勝的脈絡,是從18世紀的浪漫故事(定義為任何包含奇幻元素的作品),到奧斯汀優雅的求偶小說,再到如今書架上熱銷的充滿龍元素的愛情故事。這類浪漫故事賦予女性在愛情、婚姻或史詩般的冒險中主角地位和主動權。對於奧斯汀的前輩們而言,同樣有一個從此幸福快樂到永遠的結局:如果你曾希望簡·奧斯汀能寫出更多作品,那麼一個裝滿她最喜愛作家作品的書架正等待你去探索。
翻譯組:
Xia Jiehai, 創作者
Lee,愛騎行的婦女之友+Timberland
Qianna,對語言有點敏感,對邏輯十分執拗,對搖滾太過著迷
校對組:
Clover,懷民亦未寢
Rachel,學理工科,愛跳芭蕾,熱愛文藝的非典型翻譯
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感想
本期感想
Vicky,少兒英語老師+筆譯新人
沉默的另一半
能言善道向來不是女性的優點,可是大家又公認女性理應心思細膩,容易共情,這樣的特質讓女性天然在文學、表達領域就應有所建樹。所以在文學史的長河中,女性創作者始終在尋找自己的聲音。李清照在《金石錄後序》中寫道:"餘性不耐,始謀食去,手自筆錄,計日以還。"這位宋代才女不得不在戰亂中獨自保護文物典籍,其文學成就背後是常人難以想象的艱辛。英國小說家簡·奧斯汀在客廳寫作時,聽到門響就得迅速藏起手稿,因為寫作被認為是不合淑女身份的行為。這些細節揭示了女性在文學創作道路上遭遇的系統性困境。
文學史對女性創作者的壓制是系統性的。勃朗特姐妹最初以男性筆名出版作品,因為當時社會無法接受女性寫作的現實主義小說。法國作家喬治·桑不得不穿上男裝,以男性身份出入文學沙龍。這些偽裝不是她們的選擇,而是時代的壓迫。
如今女性作家的境遇會好一些嗎?有,未必如你想象的多。當代女性創作者仍在突破各種隱形天花板。JK·羅琳在出版《哈利·波特》時被建議使用中性筆名,因為出版商認為男孩不會讀女性作者寫的書。不管是脫口秀還是嘻哈,男性創作者的言語表達都會更加沒有限制一些,如果那些粗口和顏色笑話由一名女性來表達,楊笠遭到了什麼待遇,舉國皆知。表達領域的性別偏見並未隨著時代進步而消失,只是變得更加隱蔽。打著的旗號不再是不可以表達,而是要求你正確表達,只是如何正確,由他們定義。
文學創作本應是無性別的精神活動。李清照的詞作展現了不輸任何男性詞人的藝術造詣,簡·奧斯汀的小說揭示了超越時代的人性洞察。真正的文學價值不在於作者的性別,而在於作品本身的藝術成就與思想深度。
雖然闡述了這麼多的無奈過往,可喜的是古往今來的女性從來沒有停止發聲。總有人頂住壓力,想方設法,發出振聾發聵的聲音,才有瞭如今我們越來越多的機會可以自我表達。也許表達並無意義,但是也要用心感受,盡情表達自己的想法和態度,因為你的表達,就是意義本身。
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