The literature of knowledge and the literature of Power 注释+部分翻译.docVIP

Week Eleven Thomas De Quincey The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb that definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some relation to a general and common interest of man—so that what applies only to a local, or professional, or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to Literature. So far the definition is easily narrowed; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is much that takes a station in books not literature; but inversely, much that really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons布道 of Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the popular mind—to warn, to uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm—does not attain the sanctuary避难所 of libraries in the ten-thousandth part of its extent. 因为不仅有许多跻身于书卷之列的文字并非文学作品，而且与之相反，不少真正的文学著作却未曾付梓成书。譬如基督教世界每星期的布道，这种篇什浩繁且对民众精神影响极广的讲坛文学，这种对世人起告戒、鼓励、振奋、安抚或警示作用的布道文学，最终能进入经楼书馆的尚不及其万分之一。The Drama again—as, for instance, the finest of Shakespeare’s plays in England, and all leading Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage—operated as a literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representation 这些作品在作为读物出版之前，已通过观看其演出的观众而“出版”了（这正是“出版”一词最严格的意义）。在抄写或印刷都非常昂贵的年代，通过舞台形式“出版”这些剧作远比将它们出版成书效果更佳。some time before they were published as things to be read; and they were published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they could have had as books during ages of costly copying or of costly printing. 因为不仅有许多跻身于书卷之列的文字并非文学作品，而且与之相反，不少真正的文学著作却未曾付梓成书。譬如基督教世界每星期的布道，这种篇什浩繁且对民众精神影响极广的讲坛文学，这种对世人起告戒、鼓励、振奋、安抚或警示作用的布道文学，最终能进入经楼书馆的尚不及其万分之一。 这些作品在作为读物出版之前，已通过观看其演出