瓦尔特·罗利/Walter Raleigh
Style, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the art that handles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid elements of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might serve for an epitome of literary method, the most rigid and simplest of instruments has lent its name to the subtlest and most flexible of arts. Thence the application of the word has been extended to arts other than literature, to the whole range of the activities of man. The fact that we use the word“style”in speaking of architecture and sculpture, painting and music, dancing, play-acting, and cricket, that we can apply it to the spontaneous animal movements of the limbs of man or beast, is the noblest of unconscious tributes to the faculty of letters. The pen, scratching on wax or paper, has become the symbol of all that is expressive, all that is intimate, in human nature；not only arms and arts, but man himself, has yielded to it. His living voice, with its undulations and inflexions, assisted by the mobile play offeature and an infnite variety of bodily gesture, is driven to borrow dignity from the same metaphor；the orator and the actor are fain to be judged by style.“It is most true”，says the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy，“stylus virum arguit, our style betrays us.”Other gestures shift and change and fit, this is the ultimate and enduring revelation of personality. The actor and the orator are condemned to work evanescent effects on transitory material；the dust that they write on is blown about their graves. The sculptor and the architect deal in less perishable ware；but the stuff is recalcitrant and stubborn, and will not take the impress of all states of the soul. Morals, philosophy, and aesthetic, mood and conviction, creed and whim, habit, passion, and demonstration—what art but the art of literature admits the entrance of all these, and guards them from the suddenness of mortality?What other art gives scope to natures and dispositions so diverse, and to tastes so contrarious?Euclid and Shelley, Edmund Spenser and Herbert Spencer, King David and David Hume, are all followers of the art of letters.
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All style is gesture, the gesture of the mind and of the soul. Mind we have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right reason are not different for different minds. Therefore clearness and arrangement can be taught, sheer incompetence in the art of expression can be partly remedied. But who shall impose laws upon the soul?It is thus of common note that one may dislike or even hate a particular style while admiring its facility, its strength, its skilful adaptation to the matter set forth. Milton, a chaster and mote unerring master of the art than Shakespeare, reveals no such lovable personality. While persons count for much, style, the index to persons, can never count for little.“Speak，”it has been said，“that I may know you”—voice-gesture ismore than feature. Write, and after you have attained to some control over the instrument, you write yourself down whether you will or no. There is no vice, however unconscious, no virtue, however shy, no touch of meanness or of generosity in your character, that will not pass on to the paper. You anticipate the Day of Judgment and furnish the recording angel with material. The Art of Criticism in Literature, so often decried and given a subordinate place among the arts, is none other than the art of reading and interpreting these written evidences. Criticism has been popularly opposed to creation, perhaps because the kind of creation that it attempts is rarely achieved, and so the world forgets that the main business of Criticism, after all, is not to legislate, nor to classify, but to raise the dead. Graves, at its command, have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth. It is by the creative power of this art that the living man is reconstructed from the litter of blurred and fragmentary paper documents that he has left to posterity.
Style这个在拉丁语中原意为“铁笔”的名词，久已被用来作为驾驭语言这种流动性事物的艺术，而这种驾驭是具有日益蓬勃的生机和审慎的矫健性的。显而易见的是，凭借譬喻手段（譬喻仍不失为文学方法的一种概括），使本来最刻板、最简单的工具竟能把它的名字假借给艺术中最精致灵活的艺术。以此为起点，这个名称又被广泛地应用到文学以外的其他艺术，应用到人类全部活动范围。我们使用style一词来谈论建筑、雕刻、绘画、音乐、舞蹈、歌剧、板球，我们用这个词来叙述人与兽的肢体上的那种自然遒劲的动作这一事实，正是我们对文学功能的一种最崇高的不自觉的礼赞。笔，这种吮墨濡纸的工具，已经成为人性中所有富于表现力的、所有亲切的事物的象征。不但武力与技艺向它屈服，人类自身也向它屈服。人的声音，它的起伏高低，并辅之以活跃的面部表情与体态姿势上的千变万化，都势必要借助于这同一譬喻：演说家与演员也都渴望得到风格方面的鉴赏。“再真实不过的就是风格”，正如《悲哀的解剖》的作者所写到的，“我们的风格暴露了我们自己”。其他姿态都可以是变动不定，了无痕迹的，风格却是性格的最终极、最经久的表露。演员与演说家不得不在不能历久的材料上来求得短暂的效果；他们的业绩与身俱亡。雕刻家与建筑师所经营的材料虽较为耐久，但却又操持困难，冥顽不灵，不容易承受心灵状态的各种印记。所有的道德、哲理与美学、情态与信念、主义与幻想、热情及表白等等——所有这一切，除文学以外，又有哪一种艺术足以把它们涵摄无遗，而又能避免其突然消亡的危险？又有其他哪一种艺术能够赋予在习性上如此纷纭，趣味上如此相异的人们以充分发挥的余地？事实上，不论欧西里德与雪莱，埃德蒙·斯宾塞与赫伯特·斯宾塞，大卫王与大卫·休谟，他们都是语言文字这门艺术的追随者。
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一切风格都是姿态，心智的姿态与灵魂的姿态。心智是我们所共有的，因为正确理性的规律对于不同的心智并没有什么不同。因此清晰与条理是可以通过施以教诲而获得的，而表达技巧上的极端无能也可以部分地得到矫正。但是，有谁能对灵魂强行制定规律呢？一个最常见的现象是，人们尽管可以并不喜爱甚至厌恶某一特殊风格，同时却又对它的纯熟、气势以及这种风格与其内容的贴切一致由衷地钦佩。弥尔顿以其文风论，是一位比莎士比亚更为简洁朴实和精确无误的大师，但却未必具有这样可爱的性格。当一个人本身价值非凡时，作为其标志的风格的价值也不会太小。人们常说：“开口吧，我就能认识你。”——声音所表示的要比面庞更为深刻。动笔吧，只要你对手中的工具已有几分把握，你就会把你自己摹写下来，不论你愿意与否。不管你如何没意识到的缺点，不管你如何想隐瞒的优点，在你性格中不论是卑劣或宽厚，没有一项不会在文字上表现出来。你虽然早知道有最后审判日的到来，却仍不免要向那职掌记录的天使提供材料。文学中的批评艺术虽然经常受到贬低，而在艺术中处于卑微地位，但却恰恰是辨别与解释这些书面证据的一门艺术。人们常把批评和创造对立起来，这也可能是由于批评所试图进行的那种创造成效不大，于是遂被世人忘记，批评的首要任务并不是去制定条律，也不是去作分类，而是去起死回生。墓穴在它的指挥之下，可把沉睡的人唤醒过来，打开墓门，令其悉数逸出。正是依靠这种艺术的创造力量，才有可能从先人遗留的残缺不全、字迹模糊的故纸堆中按原样再造出当年的活人来。
心灵小语
勤于学习的人才能乐意施教。
——乔叟
W词汇笔记
designate['dezigneit]v.指定；标示
例 She was designated sportswoman of the year.
她被指定为本年度的体坛明星。
vitality[vai't?liti]n.活力；生命力
例 She is full of youth and vitality.
她充满了青春和活力。
symbol['simb?l]n.符号；标志；象征
例 He only bought the yacht as a status symbol—he hates sailing.
他买游艇只是为了显示身份——其实他根本不喜欢玩游艇。
transitory['tr?nsit?ri]adj.暂时的；瞬息的；短暂的；片刻的
例 The cold weather is transitory.
这寒冷的天气只是暂时的。
S小试身手
以此为起点，这个名称又被广泛地应用到文学以外的其他艺术，应用到人类全部活动范围。
译____________________________
一切风格都是姿态，心智的姿态与灵魂的姿态。
译____________________________
正是依靠这种艺术的创造力量，才有可能从先人遗留的残缺不全、字迹模糊的故纸堆中按原样再造出当年的活人来。
译____________________________
P短语家族
……that we can apply it to the spontaneous animal movements of the limbs of man or beast……
apply to：适用于；运用于
造____________________________
……but man himself, has yielded to it.
yield to：服从；屈从；让步
造____________________________