William Faulkner's Speech at the Nobel Banque

William Faulkner's Speech at the Nobel Banquet B
by William Faulkner
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work—a life's work in the agony C 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 D for the money part of it commensurate E 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 F from which I might be listened A 莫言在获得2011年茅盾文学奖后说：“我有野心把高密东北乡当作中国的缩影，我还希望通过我对故乡的描述，让人们联想到人类的生存和发展。

”在问鼎诺贝尔文学奖后的两场记者见面会上，莫言就高密东北乡问题进行阐述：“我小说里的高密东北乡已经是文学的概念，它已经大大扩展了。

”“福克纳的那个约克纳帕塔法县始终是一个县，而我在不到十年的时间内就把我的高密东北乡变成了一个非常现代的城市。

” 莫言认为，这种变化“不仅仅是地理和植被的丰富与增添，更重要的是思维空间的扩展，这是一个深刻的哲学命题”。

B
William Faulkner received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1950. During the selection process in 1949, the Nobel Committee for Literature decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. William Faulkner therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1949 one year later, in 1950.
C
agony ：Agony is great physical or mental pain.D
dedication ：If you say that someone has dedicated themselves to something, you approve of the fact that they have decided to give a lot of time and effort to it because they think that it is important.
E
commensurate ：If the level of one thing is commensurate with another, the first level is in proportion to the second. (FORMAL)
F
pinnacle ：A pinnacle is a pointed piece of stone or rock that is high above the ground.麻辣汇
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2013年第2期
to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish A and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained B 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 old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral C and doomed D —love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice E . 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 F .
A
anguish ：Anguish is great mental suffering or physical pain. (WRITTEN)B
sustain ：If you sustain something, you continue it or maintain it for a period of time.C ephemeral ：If you describe something as ephemeral, you mean that it lasts only for a very short time. (FORMAL)
D
doom ：Doom is a terrible future state or event which you cannot prevent.E
sacrifice ：If you sacrifice something that is valuable or important, you give it up, usually to obtain something else for yourself or for other people. Sacrifice is also a noun.
F
gland ：腺，人体器官。

William Faulkner 考试·新英语麻辣汇
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Until he relearns 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 A : 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 B voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail C . 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 D 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. ♥
A
endure ：If something endures, it continues to exist without any loss in quality or importance.B exhaust ：If something exhausts you, it makes you so tired, either physically or mentally, that you have no energy left.
C
prevail ：If a proposal, principle, or opinion prevails, it gains influence or is accepted, often after a struggle or argument.
D
privilege ：A privilege is a special right or advantage that only one person or group has.William Faulkner's Underwood Universal Portable typewriter
in his office at Rowan Oak, which is now maintained by the
University of Mississippi in Oxford as a museum.
William Faulkner, December 1954 麻辣汇
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2013年第2期。