2016年诺贝尔文学奖颁奖词

What brings about the great shifts in the world of literature? Often it is when someone seizes upon a simple, overlooked form, discounted as art in the higher sense, and makes it mutate.

什么会带来文学世界的巨变？通常，是一种简单、被人忽视，从更高意义来说被贬低为技艺的一种形式被某个人所掌握，并令其蜕变的时候。

discounted：已打折的

mutate：变化，改变，突变

Thus, at one point, emerged the modern novel from anecdote and letter, thus arose drama in a new age from high jinx on planks placed on barrels in a marketplace, thus songs in the vernacular dethroned learned Latin poetry, thus too did La Fontaine take animal fables and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales from the nursery to Parnassian heights. Each time this occurs, our idea of literature changes.

于是，当代小说从奇闻轶事与日常通信脱颖而出，戏剧从站在市集木桶板上表演的杂耍发轫，拉丁诗文渐被方言歌谣取代，同样地，拉·方丹将动物寓言、安徒生把童话，从育婴室升华到高蹈派诗歌的高度。每一次变化的出现，我们对于文学的看法就随之发生改变。anecdote：奇闻轶事

plank：木板，支架

vernacular：本地话，方言，用本地语言写成的

fable：寓言

In itself, it ought not to be a sensation that a singer/songwriter now stands recipient of the literary Nobel Prize. In a distant past, all poetry was sung or tunefully recited, poets were rhapsodes, bards, troubadours; 'lyrics' comes from 'lyre'.

本来，一位歌手或作曲家成为诺贝尔文学奖得主并不应该成为一个耸人听闻的事件。在久远的过去，所有的诗都是唱出来或是带着音调起伏诵读出来的。史诗吟诵者、游吟诗人、行吟诗人，他们就是诗人；而“歌词”一词就来源于“里尔琴”。

rhapsodes：游唱诗人，吟诵史诗的人

bards：吟游诗人

troubadours：行吟诗人

lyre：里尔琴；抒情诗

But what Bob Dylan did was not to return to the Greeks or the Provençals. Instead, he dedicated himself body and soul to 20th century American popular music, the kind played on radio stations and gramophone records for ordinary people, white and black: protest songs, country, blues, early rock, gospel, mainstream music. He listened day and night, testing the stuff on his instruments, trying to learn. But when he started to write similar songs, they came out differently.

但鲍勃·迪伦所做的并非要回到古希腊或中古的普罗旺斯。相反，他全身心地投入于20世纪的美国流行音乐中，这些都是为普通人创作的音乐，不分人种，它们在广播电台和留声机唱片中播放：抗议歌曲、

乡村音乐、蓝调、早期摇滚乐、福音音乐和主流音乐……他日夜聆听，用乐器弹奏，试着学习创作。当他开始写出类似的歌曲时，它们呈现出来的却是另一片天地。

gramophone：留声机

In his hands, the material changed. From what he discovered in heirloom and scrap, in banal rhyme and quick wit, in curses and pious prayers, sweet nothings and crude jokes, he panned poetry gold, whether on purpose or by accident is irrelevant; all creativity begins in imitation.

在他的手中，这些素材发生了变化。从别人的传家宝与废弃之物中、从陈腐的韵律与机灵妙语中、从邪恶的诅咒和虔诚的祷告中、从甜言蜜语和粗鄙玩笑中，他淘出了诗歌的黄金。是有心还是无意，都无关紧要。所有的创作都始于模仿。

heirloom：传家宝

scrap：碎片；残余物

banal：陈腐的；平庸的；老一套的

pan：淘金

Even after fifty years of uninterrupted exposure, we are yet to absorb music's equivalent of the fable's Flying Dutchman. He makes good rhymes, said a critic, explaining greatness. And it is true. His rhyming is an alchemical substance that dissolves contexts to create new ones, scarcely containable by the human brain.

即使在50年的不断聆听之后，我们还未能完全领悟迪伦那些在音乐