叶子南《高级英汉翻译理论与实践》(第3版)-翻译练习(上)【圣才出品】

第二部分翻译实践篇详解一、非文学类文本（社会人文）1. Van GoghAlthough art historians have spent decades demystifying Van Gogh’s legend ①, they have done little to diminish his vast popularity. Auction prices still soar, visitors still overpopulate Van Gogh exhibitions, and The Starry Night remains ubiquitous on dormitory and kitchen walls②. So complete is Van Gogh’s global apotheosis that③Japanese tourists now make pilgrimages to Auvers to sprinkle their relatives’ ashes on his grave. What accounts for the endless appeal of the Van Gogh myth? It has at least two deep and powerful sources④. At the most primitive level, it provides a satisfying and nearly universal revenge fantasy disguised as the story of heroic sacrifice to art⑤. Anyone who has ever felt isolated and unappreciated can identify with Van Gogh and hope not only for a spectacular redemption⑥but also to put critics and doubting relatives to shame. At the same time, the myth offers an alluringly simplistic conception of great art as the product, not of particular historical circumstances and the artist’s painstaking calculations, but of the naive and spontaneous outpourings of a mad, holy fool⑦. The gaping discrepancy between Van Gogh’s long-suffering life and his remarkable posthumous fame remains a great and undeniable historical irony. But the notion that he was an artistic idiot savant⑧is quickly dispelled by even the most glancing examination of the artist’s letters. It also must be dropped after acquaintingoneself with the rudimentary facts of Van Gogh’s family background, upbringing, and early adulthood.The image of Van Gogh as a disturbed and forsaken artist is so strong that one easily reads it back into⑨his childhood and adolescence. But if Van Gogh had died at age twenty, no one would have connected him with failure or mental illness. Instead he would have been remembered⑩by those close to him as a competent and dutiful son with a promising career in the family art-dealing business. He was, in fact, poised to surpass his father and to come closer to living up to the much-esteemed Van Gogh name⑪.The Van Goghs were an old and distinguished Dutch family who could trace their lineage in Holland back to the sixteenth century. Among Vincent’s five uncles, one reached the highest rank of vice-admiral in the Navy and three others prospered as successful art dealers. Van Gogh’s grandfather, also named Vincent, had attained an equally illustrious status as an intellectually accomplished Protestant minister. The comparatively modest achievements of the artist’s father, Theodorus, proved the exception, not the rule⑫. Although Theodorus was the only one of grandfather Vincent’s six sons to follow him into the ministry, he faltered as a preacher⑬ and could obtain only modest positions in provincial churches. It was for this reason that Theodorus and his new wife, Anna, found themselves in Groot Zundert, a small town near the Belgian border. Vincent was born a few years after their arrival.Van Gogh enjoyed a relatively uneventful childhood save for the birth of fivesiblings (three by the time he was six and two more by his fourteenth year)⑭ and his attendance at two different boarding schools. In rural Zundert he took long walks in the Brabant countryside and developed a naturalist’s love of animals and plants. At his two boarding schools, he excelled at his studies and laid down the foundation for his lifelong facility in French and English. The family’s decision to apprentice him at sixteen to Uncle Vincent’s art gallery in The Hague was far from a nepotistic last resort. Uncle Vincent, called “Cent,” had transforme d an art supply store into a prestigious art gallery and had become a senior partner in Goupil et Cie., one of the largest art-dealing firms in Europe. Vincent had not better opportunity for advancement than working at The Hague branch of Goupil’s. And it was a testament to Vincent’s abilities that the childless “Uncle Cent” took a paternal interest in him and arranged for his position as Goupil’s youngest employee⑮.Vincent’s duties progressed from record keeping and correspondence chores in the back office to dealing, if only in a subordinate way⑯, with clients. This confronts us with the nearly unthinkable image of the “socially competent” Vincent⑰. But such was the case at this stage in his life. The same man whose eccentricity would one day make young girls scream in fright dressed appropriately and charmed customers with his enthusiasm for art⑱. Vincent also ingratiated himself with the local artists of The Hague School and earned his colleagues’respect. Although his status as Uncle Cent’s nephew and protege must have smoothed his way, Vincent appears to have been genuinely dedicated and effectiveat Goupil’s. His boss, Tersteeg, sent home glowing reports⑲ and after four years at The Hague he was promoted to the London branch.From Van Gogh and Gauguin, by Bradley Collins 【参考译文】梵高尽管艺术史家们数十年来一直在淡化梵高传奇的神秘色彩①，但梵高受欢迎的程度几乎丝毫未减。