《TheSadYoungMen中英文版.doc》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《TheSadYoungMen中英文版.doc（12页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、 The Sad Young Men 1 No aspect of life in the Twenties has been more commented upon and sensationally romanticized than the so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation. 二十年代社会生活的各个方面中，被人们评论得最多、渲染得最厉害的，莫过于青年一代的叛逆之行了。The slightest mention of the decade brings nostalgic recollections to the middle-aged
2、and curious questionings by the young: 只要有只言片语提到那个时期，就会勾起中年人怀旧的回忆和青年人好奇的提问。memories of the deliciously illicit thrill of the first visit to a speakeasy, of the brave denunciation of Puritan morality, and of the fashionable experimentations in amour in the parked sedan on a country road; 中年人会回忆起第一次光顾
3、非法酒店时的那种既高兴又不安的违法犯罪的刺激感，回忆起对清教徒式的道德规范的勇猛抨击，回忆起停在乡间小路上的小轿车里颠鸾倒凤的时髦爱情试验方式；questions about the naughty, jazzy parties, the flask-toting sheik, and the moral and stylistic vagaries of the flapper and the drug-store cowboy. 青年人则会问起有关那时的一些纵情狂欢的爵士舞会，问起那成天背着酒葫芦、勾引得女人团团转的“美男子”，问起那些“时髦少女”和“闲荡牛仔”的奇装异服和古怪行为等等的情
4、况。Were young people really so wild? present-day students ask their parents and teachers. 那时的青年果真这样狂放不羁吗?”今天的青年学生们不禁好奇地向他们的师长问起这样的问题。Was there really a Younger Generation problem? “那时真的有过青年一代的问题吗?”The answers to such inquiries must of necessity be yes and no-Yes because the business of growing up is
5、always accompanied by a Younger Generation Problem;对这类问题的回答必然只能是既“对”又“不对”说“对，是因为人的成长过程中一贯就存在着所谓青年一代的问题； no because what seemed so wild, “说“不对”是因为在当时的社会看来似乎是那么狂野。irresponsible, and immoral in social behavior at the time can now be seen in perspective as being something considerably less sensational t
6、han the degenerauon of our jazzmad youth.那么不负责任，那么不讲道德的行为，若是用今天的正确眼光去看的话，却远远没有今天的一些迷恋爵士乐的狂荡青年的堕落行为那么耸人听闻。2 Actually, the revolt of the young people was a logical outcome of conditions in the age:实际上，青年一代的叛逆行为是当时的时代条件的必然结果。 First of all, it must be remembered that the rebellion was not confined to th
7、e Unit- ed States, but affected the entire Western world as a result of the aftermath of the first serious war in a century.首先，值得记住的是，这种叛逆行为并不局限于美国，而是作为百年之中第一次惨烈的战争的后遗症影响到整个西方世界。 Second, in the United States it was reluctantly realized by some- subconsciously if not openly 其次，在美国，有一些人已经很不情愿地认识到如果不是明
8、明白白地认识到，至少是下意识地认识到- that our country was no longer isolated in either politics or tradition and that we had reached an international stature that would forever prevent us from retreating behind the artificial walls of a provincial morality or the geographical protection of our two bordering oceans.无
9、论在政治方面还是在传统方面，我们的国家已不再是与世隔绝的了；我们所取得的国际地位使我们永远也不能再退缩到狭隘道德规范的人造围墙之后，或是躲在相邻的两大洋的地理保护之中了。3 The rejection of Victorian gentility was, in any case, inevitable. 在当时的美国，摒弃维多利亚式的温文尔雅无论如何都已经是无可避免的了。The booming of American industry, with its gigantic, roaring factories, its corporate impersonality, and its lar
10、gescale aggressiveness, no longer left any room for the code of polite behavior and well-bred morality fashioned in a quieter and less competitive age. 美国工业的飞速发展及其所带来的庞大的、机器轰鸣的工厂的出现，社会化大生产的非人格性，以及争强好胜意识的空前高涨，使得在较为平静而少竞争的年代里所形成的温文尔雅的礼貌行为和谦谦忍让的道德风范完全没有半点栖身之地。War or no war, as the generations passed, i
11、t became increasingly difficult for our young people to accept standards of behavior that bore no relationship to the bustling business medium in which they were expected to battle for success. 不论是否发生战争，随着时代的变化要我们的年轻一代接受与他们必须在其中拼搏求胜的这个喧嚣的商业化社会格格不入的行为准则已经变得越来越难了。The war acted merely as a catalytic ag
12、ent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure, 战争只不过起了一种催化剂的作用，加速了维多利亚式社会结构的崩溃。and by precipitating our young people into a pattern of mass murder it released their inhibited violent energies which, after the shooting was over, were turned in both Europe and America to the destruction of a
13、n obsolescent nineteenth-century society.战争把年轻一代一下子推向一种大规模的屠杀战场，从而使他们体内潜藏的压抑已久的狂暴力量得以释放出来，待到战争一结束，这些被释放出来的狂暴力量便在欧洲和美国掉转矛头，去摧毁那日渐衰朽的十九世纪的社会了。4 Thus in a changing world youth was faced with the challenge of bringing our mores up to date. 这样一来，在一个千变万化的世界中，青年一代便面临着使我们的道德习惯与时代合拍这一挑战。But at the same time
14、it was tempted, in America at least, to escape its responsibilities and retreat behind an air of naughty alcoholic sophistication and a pose of Bohemian immorality. 而与此同时，青年人。至少美国的青年人又表现出这样一种倾向：他们试图逃避自己的责任。沉溺于一种老于世故、以酒自娱的生活作风之中，装出一副波希米亚式的放荡不羁的样子。The faddishness , the wild spending of money on transi
15、tory pleasures and momentary novelties , the hectic air of gaiety, the experimentation in sensation - sex, drugs, alcohol, perversions - were all part of the pattern of escape, an escape made possible by a general prosperity and a post-war fatigue with politics, economic restrictions, and internatio
16、nal responsibilities. 追求时尚，为了短暂的快乐和一时的新奇而大肆挥霍，纵情地狂欢，寻求各种各样的感官刺激性行为，吸毒，酗酒以及各种各样的堕落行为这些都是他们逃避责任的表现形式，是一种由社会的普遍繁荣及战后人们对于政治、经济限制和国际义务所产生的厌烦情绪所造成的逃避方式。Prohibition afforded the young the additional opportunity of making their pleasures illicit , 禁酒法令使青年人有了更多的机会寻求违禁取乐的刺激。and the much-publicized orgies and defiant manifestoes of the intellectuals crowding into Greenwich Village gave them a pattern and a philosophic defense for their escap
