Crying While Reading Through the Centuries

Pelagia Horgan

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一位美國批評家用挑戰(zhàn)的口吻宣告：“我是一個從不會哭的讀者。這代表著我無情嗎？還是我成熟了？”一場關(guān)于“哭泣”的爭論就此沸沸揚揚地展開了：在閱讀時，你會哭嗎？哭泣的意義是什么？哭泣的背后是怎樣的價值觀和道德觀？它在閱讀的歷史上究竟代表著什么？

What does it mean to cry over a book? It’s a question that has been in the foreground lately,about the merits of John Green’sThe Fault inOur Starsand other young-adult fiction.1. in the foreground: 處于最突出的地位，成為眾所矚目之事；merit: 長處，優(yōu)點；John Green: 約翰·葛林（1977— ），美國青少年小說作家。他2012年的作品《生命中的美好缺憾》（The Faults in Our Stars）榮登《紐約時報》暢銷書榜，其電影版已于2014年6月在美國上映。The debate has been about a lot of things, including the tension between high and popular art, the role of criticism, and the fate of maturity as a cultural value.2. 這一爭論觸及到了多個方面，包括高雅藝術(shù)和流行藝術(shù)之間的矛盾、批評的作用，以及人不可避免地從不成熟走向成熟的文化價值。But it has also been—peculiarly—about the value and meaning of tears. “I’m a reader who did not weep,” Ruth Graham, a well-known critic, wrote, de fiantly.3. weep: 哭泣，流淚；de fiantly: 反叛地，違抗地?！癉oes this make me heartless? Or does it make me a grownup?”

《生命中的美好缺憾》電影劇照

小說《帕梅拉》

We wondered, when reading a moving novel and not crying,“Am I a bad person?” What might have been a purely intellectual debate about our collective literary taste often centered on a personal, emotional question: Did I cry?4. 這本該是一場關(guān)于我們共同的文學(xué)品味的純理性辯論，但實際上卻常常圍繞著一個私人的、感性的問題：我哭了嗎？

Tears have had a surprisingly prominent5. prominent: 重要的，突出的。place in the history of the novel. Readers have always asked about the role that emotion plays in reading: What does it mean to be deeply moved by a book? Which books are worthy objects of our feelings?

In different eras, people answered those questions in different ways. In the eighteenth century, when the novel was still a new form, crying was a sign of readerly virtue. “Sentimental”novels, full of tender and pathetic scenes, gave readers an occasion to exercise their “ finer feelings.”6. sentimental novel: 感傷主義小說，緣起于18世紀的一種小說類型，其特點為排斥理性，崇尚感情；pathetic: 招人憐憫的，可憐的；finer feeling: 美好的感情（如愛、榮譽、忠誠等）。Your tears proved your susceptibility7. susceptibility: 易受影響（的狀況），敏感性。to the suffering of others.

At that time, sentimental novels were hugely popular;Richardson’sPamela, the story of a virtuous serving girl who is terrorized by her employer, Mr. B,8. Pamela: 《帕梅拉》，18世紀英國感傷主義文學(xué)的代表作，講述了富家子愛上使女帕梅拉并企圖占有她，她以死抗拒，雙方歷經(jīng)多次交鋒反而漸生情愫的故事；virtuous: 道德高尚的，品性正直的。was an early example of the best-seller phenomenon in English fiction. But sentimentalism was also, from the beginning, vulnerable9. be vulnerable to: 易受到（傷害、抨擊等）。to attack. Tears, after all, had no necessary connection to actual virtue, and they could be feigned10. feign: 假裝，偽造。. They could also be overindulged11. overindulge: 過分沉溺，過分縱情（于）。. As the critic John Mullan points out, by the end of the eighteenth century,the word “sentimental” had acquired a new meaning—addicted to indulgence in super ficial emotion—bringing it closer to the meaning that it has for us today.12. addicted to: 對……上癮，沉溺于……；super ficial: 表面的，膚淺的。

In the nineteenth century, the meaning of tears evolved in two divergent directions.13. evolve: 逐步發(fā)展，逐漸演變；divergent: 相異的，不同的。Some writers sought to provoke ever more “elevated” feelings in their readers: Victorian sentimentalists wrote tear-inducing scenes, often centered on the death of a child, in an effort to inspire social and political reform. (Think of Dickens,or Harriet Beecher Stowe.)14. 一些作家試圖激發(fā)讀者心中更為“崇高”的情感， 維多利亞時代的感傷主義作家描繪催人淚下的場景——通常是孩童的夭折——從而引發(fā)社會和政治改革（狄更斯和斯托夫人就是很好的例子）。 provoke: 激起，引起；elevated: 崇高的，高尚的；Victorian:英國維多利亞時代（1837—1901），即英國維多利亞女王的統(tǒng)治時期，被認為是英國工業(yè)革命和大英帝國的鼎盛時期；Dickens: 狄更斯（1812—1870），英國維多利亞時代最偉大的作家之一。他的代表作之一《老古玩店》即是以小孫女的夭折而結(jié)束的；Harriet Beecher Stowe: 斯托夫人（1811—1896），美國著名作家，代表作是《湯姆叔叔的小屋》。Other writers embraced15. embrace: 欣然接受。the idea of an “addiction” to emotion. The “sensation”novel, a different type of Victorian best-seller, showed that tears could be enjoyable in themselves. Sensation novels were the forerunners of the modern thriller,mystery, and tearjerker.16. forerunner: 先驅(qū)，先導(dǎo)；thriller: 驚險故事，恐怖小說（或戲劇、電影等）；tearjerker:賺人熱淚的電影或戲劇。Heavy on adultery, blackmail,bigamy, secrets, madness, and melodramatic twists and revelations, they were known for creating physical“sensations” in their readers—goosebumps, shivers, a pounding heart, and, most importantly, tears.17. 其中充斥著外遇、敲詐、重婚、秘密、瘋狂，以及戲劇性的轉(zhuǎn)折與啟示，它們以激發(fā)觀眾的“身體感受”——雞皮疙瘩、寒顫和心跳加快，當然少不了眼淚——而聞名。But these were tears without moral purpose or effect: sensation for sensation’s sake. Reviewers found the novels distasteful;readers bought them in droves.18. distasteful: 令人不快的，令人反感的；in droves: 成群結(jié)隊地。

Pleasure and moral feeling, of course, don’t have to be exclusive19. exclusive: 互相排斥的，不相容的。.But, after the sensation novel, it became possible to talk about tears solely in terms of pleasure. Today, it’s a familiar way of talking.Recently, a reader looking for book recommendations wrote, “I want to cry my eyes out over a book… if it made you sob and sob and say at some point, ‘Wow, I can’t stand this, it’s probably golden.”20. sob: 啜泣，哭泣；stand: 忍受，忍??；golden: 極好的。More than eighty people wrote back, with recommendations ranging fromThe Bone People(“it’s good, and it hurts”) toBrewster(“I can promise intense terrible sadness… So good”) toMarley and Me.

Today’s debate about crying while reading draws on21. draw on: 依靠，憑借。all of this history. When a critic praisesThe Fault in Our Starsfor showing us what being a teenager with cancer “feels like,” and when Ruth Graham asks what her dry eyes say about her character, they’re both using the language of sentimentalism. When advertisements for the movie proclaim, “Bring on the feels”, that’s sensationalism.

This debate, in short, is about more than young-adult books and their not-so-young readers. It’s a recapitulation22. recapitulation: 要點重述，概述。of a deeper debate that we’ve been having for centuries—a debate about why books matter to us, and what reading is “for.” It’s also a debate about who we want to be.

Talking about what makes us cry is also a way of talking about ourselves. With each way of talking—sentimental, sensational, aesthetic—we say something different: that we’re kindhearted and empathetic,23. aesthetic: 給人以美感的，有審美趣味的；empathetic: 有同感的，同情的。or passionate and romantic, or sensitive to beauty and the pleasures of art. Saint,lover, artist: surely these are all good ways of being. Probably, though, we’ll keep arguing about them forever. We will never lose interest in the adolescent project of learning to live.

狄更斯

斯托夫人