Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in the United States’ Literature class.

旁白：请听一段美国文学课的讲座。

The professor is discussing Realism.

教授在讨论现实主义文学。

Professor: Ok, everyone.

教授：好的，大家听我说。

In our last class, we finished up Romanticism, right?

我们上节课讲完了浪漫主义文学，对不对？

So now let’s look at something completely different.

所以现在我们来看看和浪漫主义文学完全不同的文学。

Realism as a literary technic was most popular in U.S. literature from around 1860 till 1890.

现实主义手法是一种很好的文学手法，它在大约1860年到1890年的时候流行于美国。

So it started pretty much around the time of the civil war.

所以它大约是开始于南北战争的时期。

And I think you’ll see right away how it is different from Romanticism or any other kind of literature.

我想你们马上就能明白它和浪漫主义及其它的文学流派有什么不同。

It has a very specific point that makes it unique.

现实主义文学有一个特别的特征使其非常独特。

And that is that it shows people as they are and gets you to look at them and also you know the things that need to be changed in the society.

那就是它如实地描写人物，让你们了解他们的原貌，而且你们还可以知道社会上需要被改变的事情是什么。

And it doesn’t without being sentimental, not in that sort of over-emotional way, the way that romantic literature can.

它也并不是全然没有情感在内的，只是并不是以一种过度情绪化的方式表达出来，这种过度表达的方式是浪漫主义用的。

Realism tells it like it is.

现实主义就是如实地描述事物。

Let’s look at society as a whole.

让我们结合社会全貌一起来看。

In the late 1800s, people were interested in the scientific method as well as rational philosophy, which says that people can discover the truth by using reason and factual analysis.

在十九世纪晚期，人们对于科学方法和理性哲学很感兴趣，这两者告诉人们，可以通过推理和分析事实来发现真相。

So reason and facts, ok.

理性和事实，就是这个。

And at the same time that realism was becoming popular, there were a lot of political and socioeconomic changes happening in the country.

现实主义文学就流行了起来，与此同时社会上发生了大量的政治和社会经济的变化。

There was increased literacy, plus the growth of industrialism and urbanization, growth in population from immigration, and a rise in middle class affluence.

识字的人增多，工业化和城镇化进一步发展，人口因为移民而增长，还有中产阶级财富的增加。

All these factors combined with the importance of reason and facts, meant readers were interested in really having a good understanding of all these changes, the changes going on in society.

这些因素和理性与事实的重要性一起，意味着读者对于如何真正好好了解社会上的这些变化起了兴趣。

A scholar named Amy Chaplin says, and I’m just paraphrasing here, that Realism is a way to understand and deal with social change, which makes a lot of sense I think.

一位名为艾米·卓别林的文学爱好者说过，我这里只是转述一下，她说现实主义是一种了解和解决社会变化的方式，这个观点我觉得很有道理。

So then, let’s take a closer look at the tricks of the trade, and how realist writers did their work.

所以接下来，让我们仔细看看这个文学流派的诀窍，以及现实主义的作家们是怎么写作的。

For one thing as we said, they focus on, big surprise, reality, and in great detail.

如我们刚才提到的一点是，他们着重于表达现实，从大量细节上表达现实。

They aim for verisimilitude.

这就涉及到了逼真性。

Shall I write down on board?

需要我把这个词写黑板上吗？

Students: Um-hum.

学生：要的。

Professor: Ok.

教授：好的。

Verisimilitude means basically to seem true or real, like say, a photograph rather than a painting in a way.

逼真性基本上和真实、真的一个意思，就像是，某种方式上的照片而不是画作。

In fact, that’s a good analogy.

实际上，这是一个很好的比喻。

You see writers try to capture a moment in time and all its basic facts but without exaggeration, just like a camera does.

你们知道作者会尽力去及时捕捉一个时刻，以及这个时刻的基本事实，但是又不加以夸大，就像是照相机所做的那样。

Anyway, the events, the things that happen in realist literature are usually pretty much plausible.

无论如何，这一些事件，发生在现实主义文学中的这一些事情通常看起来似乎是真的。

I mean, you figure that they can probably happen to anyone.

我的意思是，你们会发现它们可能发生在任何人身上。

And the characters are believable, too.

那些人物角色也是可信的。

And actually, they are usually even more important than the plot.

实际上，人物角色比故事情节要重要。

There’re also... they talked the way the real people talk, authentic speaking styles from different regions, different parts of the country were captured in the text.

而且……他们像真实中的人一样说话，用小说中涉及到的不同地区、不同国家的真实的说话方式来讲话。

Does that make sense?

我讲明白了吗？

Ok.

好的。

So, besides verisimilitude, another important characteristic of realism is the narrator’s objectivity.

所以，除了逼真性以外，现实主义的另一个特征是叙述者的客观性。

Characters in the events were described without the narrator passing much judgment on them or anything or being too dramatic.

作者在描述故事中的人物角色的时候并没有施加很多的评价，也没有施加别的任何东西，同样也没有故意描述得太过戏剧性。

Basically, you are reading a story without too much extra comment from the narrator.

基本上，你们是在阅读一个并没有太多叙述者评论的故事。

Ok, now we have an idea of what realism was.

好的，现在我们对于现实主义是什么有了一定了解了。

So, who were the players?

那么现实主义的代表人物都有谁呢？

Well, two important realist novelists were Rebecca Harding Davis and Mark Twain.

嗯，有两个重要的现实主义作家是丽贝卡·哈丁·戴维斯和马克·吐温。

We’ll talk more about other realists tomorrow.

我们明天会介绍更多其他的现实主义作家。

But for today, let’s just start by looking briefly at these two.

但是今天，我们就从简单看看这两位开始。

Rebecca Harding Davis was an author and journalist who, like other realists, was concerned about all those social changes going on.

丽贝卡·哈丁·戴维斯是一位作家和新闻记者，就像其他的现实主义作者一样，她非常关心社会上正在发生的改变。

She wrote mainly about some marginalized groups of the time, like women, native Americans, ah, immigrants.

她主要是描写当时边缘群体，就像是女人，美国土著，啊，还有移民的事情。

Now her best known book is a novella called The Life in the Iron Mills.

她最出名的书是《铁磨坊的生活》。

It’s really a key text, because it’s one of the original realist works.

这部书很关键，因为她是现实主义文学的开山之作之一。

Her works overall have been pretty much ignored for a long time.

她的作品在很长一段时间里被世人所忽略。

But some critics and scholars are starting to revisit them and study them more seriously.

但是一些批评家和学者现在开始重新关注她的作品，更加严肃地研究它们。

Probably more from the historical aspects of the works and... but I think that’s great.

也许是更多地从历史的角度来研究……但是我觉得这样很好。

But if we are talking about great literature, literature that’s read and enjoyed today as something more than just a way of looking at that era, the era when that was written.

但是如果我们开始谈论更加伟大的文学作品，现在被人们阅读和喜爱的作品，而不是作为了解现实主义盛行的时代的手段的话。

Well, a favorite of mine is Mark Twain.

那么，我最喜欢的作家就是马克·吐温。

I’m sure you have read or heard of his most famous book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

我确信你们已经读过或者听说过他最出名的书，《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》。

And Twain’s style, it goes back to what I said earlier, verisimilitude, the realistic way characters act and talk.

马克·吐温的风格是，它回归了我刚才提到的逼真性，角色的行为和谈话都遵从现实主义特点。

You should realize too that this was quite a contrast to earlier writers in the U.S., who tried to emulate the British writers, tried to be very elegant, at the expense of Realism.

你们也应该意识到，这种风格和以前的美国文学作者的风格是完全相反的，以前的作者尽力去模仿英国的作者，为了创作华丽的文字不惜抛弃了现实主义。

You know, a lot of critics will tell you that American literature began with that book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

你们知道，很多批评家会告诉你们美国文学开始于这部作品，《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》。