Section Six How to Study Literature and Life
我們打算要學習的這本《文學與人生》與其他人編寫的《文學與人生》不同。
The Literature and Life we are going to learn is different from the others’ Literature and Life.
1．這本《文學與人生》有下列特點：
1．The Literature and Life is characterized as follows.
1.1 在選擇來作閱讀、分析和欣賞的文學作品時，傑出的文學性是放在第一位的。在這本《文學與人生》中選入的文學作品全都是世界文學中的古今名著。
1.1 The distinguished literariness is put first in choosing our literary works for reading， analysing andappreciating. The literary works chosen in the Literature and Life are really all classics of world literature.
1.2 強調的是實用性而不是理論。最重要的是閱讀那些經典的原著，在基本又新近的文學理論指導下分析作家和其中作品中主要人物的人生，從美學觀點來賞析那些經典。
1.2 The emphasis is put on practicability rather than theory. What’s most important is to read theclassics in the original， to analyse the writers’ lives and their main characters’ lives under the guidance of thebasic and yet recent literary theories， appreciate the classics from an aesthetic point of view.
1.3 重點在小說，因為小說是用散文或韻文形式寫的任何文學記事，例如小說《紅樓夢》裏就有很多詩歌，因此它又被稱為詩化小說。更重要的是，小說具備一種功能，就是教導我們認識世界，向我們展現世界是如何運轉的，通過不同的聚焦方法，讓我們從別的角度觀察事情，並且了解他人的動機，而我們通常是很難看清這些的。小說提供充分了解他人的可能性，彌補了我們在“真實”生活中對他人的無知。小說中的角色是那些生活的隱秘清晰可見或者可能被窺見的人：我們則是完全隱匿私生活的人。這就是為什麼小說會給我們帶來慰藉，盡管有時它們講述的可能是邪惡的人；小說讓我們看到的是更容易理解、因此也更容易掌握的人類，小說使我們產生一種睿智和力量的幻覺。小說通過從人物的視角展現事物而鼓勵與人物的認同。我們在與我們所讀的那些人物的認同中成為我們自己，從而通過他人的經驗和認同的方式使我們成為更優秀的人。
1.3 The stress is put on novels because a novel is any literary narrative， whether in prose or verse. Forexample， there are many poems in the novel A Dream of Red Mansions； thus it is also called a poeticizednovel. What’s more， novels have the function of teaching us about the world， showing us how it works，enabling us—through the devices of focalization—to see things from other vantage points， and to understandothers’ motives that in general are opaque to us. Novels offer the possibility of perfect knowledge of othersand compensate for our dimness about others in“real”life. Characters in novels are people whose livesare visible or might be visible： we are people whose secret lives are invisible. And that is why novels，even when they are about wicked people， can solace us； they suggest a more comprehensible and thus amore manageable human race， and they give us the illusion of perspicacity and power. Novels encourageidentification with characters by showing things from their point of view. We become who we are byidentifying with figures we read about. Therefore， we may be made better people through vicarious experienceand the mechanisms of identification.