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J.K.罗琳在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲

2013-10-25 19:30阅读：

http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/u/3270885543


The Fringe Benefits Of Failure,and the Importance Of Imagination 失败的益处与想象的重要
—Speech by J.K.Rowling in the Commencement of Harvard University
—英国女作家J.K.罗琳在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲


演讲 Speech
背景 Background
«哈利·波特»的作者罗琳于6月5日参加了哈佛大学2008年的毕业典礼，被授予荣誉学位，并作为特邀嘉宾做了标题为“The Fringe Benefits Of Failure,and the Importance Of Imagination”的演讲。这位全球最著名的当代魔幻小说家在讲台上讲述的是其亲身经历的故事，同事也是几经磨难、走出黑暗的日子后发自内心的感慨。她曾同时经受感情与经济的双重打击。她说，在座的高材生们大抵不会经历她那般的巨大失败，但慢慢人生，偶然的失败无可避免。失败让她更好地认识自我，坚定了她做最喜欢、最擅长事情的决心。



There are four parts you are going to listen and interpret.


Prepare new words:
Part one:（04:09---04:41）
1. Convince [kən'vins] v.使相信，使明白 如：Compulsion will never result in convincing them.强迫永远不会使他们信服。
2. Impoverished [im' pэvəriſt] adj. 穷困的，无力的，用尽了的
3. Quirk [kwə׃k] n. 怪癖 如：One of his quirk is that he refuse to travel by train.他的怪癖之一是不愿乘火车旅行。
4. Mortgage n. 抵押贷款 如：The bank refused to accept any mortgage on land.银行拒绝接受任何土地贷款。
5. Pension n. 退休金，养老金
Part two:(05:32---06:16)
1.Parenthesis n. 插入语，插入部分
2.Expiry n. 终止，满期
3.Take the wheel 掌握方向
4.Ennobling v. 封……为贵族，使高贵

Part three:(09:09---09:59)
1.Inessential n. 无关紧要的东西
2.Rock bottom 最低的
Part four:(10:20---10:51)
1.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. 失败给了我一种内心的安全感，是以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败教我认识自己，舍此别无他法。






各部分答案对照：
Part one:（04:09---04:41）
Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
追溯到半载人生以前，我正在努力寻求自我内心追求与至亲对我的期望这两者间的一个难得的平衡。（striking an uneasy balance意思是“努力寻求平衡” ，strike a balance between 是一个非常地道的搭配。The ambition I had for myself是指自我内心的追求。）我当时深信自己唯一想做的事就是写小说。但是，我的父母都出身贫寒，也都没有上过哦大学，他们认为我异常活跃的想象力是一个有趣的个人怪癖，但却决不可用来支付房屋按揭或保证我得到一份退休金。（句子的主干是my parents took the view that....;my parents后接两个从句；quirk后接定语从句）

Part two:(05:32---06:16)
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience.
在此，我想顺带澄清一点，我并不责怪我父母的观点。埋怨父母给你的导错航是有期限的；从你成长到能够自己做出决定的那一刻起，责任就要靠你们自己去承担了。（lie with sb to do sth是指“是.....的责任”）再说，我不能因为父母希望我不再经受贫穷而去责怪他们。他们自己曾经历过穷日子，我也曾因此贫穷过，所以对于他们认为贫穷并不受景仰的观点，我十分认同。

Part three:(09:09---09:59)
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
那我为何要谈失败的好处呢？很简单，失败意味着剥离一切多余的事物。我不再伪装自己，并开始把所有精力集中于完成唯一一件对我很重要的工作上。要是我在其他事情上曾获成功，我也许就不会有这样的决心，在深信真正属于自己的舞台上取得成功。（虚拟条件句的从句部分如果含有were,should,或had,可将if省略，再把were,should,或had移到从句句首，实行倒装。注意，在虚拟条件状语从句中，动词be的过去时态一律用were，不用was，即在从句中be用were代替。省略连词的倒装形式的句首不能用动词的缩略形式。）我获得了自由，因为我最害怕的事已经发生，而我还活着，还有一个可爱的女儿、一部旧打字机和一个宏大的梦想。我的谷底成为了重建生活的坚实基础。

Part four:(10:20---10:51)
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.
失败给了我一种内心的安全感，是以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败教我认识自己，舍此别无他法。我发现自己有着坚强的意志，比想象中更加自律；我还发现，我拥有一些比宝石更为珍贵的朋友。从挫折中变得更明智更坚强，这种认知也会使你比以往任何时候都更具备生存的安全感。



以下摘录了一些演讲中的亮点句子，供大家学习借鉴

名人Enlightening
佳句Sentences

1.Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. 贫穷会引起恐惧、压力，有时候甚至是沮丧。这意味着小心眼、卑微和很多艰难困苦。

2.Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment. 但是天赋和智商还未能使任何人免于命运无常的折磨，我从来不认为这里的每个人已经享有平静的恩典和满足。

3.Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. 当然，最终我们所有人不得不为自己决定什么是失败的组成元素，但是如果你愿意的话，世界愿意给你一堆标准。

4.You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. 除非遭受磨难，你们不会真正认识自己，也没法知道你们之间关系有多铁。

5.Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life. 你们的资格证书、简历，都不能等价于你们的生活。

6.Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared. 想象力不仅是一种能促使人类预想不存在事物的独特能力，从而成为所有发明和创新的源泉；从想象力或许是最具改革性和启示作用的能力这点讲，它更是一种能使我们同没有分享过他们经历的人产生共鸣的力量。

7.Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s place. 人类和在这个星球上的其他生物不同，人类能够在没有自我经7.历的情况下学习和理解。他们可以设身处地的思他人所思，想他人所想。

8. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better. 我们不需要魔法来改变世界，我们已经在我们的内心拥有了足够的力量：那就是把世界想象得更好的力量。

9.Death is just life’s next big adventure. 死亡不过是生命中下一个大冒险。

10.What’s coming will come and we’ll just have to meet it when it does. 该来的躲不掉。我们只要面对就好。







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