Why should you read Virginia Woolf? - Iseult Gillespie

譯者: Hui chu Chen 審譯者: Sylvia He

「你能鎖住圖書館；但沒有門、 鎖、插鎖能禁錮我自由的思想。」

──維吉尼亞 · 吳爾芙

倘若莎士比亞有個姊妹

What if William Shakespeare had a sister who matched his imagination,

想像力、機智幽默、文采 和他一樣豐富

his wit, and his way with words?

她是否會去學校讀書， 會創作讓舞台生輝的劇作？

Would she have gone to school and set the stage alight?

In her essay "A Room of One's Own,"

在她寫的《自己的房間》中

Virginia Woolf argues that this would have been impossible.

維吉尼亞 ‧ 吳爾芙認為不可能

她編造了一個 只能待在家裡的虛擬的妹妹

She concocts a fictional sister who's stuck at home,

snatching time to scribble a few pages

抓緊瑣碎時間零散地書寫

before she finds herself betrothed and runs away.

直到她發現自己被指婚並逃家

While her brother finds fame and fortune, she remains abandoned and anonymous.

當哥哥莎士比亞功成名就時， 她仍然無家可歸也默默無聞

In this thought experiment,

在這樣思想實驗中

Woolf demonstrates the tragedy of genius restricted,

吳爾芙展現了天才遭受限制的悲劇

and looks back through time for hints of these hidden histories.

並從歷史中找出相關的蛛絲馬跡

She wrote, "When one reads of a witch being ducked,

她寫道：「當人們讀到受浸水刑的女巫

of a woman possessed by devils,

被魔鬼附身的女人

of a wise woman selling herbs,

或者賣草藥的聰明女人

or even a very remarkable man who had a mother,

甚至是一位有母親的偉人

我想我們看到的踪跡是迷失的小說家、

then I think we're on the track of a lost novelist,

a suppressed poet,

受壓抑的詩人

of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen."

或者失聲且不光彩的珍 ‧ 奧斯汀

"A Room of One's Own" considers a world denied great works of art

《自己的房間》認為這世界 之所以否定某些傑出的藝術作品

due to exclusion and inequality.

是源於既定的偏見和不平等

How best can we understand the internal experience of alienation?

我們從何理解被異化的內在體驗呢？

In both her essays and fiction,

在她的散文和小說中

Virginia Woolf shapes the slippery nature of subjective experience into words.

維吉尼亞．吳爾芙將主觀經驗 從模糊的印象轉為實質的文字

Her characters frequently lead inner lives that are deeply at odds

她筆下人物的內心生活

with their external existence.

與他們的外在常存在著尖銳的衝突

To help make sense of these disparities, the next time you read Woolf,

為了幫助理解這些差距， 下次你讀吳爾芙的著作時

here are some aspects of her life and work to consider.

可以從她生活與工作的角度來閱讀

She was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in 1882 to a large and wealthy family,

1882 年她生在富裕的大家庭， 閨名為艾德琳 · 維吉尼亞 · 史蒂芬

which enabled her to pursue a life in the arts.

這使她能夠在藝術領域裡恣意深造

The death of her mother in 1895 was followed by that of her half-sister,

1895 年她的母親去世， 然後她同父異母的姐姐、

father, and brother within the next ten years.

父親和哥哥在以後的十年也相繼去世

These losses led to Woolf's first depressive episode

喪失親人的痛楚讓吳爾芙非常抑鬱

and subsequent institutionalization.

並曾經住入精神病院

As a young woman, she purchased a house

年輕時，她與兄弟姐妹合買了

in the Bloomsbury area of London with her siblings.

一幢在倫敦布盧姆斯伯里地區的房子

這使她接觸到一個有創意思想的圈子

This brought her into contact with a circle of creatives,

包括 E · M · 福斯特、克萊夫貝爾、

including E.M. Forster,

Clive Bell,

Roger Fry,

羅格 · 弗萊和倫納德 · 吳爾芙

and Leonard Woolf.

These friends became known as the Bloomsbury Group,

這群人後來被稱為「布盧姆茨伯里派」

and Virginia and Leonard married in 1912.

維吉尼亞和倫納德於 1912 年結婚

The members of this group were prominent figures in Modernism,

這圈子的成員都是現代主義的佼佼者

a cultural movement that sought to push the boundaries

現代主義文化運動以追求突破

of how reality is represented.

用更真實的方式表達現實感受

Key features of Modernist writing include the use of stream of consciousness,

現代主義寫作的主要特點 包括意識流的運用、

interior monologue,

內心的獨白、扭曲交錯的時間

distortions in time,

and multiple or shifting perspectives.

以及多元及轉換的視角

These appear in the work of Ezra Pound,

上述手法出現在艾茲拉 ‧ 龐德、

Gertrude Stein,

葛楚 · 史坦、

James Joyce,

詹姆斯 · 喬伊斯

and Woolf herself.

和吳爾芙本人的作品中

While reading Joyce's "Ulysses," Woolf began writing "Mrs. Dalloway."

在讀喬伊斯《尤利西斯》時， 吳爾芙開始撰寫《戴洛維夫人》

Like "Ulysses," the text takes place over the course of a single day

就像《尤利西斯》， 書的所有內容發生在同一天

and opens under seemingly mundane circumstances.

透過生活細節呈現一般世俗的情況

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

像是：「戴洛維夫人說她會自己買花」

But the novel dives deeply into the characters' traumatic pasts,

但這本小說更深刻表達角色過去的創傷

weaving the inner world of numbed socialite Clarissa Dalloway,

交織著麻木不仁的 社交名媛克拉麗莎 · 戴洛維

with that of the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith.

和飽受砲彈驚嚇的退伍軍人 塞普蒂默斯 · 史密斯的內心世界

Woolf uses interior monologue to contrast the rich world of the mind

吳爾芙使用內心的獨白 把心靈的豐富世界

against her characters' external existences.

與人物的外在存在形成對比

In her novel "To the Lighthouse,"

在她另一本小說《到燈塔去》裡

mundane moments, like a dinner party, or losing a necklace

描述一般的生活瑣事， 像晚宴或遺失了一條項鍊

trigger psychological revelations in the lives of the Ramsay's,

引發拉姆齊生活中的心理啟示

a fictionalized version of Woolf's family growing up.

其實就是吳爾芙家族成長的小說版本

"To the Lighthouse" also contains one of the most famous examples

《到燈塔去》同時包含 一個非常有名的例子

of Woolf's radical representation of time.

呈現吳爾芙對「時間」的極端的表現

In the Time Passes section,

在「時間流逝」這個章節

ten years are distilled into about 20 pages.

十年的光陰被濃縮成約 20 頁的文字

Here, the lack of human presence in the Ramsays' beach house

拉姆齊的海濱別墅裡杳無人煙

allows Woolf to reimagine time in flashes and fragments of prose.

讓吳爾芙用瞬息和散文片段 重新構思時間

"The house was left. The house was deserted.

「房子無人居住，在荒蕪之地

It was left like a shell on a sand hill to fill with dry salt grains

像是被留在沙丘上填滿乾鹽粒的貝殼

now that life had left it."

生命都已逝去」

In her novel "The Waves,"

在她的小說《海浪》中

there is little distinction between the narratives of the six main characters.

六個主要人物的敘述幾無顯著差異

Woolf experiments with collective consciousness,

吳爾芙實驗運用集體意識

at times collapsing the six voices into one.

不時把六個聲音合而為一

"It is not one life that I look back upon:

「我並不只回顧一個人的生活：

I am not one person: I am many people:

我不是一個人，我是很多人

I do not altogether know who I am,

我不完全知道我是誰

Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda or Louis,

金妮、蘇珊、奈維爾、羅達或路易斯

or how to distinguish my life from their's."

還有如何區分我和他們的生活」

In "The Waves," six become one, but in the gender-bending "Orlando,"

在《海浪》一書中，六個角色合而為一

但在性別界線模糊的「奧蘭多」中

a single character inhabits multiple identities.

單個角色擁有多重身份

The protagonist is a poet who switches between genders and lives for 300 years.

主角是一位能自由轉換性別 並且活了三百年的詩人

With its fluid language and approach to identity,

流暢的文字語言與對身分認同的方式

"Orlando" is considered a key text in gender studies.

使「奧蘭多」被認為 是性別研究的重要文本

The mind can only fly so far from the body

心靈只能飛離身體一段距離

before it returns to the constraints of life.

就得再回到生活的框架中

就像她筆下的許多角色一樣， 吳爾芙的生命终以悲劇告終

Like many of her characters, Woolf's life ended in tragedy

when she drowned herself at the age of 59.

她在 59 歲時投河自盡

Yet, she expressed hope beyond suffering.

然而，她透過苦痛表達希望

Through deep thought, Woolf's characters are shown

通過深思，吳爾芙筆下的角色

to temporarily transcend their material reality,

顯示暫時超越現實的物質世界

and in its careful consideration of the complexity of the mind,

仔細解讀意識的複雜性

her work charts the importance of making our inner lives known to each other.

她的作品表明了讓對方 了解我們內心生活的重要性

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