William Henry Hudson, 1841 ~ 1922, English writer and naturalist
We care for literature primarily on account of its deep and lasting human significance. A great book grows directly out of life: in reading it, we are brought into large, close, and fresh relations with life; and in that fact lies the final explanation of its power.
我們關注文學,主要因爲它包含深遂而永恆的人生意義. 偉大的著作往往直接提煉於真實的生活, 通過閱讀, 我們對人生有了廣闊, 密切且斬新的認識, 這也正是文學的魅力所在.
Literature is a vital record of what men have seen in life, what they have experienced of it, what they have thought and felt about those aspects of it which have the most immediate and enduring interest for all of us. It is thus fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of language. Such expression is fashioned into the various forms of literary art. But it is important to understand, to begin with, that literature lives by virtue of the life which it embodies. By remembering this, we shall be saved from the besetting danger of confounding the study of literature with the study of philology, rhetoric, and even literary technique.
文學記錄了生活中我們所看到的, 所經歷的, 以及我們的想法與感覺關於那些我們最關心而且一直關心的事情. 因此它基本上是人生通過語言媒介的表達. 這種表達形成了各種各樣的文學作品. 但是我們必須懂得, 文學寄生於它所包含的生活. 緊記這點, 我們就能避免混淆文學和語言學, 修辭學, 甚至寫作技巧.