篇一：经典优美英语散文精选
">What I Have Lived for我为何而生- By Bertrand Russell伯特兰·罗素
《我为何而生》引自《伯特兰·罗素自传》。它既是作者心灵的抒发，也是生命体验的总结。作者以深刻的感悟和敏锐的目光，分析了人生中的三种激情，即对爱的渴望，对知识的追求和对人类苦难的同情。对爱的渴望，使人欣喜若狂，既能解除孤独，又能发现美好的未来。对知识的追求，使人理解人心，了解宇宙，掌握科学。爱和知识把人引向天堂般的境界，而对人类的同情之心又使人回到苦难深重的人间。作者认为这就是人生，值得为此再活一次的人生。这篇散文似乎信手拈来，但却耐人寻味。充满激情，充满感慨，充满智慧，情文并茂，逻辑性和感染力极强。
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me higher and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair.
三种简单但是无比强烈的感情主导着我的人生：对爱的渴望、对知识的寻求和对人类苦难的深切同情。这些感情如同飓风一样没有方向地将我吹得越来越高、越来越远，越过痛苦的海洋到达绝望的边缘。
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness-that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what - at last - I have found.
我寻找爱，因为爱让我着迷——这种沉迷如此美好，我宁愿放弃生命中的一切只为换来片刻的对爱的沉迷。我寻找爱，因为爱会减轻孤独——在可怕的孤独中，颤抖的灵魂透过世界的边际看到的是冰冷的、深不可测的、没有生命的深渊。我寻找爱，因为在爱的结合中，我看到了一个神秘的具体而微小的世界，这是圣人与诗人想象中的天堂景象的预示。这是我所寻求的，并且我最终发现，它对于人类来说是再美好不过的东西了。
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And l have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds away above the flux. A little of this, but, not much, I have achieved.
以同样的热情，我寻求知识。我曾想要理解人的心灵；我曾想知道为什么星星如此闪亮。我曾试图理解毕达哥拉斯的力量，这种力量使数字凌驾于万物之上。在这些方面我获取了一些知识，但不是很多。
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heaven. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberated in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and i too suffer. 爱和知识，只要可能实现，就会引领我走向天堂。但是同情常常将我带回现实。
痛苦的哭喊回荡在我的心中。饥饿的孩子，被剥削者压迫的人民、贫穷和痛苦，这些都在嘲讽人类的生活的本来面目。我渴望减轻邪恶，但是我无法做到，我亦在遭受痛苦。
This has been my life. I (本文来自：WWw.DXF5.com 东 星 资 源 网:散文的英语)have found it worth living, and I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.
这就是我的人生。我认为它值得拥有并且如果可能，我愿意重新再来一次。
词汇魅力
1.overwhelmingly adv.压倒性地，不可抵抗地
2.thither adj.对岸的，那边的adv.到那处，向那方
3.wayward adj.任性的，不定的，刚愎的
4.anguish n.苦闷，痛苦 v.（使）极苦闷，（使）极痛苦
5.shivering vi.& n.战栗，发抖
6.consciousness n.意识；觉悟；知觉
7.unfathomable adj.深不可测的
8.mystic adj.神秘的，神秘主义者的 n.神秘主义者
9.miniature adj.小型的，小规模的 n.缩图，小画像，小模型
10.apprehend v.理解，忧虑，逮捕，拘押
11.flux n.流量，变迁，不断地变化
12.reverberate v.回响，反响，反射
13.mockery n.嘲弄，笑柄，蔑视
14.alleviate vt.减轻，缓解，缓和
篇二：散文翻译
>什么是散文？
广义而言,凡是不属于韵文的文章都可称为散文。西方人甚至把小说也包括在散文之内;我国有些现代叙事性文章名为散文,但称之为小说也无不可。不过,严格说来,我们说的散文应相当于西方的Essay,与诗歌（poem)、小说(novel)、戏剧(drama)并起并坐,文字一般都比较短小精炼,如随笔、小品文、杂感、游记、日记、书信、回忆录、通讯报道等等。 英汉散文的特点
散文是一种最灵活、最自由的文体。它篇幅短小、题材广泛；结构散而不乱，形式灵活；散文的语言充分体现了汉语多辞藻华美，或文意浓郁，文采飞扬的特点；然而英语则措辞简洁、文意客观、文采朴素。英汉语言的天然差异给散文的翻译带来很大的困难，散文的翻译不能机械地直译。
散文翻译的特点
散文的特点决定了散文的翻译必须是灵活地将“形”与“神”统一。许渊冲在谈到文学翻译时说：“文学翻译不单是译词，还要译意：不单要译意，还要译味。”，并形象地用数学公式表达为：“译词：1+1=1（形似），译意：1+1=2（意似），译味：1+1=3（神似）”。
所谓“译味”，是指译者要注意作者的语言风格。下笔翻译之前先辨别文章的文体色彩，熟悉不同文体的语言风格；更重要的是，要善于运用译入语中不同文体的语言风格来再现原文的语言风格，使译文与原文的文体色彩相符合，达到形式与功能的对等。
注意汉英散文翻译中的民俗文化误译
他是趟着雾走的,步子很飘,他背着花篓,篓里装着粮食,鼓的。”(《家乡》)
译文: He went off walking on air, his steps fairly flew. On his back he lugged an embroidered basket，in the basket bags of grain-bulging-ones stood at attention.“花篓”翻译成“embroidered basket”是不恰当的。“embroider”的意思是“刺绣”，翻译成诸如“basket with patterns”之类的形式才正确。
朱自清《背影》英译例谈
《背影》是朱自清的早期散文作品。作者使用提炼的口语，文笔秀丽、细腻缜密，读来有一种亲切委婉、娓娓动听的感觉。
张培基先生的英译《背影》以保持原作的口语风格为要，遣词造句通俗简洁，朴实无华，最大限度地再现了原文信息，达到了与原文极其相似的功能。
词汇层面：理解到位，用词准确、简单、通俗
（1）那年冬天，祖母死了，父亲的差使也交卸了,??
译 文 ：In the winter of two years ago, grandma died and father lost his job. …
（2）??一半为了丧事，一半为了赋闲。
译 文 ：Between grandma’s funeral and father’s unemployment, …
（3）父亲因为事忙，本已说定不送我，叫旅馆里一个熟识的茶房陪我同去。
译文：Father said he was too busy to go and see me off at the railway station, but would ask a hotel waiter that he knew to accompany me there instead.
（4）行李太多了，得向脚夫行些小费，才可过去。他便又忙着和他们讲价钱。译文 ：
There was quite a bit of luggage and he had to bargain with the porter over the fee.
（5）大约大去之期不远矣。
译文 ：Perhaps it won’t be long now before I depart this life.
（6）他走了几步,回过头看见我,说,“进去吧,里边没人。 ”
译文： ?he looked back at me and said, “Go back to your seat. Don’t leave your things alone.”
（7） 他用两手攀着上面,两脚再向上缩;他肥胖 的身子向左微倾。 ??过铁道时,他先将橘子散放在地上,自己慢慢爬下,再抱起橘子走。
译文：His hands held onto the upper part of the platform, his legs huddles up and his corpulent body tipped slightly towards the left, ? In crossing the railway track, he first put the tangerines on the ground, climbed down slowly and then picked them up again.
（8）父亲说: “事已如此，不必难过，好在天无绝人之路! ”
译文：Now that things’ ve come to such a pass, it’s no use crying. Fortunately, Heaven always leaves one a way out. (come to a pretty/sorry pass: 处境糟糕）
（9）他只说,“不要紧,他们去不好”。
译文：
But he only said, “Never mind! It won’t do to trust guys like those hotel boys! ”
句法层面：句子短小精悍,结构简单
1）他望车外看了看,说,“我买几个橘子去。你就在此地,不要走动。 ”
译文：But he looked out of the window and said,“I’m going to buy you some tangerines. You just stay here. Don’t move around.”
（2）??于是扑扑衣上的泥土,心里很轻松似的,过一会说,“我走了;到那边来信! ”
译文： ?he looked somewhat relieved and said after a while, “I must be going now. Don’t forget to write me from Beijing! ”
（3）他嘱咐我路上小心，夜里要警惕些，不要受凉。
译文：He told me to be watchful on the way and be careful not to catch cold at night.
（4）他再三嘱咐茶房，甚是仔细。 但他终于不放 心，怕茶房不妥帖，颇踌躇了一会。 译文 ：
He urged the waiter again and again to take good care of me, but still did not quite trust him.
（5）我与父亲不相见已二年余了，我最不能忘记的是他的背影。
译文：It is more than two years since I last saw father, and what I can never forget is the sight of his back.
关照英文形合（hypotaxis)巧作变动
（6）到南京时，有朋友约去游逛，勾留了一日。
译 文 ：I spent the first day in Nanjing strolling
about with some friends at their invitation.
（7）那年冬天，祖母死了，父亲的差使也交卸了,正是祸不单行的日子，我从北京到徐州， 打算跟着父亲奔丧回家。
译 文 ：
Misfortunes never come singly. In the winter of two years ago, grandma died and father lost his job. I left Beijing for Xuzhou to join father in hastening home to attend grandma’s funeral.
（8）信中说道,“我身体平安,唯膀子疼痛利害,举箸提笔,诸多不便,大约大去之期不远矣。 ”译文：“I’m all right except for a severe pain in my arm. I even have trouble using chopsticks or writing brushes. Perhaps it won’t be long now before I depart this life.”
语篇层面：语篇连贯，忠实原文
作者对自己“落泪”的描写
（1）到徐州见着父亲，看见满院狼藉的东西，又想起祖母，不禁簌簌地流下眼泪。
（2）这时我看见他的背影，我的眼泪很快地流下来了。
（3）我便进来坐下，我的眼泪又来了。
（4）我读到此处，在晶莹的泪光中，??
译文如下：
（1）?Tears tickling down my cheeks
（2）Tears gushed from my eyes.
（3）My eyes were again wet with tears.
（4）The glistening tears ?
对比原文和译文，我们可以发现译文很好地再现了原文有关于“落泪”的描写。 四句中的 “tears”很好地把整篇文章中作者对父亲的爱串起来，前后衔接连贯。
回译练习(张培基译三毛作品
I hope to remain with my parents and Hexi in their lifetime and be the last to pass away. It would make me turn in my grave if I should be the first to die, thus leaving them with perpetual sorrow. My concern for them is as deep as my love for them.Therefore, I have no choice but to be a temporary surviving bird. Though I can’t fly any more, having lost all my feathers due to Hexi’s death, my broken heart is still treasured by my parents. They just won’t let me die despite my spiritual agony and wound. And nor can I bear to lose them.The day will surely come when six loving open arms on the other golden bank will welcome me to eternity. Then, and only then will I rush forward with a smile.
三毛原文（散文《不死鸟》节选）
我愿意在父亲、母亲及荷西的生命圆环里，做最后离世的一个；如果我先去了，而将永远的哀伤留给世上的他们，那么是死不瞑目的，因为我的爱有多深，我的牵挂便有多长。
所以，我几乎没有选择地做了暂时的不死鸟，我的羽毛虽然因为荷西的先去，已经完全脱落，无力再飞，可是那颗碎掉的心，仍是父母的珍宝。再痛、再伤，他们也不肯我死去，我也不忍放掉他们啊。
总有那么一天，在金色的彼岸，会有六只爱的手臂张开了在迎我进入永生，那时，我方肯含笑狂奔而去了。
篇三：散文翻译
福斯特(1879-1970)几年前我写了一本书，部分内容谈到英国人在印度所遭的困境。美国人觉得自己若在印度不会如此窘迫，读该书时便无拘无束，他们越读越自在，其结果是让该书的作者赚取一张支票。我用这支票买下一片树林，林子不大，几乎没有什么树，还有一条该死的公共小道从中横穿而过。但这是我拥有的第一份财产，因而如果别人和我一样感到遗憾，那是很正常的事。他们因恐怖而生变的语调，会对自己提出这样一个重要问题：财产对人的性格产生怎样的影响？我们这里不涉及经济学，私人财产对整个社区的影响完全是另外一个问题------也许是个更重要的问题，我们只从心理方面进行探讨，你所拥有的东西会对你产生什么影响？我的树林又对我产生什么影响呢？
首先，它让我感到有负担。财产确实能起到这一作用。给人负担从而让人进不了天国。《圣经》中那个不幸的百万富翁并不坏，只是胖而已，他大腹便便，屁股浑圆，在水晶门内东挪西插想挤进去，肥嘟嘟的身体两侧被挤得到处青肿，却看见他的下方，一只较瘦的骆驼穿过针眼，织进了上帝的袍子。《新约》的四部福音书全把胖子与迟缓连在一起，指出了一个明显却被人忽略的事实，那就是拥有太多的东西必然会造就行动不便。有家具就需要掸灰尘，掸灰尘需要仆人，有仆人就得给他买保险。这些事交织在一起，使你在接受赴宴邀请或如约前往约旦河沐浴之前，不得不三思而行了。有关财产问题福音书中有些地方还有更深入的阐述，其观点与托尔斯泰相似，即财产是罪恶的。这里面涉及的苦行主义令人费解，对此我不敢苟同。但说到财产对人的直接影响，他们确实一语中的，财产让人笨重。根据定义，笨重的人不可能像闪电一样，迅速地从东移到西。一位体重14石的大主教登越讲坛，和基督的到来肯定形成鲜明对比。我的树林让我感到负担沉重。
其次，它老让我惦记着这片树林要是再大些就好了。
一天，我听到树林里传来细枝折断的声音，这使我很不高兴。心想，一定是有人在采黑莓，弄坏了灌木丛。待走近一看，发现不是人踩断了树枝，是一只鸟，我高兴极了。哈，我的鸟！可那鸟似乎并不高兴，毫不顾及我与它的关系，一见我的脸孔，顿受惊吓，飞过树篱，停在一块田地上，惊恐地叫着。那块田是亨尼
西太太的领地，鸟转眼成了亨尼西太太的鸟了。这可真是大问题，我的林子要是再大一点哪会有这等问题？我没钱买下亨尼西太太的田地，又不敢杀了她。这局限让我烦透了。亚哈本并不喜欢那个葡萄园----他是需要它使自己的财产更完整，用它设计出一个新的地形曲线。我想使自己的林子更完整，因此，林子周围的土地对我便是必不可少了。边界可以保护树林的完整，可是可怜的边界本身也需要保护。我常听到林子边界附近传来吵闹声，还有小孩扔石头。边界向外扩一点，再扩一点，直至扩到海边。克努特多快乐！亚历山大更快乐！最后我甚至要抱怨，世界怎么成了财产的限制？我多么希望带有英国国旗的火箭可以发往月球、火星、天狼星和其他星星。然而，无边无际的想象终以我的悲哀而告终。我的树林不可能成为宇宙疆域的中心，它范围太小，除了黑莓，又没有其他矿产。亨尼西太太家的鸟在第二次受惊后，自管自地飞掉了，但那丝毫没有给我什么慰籍。
第三，财产让拥有者总想应该对其做些什么，但却不知该做什么，他们为焦躁情绪所控，只是模糊地意识到，自己有某种个性需要表达出来。而这种意识----当然需要是清醒的意识而不是模糊的意识----正是艺术家的创造源泉。我有时想砍掉树林里还留着的树，有时又想在树林空处栽上些树。其冲动皆出于虚荣无聊，并非挣钱或为美化环境。这些冲动全源于我愚蠢的自我表现欲，源于我不知如何享受财产的无能。创造、财产、享受，这三者在人的头脑中形成邪恶的三位一体。创造和享受都很好，但没有一个物质基础，均无从获得。这时，财产伺机挤入以图取代：“让我来吧，我一个就够了，我可以一个顶三。”其实并不是这样，它正像莎士比亚谈到贪欲时指出的，是“生气消耗在耻辱的浪费之中”，它“事前给个乐儿；事后，只是一场梦”。但是我们却无法躲避财产。我们的经济制度迫使我们必须拥有财产，否则我们就有可能饿死。心灵的某种内在缺陷，也逼迫我们占有财产。我们总以为财产可以帮助促进自我发展，培养优雅和英雄行为。世间的生活是物质的和世俗的，也应该如此。问题是我们还没有学会恰当地处理这种物质性和世俗性，它们依然与占有欲纠缠在一起，但丁对此的描述是，“占有，是伴随着损失的占有。”
写到这儿，我们该谈谈第四点，也就是最后一点了，即黑莓问题。
小树林里的黑莓不算多，但从那条横穿树林的小道上很容易看到，也就更好
采集了。还有毛地黄，常有人在林子里拔毛地黄。一些好为人师的女士，甚至刨地采毒菌，好在星期一拿到班上示人。另一些教养不佳，倚在男友的怀里，把地上的欧洲蕨弄得一塌糊涂。林子里到处散落着废纸和罐头盒。天哪，这小树林属于我吗？如果是我的，我是不是应该不让他人进入，才算是更完整地拥有树林？莱姆里吉斯附近有个树林也有一条公共通道，可它的主人在这点上毫不含糊，他在小道两旁垒起高高的石墙，石墙上架了若干小桥。这样，众人如白蚁般在小道上来回穿行时，主人在林子里大嚼黑霉没人看见。他这才是真正拥有了自己的林子，这个能干的家伙！《圣经》里的那个财主在地狱里表现挺好，那里，肉眼能穿过分隔他与拉撒路的鸿沟，看到另一边的一切。但在这树林里，什么也甭想穿透这两堵石墙。我也应该垒墙围栅，品尝真正拥有财产的甜蜜。肥硕臃肿、贪欲无度、假充创新、极度自私，我要编织一顶由这四物组成的“拥有”花冠戴在头上，直到那些讨厌的布尔什维克们来拿掉我的帽子，把我扔到外面的黑暗之中。
我的小树林是E.M福斯特的作品，收录于阿宾哲收获集中，于1926年首次出版(1936年,1996年重新由Andre Deutsch公司出版)。
英国作家E.M福斯特，当今最著名的小说是《霍华德的结束》和《印度之行》,写过几部小说,两个传记,一本书的书评,写过许多散文和短篇小说。这篇散文“我的小树林,”在1926年首次出版,鼓励我们思考唯物主义的本质和财富的诱人力量。试比较福斯特的所有权思想和亨利·凡·戴克在他的文章“谁拥有此山?”中所表达的所有权思想。
原文：
My Wood
by E. M. Forster (1879-1970)
A few years ago I wrote a book which dealt in part with the difficulties of the English in India. Feeling that they would have had no difficulties in India themselves, the Americans read the book freely. The more they read it the better it made them feel, and a check to the author was the result. I bought a wood with the check. It is not a large wood--it contains scarcely any trees, and it is intersected, blast it, by a public foot-path. Still, it is the first property that I have owned, so it is right that other people should participate in my shame, and should ask themselves, in accents that will vary in horror, this very important question: What is the effect of property upon the character? Don't let's touch economics; the effect of private ownership upon the community as a whole is another question--a more important question, perhaps, but another one. Let's keep to psychology. If you own things, what's their effect on you? What's the effect on me of my wood?
In the first place, it makes me feel heavy. Property does have this effect. Property produces men of weight, and it was a man of weight who failed to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. He was not wicked, that unfortunate millionaire in the parable, he was only stout; he stuck out in front, not to mention behind, and as he wedged himself this way and that in the crystalline entrance and bruised his well-fed flanks, he saw beneath him a comparatively slim camel passing through the eye of a needle and being woven into the robe of God. The Gospels all through couple stoutness and slowness. They point out what is perfectly obvious, yet seldom realized: that if you have a lot of things you cannot move about a lot, that furniture requires dusting, dusters require servants, servants require insurance stamps, and the whole tangle of them makes you think twice before you accept an invitation to dinner or go for a bathe in the Jordan. Sometimes the Gospels proceed further and say with Tolstoy that property is sinful; they approach the difficult ground of asceticism here, where I cannot follow them. But as to the immediate effects of property on people, they just show straightforward logic. It produces men of weight. Men of weight cannot, by definition, move like the lightning from the East unto the West, and the ascent of a fourteen-stone bishop into a pulpit is thus the exact antithesis of the coming of the Son of Man. My wood makes me feel heavy.
In the second place, it makes me feel it ought to be larger.
The other day I heard a twig snap in it. I as annoyed at first, for I thought that someone was blackberrying, and depreciating the value of the undergrowth. On coming nearer, I saw it was not a man who had trodden on the twig and snapped it, but a bird, and I felt pleased. My bird. The bird was not equally pleased. Ignoring the relation between us, it took flight as soon as it saw the shape of my face, and flew straight over the boundary hedge into a field, the property of Mrs. Henessy, where it sat down with a loud squawk. It had become Mrs. Henessy's bird. Something seemed grossly amiss here, something that would not have occurred had the wood been larger. I could not afford to buy Mrs. Henessy out, I dared not murder her, and limitations of this sort beset me on every side. Ahab did not want that
vineyard--he only needed it to round off his property, preparatory to plotting a new
curve--and all the land around my wood has become necessary to me in order to round off the wood. A boundary protects. But--poor little thing--the boundary ought in its turn to be
protected. Noises on the edge of it. Children throw stones. A little more, and then a little more, until we reach the sea. Happy Canute! Happier Alexander! And after all, why should even the world be the limit of possession? A rocket containing a Union Jack, will, it is hoped, be shortly fired at the moon. Mars. Sirius. Beyond which . . . But these immensities ended by saddening me. I could not suppose that my wood was the destined nucleus of universal dominion--it is so small and contains no mineral wealth beyond the blackberries. Nor was I comforted when Mrs. Henessy's bird took alarm for the second time and flew clean away from us all, under the belief that it belonged to itself.
In the third place, property makes its owner feel that he ought to do something to it. Yet he isn't sure what. A restlessness comes over him, a vague sense that he has a personality to express--the same sense which, without any vagueness, leads the artist to an act of creation. Sometimes I think I will cut down such trees as remain in the wood, at other times I want to fill up the gaps between them with new trees. Both impulses are pretentious and empty. They are not honest movements towards moneymaking or beauty. They spring from a foolish desire to express myself and from an inability to enjoy what I have got. Creation, property, enjoyment form a sinister trinity in the human mind. Creation and enjoyment are both very, very good, yet they are often unattainable without a material basis, and at such moments property pushes itself in as a substitute, saying, "Accept me instead--I'm good enough for all three." It is not enough. It is, as Shakespeare said of lust, "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame": it is "Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream." Yet we don't know how to shun it. It is forced on us by our economic system as the alternative to starvation. It is also forced on us by an internal defect in the soul, by the feeling that in property may lie the germs of self-development and of exquisite or heroic deeds. Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership, where (in the words of Dante "Possession is one with loss."
And this brings us to our fourth and final point: the blackberries.
Blackberries are not plentiful in this meager grove, but they are easily seen from the public footpath which traverses it, and all too easily gathered. Foxgloves, too--people will pull up the foxgloves, and ladies of an educational tendency even grub for toadstools to show them on the Monday in class. Other ladies, less educated, roll down the bracken in the arms of their gentlemen friends. There is paper, there are tins. Pray, does my wood belong to me or
doesn't it? And, if it does, should I not own it best by allowing no one else to walk there? There is a wood near Lyme Regis, also cursed by a public footpath, where the owner has not
hesitated on this point. He has built high stone walls each side of the path, and has spanned it by bridges, so that the public circulate like termites while he gorges on the blackberries unseen. He really does own his wood, this able chap. Dives in Hell did pretty well, but the gulf dividing him from Lazarus shall come to this in time. I shall wall in and fence out until I really taste the sweets of property. Enormously stout, endlessly avaricious, pseudo-creative,