JK Rowling的哈佛毕业演讲

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board ofOverseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all,graduates.

浮士德主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，大学的员工，自豪的父母，以及所有的毕业生们：

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only hasHarvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear andnausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencementaddress have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I haveto do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myselfinto believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potterconvention. 首先我想说的是“谢谢你们”。这不仅因为哈佛给了我非比寻常的荣誉，而且为了这几个礼拜以来，由于想到这次毕业典礼演说而产生的恐惧与恶心让我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面！现在我需要做的就是一次深呼吸，眯着眼看着红色的横幅，然后欺骗自己，让自己相信正在参加世界上受到最好教育群体的哈立波特大会。

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so Ithought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. Thecommencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopherBaroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped meenormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’tremember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables meto proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you toabandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddydelights of becoming a gay wizard.

做毕业典礼演说是一个重大的责任，我的思绪回到了自己的那次毕业典礼。那天的演讲者是一位英国的杰出哲学家 Baroness MarryWarnock.对她演讲的回忆对我写这篇演讲稿帮助巨大，因为我发现她说的话我居然一个字都没有记住。这个发现让我释然，使我得以继续写完演讲稿，我不用再担心，那种想成为\wizard\（harry porter中的魔法大师）的眩晕的愉悦，可能会误导你们放弃在商业、法律、政治领域的大好前途。

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievablegoals: the first step towards personal improvement. 你们看，如果你们在若干年后能记住“gay wizard”这个笑话，我就比Barkoness Mary Warnock有进步了。 所以，设定一个可以实现的目标是个人进步的第一步。

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to sayto you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my owngraduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 yearsthat has expired between that day and this. 实际上，我已经绞尽脑汁、费劲心思去想今天我应该讲什么好。我问自己：我希望在自己毕业那天已经知道的是什么，而又有哪些重要的教训是我从那天开始到现在的21年间学会的。 I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we aregathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided totalk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on thethreshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol thecrucial importance of imagination.

我想到了两个答案。在今天这个愉快的日子，我们聚在一起庆祝你们学习上的成功时，我决定和你们谈谈失败的收益。另外，当你们如今处于“现实生活”的入口处时，我想向你们颂扬想象力的重要性。

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

我选择的这两个答案似乎如同歌德式幻想一样不切实际，或者显得荒谬，但是请容忍我讲下

去。

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is aslightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she hasbecome. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance betweenthe ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected ofme.

对于我这样一个已经42岁的人来说，回头看自己21岁毕业时的情景，并不是一件舒服的事情。我的前半生之前，我一直在自己内心的追求与最亲近的人对我的要求之间进行不自在的抗争。 I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was towrite novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverishedbackgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view thatmy overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that couldnever pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

我曾确信我自己唯一想做的事情是写小说。但是我的父母都来自贫穷的家庭，都没有上过大学，他们认为我的异常活跃的想象力只是滑稽的个人怪癖，并不能用来付抵押房产，或者确保得到退休金。

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted tostudy English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospectsatisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly hadmy parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than Iditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor. 他们希望我再去读个专业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学外语。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻报名学习古典文学。

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Ofall subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put toname one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing thekeys to an executive bathroom.

我忘了自己是怎么把学古典文学的事情告诉父母的了，他们也可能是在我毕业那天才第一次发现。在这个星球上的所有科目中，我想他们很难再发现一门比希腊神学更没用的课程了。 I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blamemy parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blamingyour parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment youare old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What ismore, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would neverexperience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have sincebeen poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennoblingexperience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression;it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out ofpoverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to prideyourself, but poverty …… 此处隐藏：11965字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……