Utopia, health, and happiness.

Utopia, health, and happiness.
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乌托邦、健康、幸福。

DOI:
10.1016/s0140-6736(16)30532-3
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发表时间:
2016
期刊:
Lancet (London, England)
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
Withington P
Withington P
中科院分区:
--
文献类型:
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作者:
Withington P

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拉尔夫罗宾逊在16世纪50年代,并保持缺席,在新版本的他的翻译在世纪。但当吉尔伯特伯内特在1684年进行他的新翻译时,“幸福”出现了不下19次。对于18世纪的读者来说,《乌托邦》作为一本关于理想社会的讨论,也是一本关于“幸福”的书;对于1684年之前的读者来说,情况绝对不是这样。要解释这种变化,需要考察幸福这个词更普遍的历史。当罗宾逊在16世纪50年代翻译《乌托邦》时,幸福是一个相当罕见的英语单词,其含义受到限制。这个词来源于古挪威语中的名词“hap”,意思是运气或财富,很可能是在世纪中期创造的(例如,杰弗里·乔叟不知道这个词)。对于罗宾逊那一代的作家来说,“幸福”的语义学在很大程度上是由这个来源决定的:幸福表明了财富的质量和状态,或者是体现这种状态的环境和现象。正如托马斯·霍比(Thomas Hoby)翻译的卡斯蒂廖内(Castiglione)的《侍臣》(The Courtier)(1561)所言:“因为恶与善相对立,善与恶相对立,所以(在某种程度上)有必要通过对立和某种平衡来实现.没有坚强的勇气,难道没有胆怯吗?也不是,有没有失禁?也不是健康,难道没有疾病吗?也不是真理,难道没有谎言吗?“难道没有幸福吗?”然而,在16世纪50年代到17世纪80年代之间,这个词积累了一系列的含义,使伯内特能够在他对莫尔的拉丁文文本的“现代”翻译中随意使用它,甚至是典型地使用它。首先,幸福成为英语中“felicitas”的最受欢迎的表达方式,使得英语单词“felicity”--15世纪描述世俗满足的常用方式--几乎已经过时了。因此,以前被理解为幸福的想法和感觉现在被描述为幸福。第二,中世纪的作家用“布利斯”和“幸福”来描述他们与上帝的关系,而他们的后代则越来越多地用精神上的和永恒的幸福来描述。第三,幸福也成为翻译eudaimonia和summum bonum的经典思想的首选术语:一方面,完美和“自然”自我的实现和实现;另一方面,首要的理想或“主权善”,美好的生活,好人和美好的来世都是基于此。因此,我们可以把“幸福”这个新词想象成一种语言上的冰川,沿着地球表面慢慢移动,积累着各种概念和内涵。留下的风景相当于所有最重要的转变:幸福从幸运和财富的产物转变为艺术和深思熟虑的结果。这是一个概念上的转变,16世纪50年代和17世纪80年代的乌托邦完美地捕捉到了这一点。在这方面,重要的是乌托邦人是一个体现理性和控制的民族:对自己,对彼此,对他们的环境。对于16世纪50年代的罗宾逊来说,莫尔想象中的社会意味着幸福的对立面,幸福这个词仍然植根于运气和偶然性的观念中。乌托邦代表了人类对反复无常的命运的故意胜利:乌托邦人永远不会听说过这个词。相比之下,伯内特继承了一种不同的幸福感。在现代英语的美丽新世界中,幸福已经成为一种状态或条件,需要刻意追求,计算和衡量,而不是留给自己的结果。
Ralph Robinson in the 1550s, and remained absent in new editions of his translation in the 17th century. But when Gilbert Burnet made his new translation in 1684,“happiness” appears no less than 19 times. For 18th-century readers, Utopia as a discussion about what makes an ideal society was also a book about “happiness”; this was most definitely not the case for readers before 1684. Explaining this change requires looking at the more general history of the word happiness. When Robinson made his translations of Utopia in the 1550s, happiness was a fairly rare English word with a restricted set of meanings. It derived from the Old Norse noun “hap”, meaning luck or fortune, and was in all likelihood coined in the mid-15th century (Geoffrey Chaucer did not know it, for example). For writers of Robinson’s generation the semantics of “happiness” were largely informed by this provenance: happiness indicated the quality and state of fortune or the circumstances and phenomena that exemplified such a condition. As Thomas Hoby’s translation of Castiglione’s The Courtier (1561) put it:” For since ill is contrary to good, and good to ill, it is (in a manner) necessary by contrary and a certain counterpoise the one should…… Who knows not that there should be no Justice in the world, were it not for wrongs? No stoutness of courage, were there not fainthearted? Nor continence, were there not incontinency? Nor health, were there not sickness? Nor truth, were there not lies? Nor happiness, were there not mischances?” Between the 1550s and the 1680s, however, the word accumulated a range of meanings that enabled Burnet to use it promiscuously—even paradigmatically—in his “modern” translation of More’s Latin text. First, happiness became the favoured way to render “felicitas” in English, rendering the English word “felicity”—the usual way to describe worldly contentment in the 15th century—all but obsolete. As a result, ideas and sensations previously understood as felicitous were now described as happiness. Second, while medieval writers talked in terms of “bliss” and “blessedness” to describe their relationship with God, their descendants increasingly spoke in terms of spiritual and everlasting happiness. Third, happiness also became the preferred term to translate classical ideas of eudaimonia and summum bonum: on the one hand, the realisation and fulfilment of perfect and “natural” selfhood; on the other hand, the overarching ideal—or “sovereign good”—upon which the good life, the good person, and the good afterlife is based. It is possible to imagine the new word “happiness”, therefore, as a kind of linguistic glacier, slowly moving along the face of the earth accumulating concepts and connotations as it went. The landscape left behind amounted to the most significant transition of all: the transformation of happiness from the product of hap and fortune to the outcome of art and deliberation. This was a conceptual shift that the Utopias of the 1550s and 1680s beautifully capture. Important in this respect is that Utopians were a people who embodied reason and control: over themselves, over each other, and over their environment. For Robinson in the 1550s, More’s imaginary society would have signified the antithesis of happiness, which was a term still rooted in ideas of luck and happenstance. Utopia represented the deliberate triumph of man over capricious fortune: Utopians would never have heard of the term. Burnet, by contrast, inherited a different sense of happiness. In the brave new world of modern English, happiness had become a state or condition to be deliberately pursued, calculated, and measured rather than left to the outcome of …