中英雙語話中國歷史名人 第71期:冰心

Bing Xin (1900~1999), originally named Xie Wanying, was a native of Changle of Fujian Province.

冰心(19oo~1999)，原名謝婉瑩，福建長樂人。

Her father was a naval officer and she spent her childhood in Yantai of Shandong Province.

父親是海軍軍官。她的童年是在山東煙臺度過的。

The ocean left a deep impression on Bing Xin.

大海給冰心留下了深刻的印象。

She was one of the most celebrated female writers among the first batch of modern writers emerging in large numbers during the new-vernacular literature (promoted by the May Fourth Movement in 1919).

冰心屬於五四新文學運動中涌現出來的第一批現代作家，是其中最著名的女作家之一。

Most of her early works were "problem fiction", which lay bare the oppressive, feudal patriarchal system and exposed the problems of society, family and women. Two Families, The Man Alone Is off Color, Leaving the Courtry and The Sister of Zhuang Hong, showed clearly that the patriotic May Fourth Movement and the tide of new thinking had strongly affected Bing Xin.

在新思潮的影響下，冰心創作了《兩個家庭》、《斯人獨憔悴》、《去國》、《莊鴻的姊妹》等揭示社會、家庭、婦女等人生問題的“問題小說”。

Passionately concerned about the realities of her day, she was utterly dissatisfied with the feudal authorities. After the high tide of the May Fourth Movement, under the influence of the philosophy of Tagore, she "retreated into the small world of the family, describing and lauding the kind of 'human love', which cannot exist in a society that is bedeviled by class distinctions".

這些小說，表現了她對封建勢力和社會現狀的不滿，五四之後，受泰戈爾《飛鳥集》的影響，冰心退縮到家庭的圈子裏，去描寫、歌頌在階級社會裏不可能實行的‘’人類之愛”。

Her stories "Superman" and “Awakening" as well as the volumes of poetry "The Stars" and "Spring Waters" belonged to this period.

在這個時期，冰心創作了《超人》、《悟》以及詩集《繁星》和《春水》。

In these works, she dwelt on maternal love, childlike innocence and purity, spreading the empty belief that "the world is love". Compared with her early stories and poetry, Bing Xin's essays brought her greater recognition for their achievement.

這些無標題的格言式自由體小詩，以自然和諧的音調，抒發了作者對自然景物的感受和人生哲理的思索，歌頌了母愛、人類之愛和大自然。

Bing Xin was a talented writer with a very personal style. The style of her prose, known as “Bing Xin style", was light; the feelings expressed were transparent and delicate. As a writer, she was good at using her literary style to create a rich lyrical atmosphere in her works, which also accounted for their influence at the time. She wrote with natural grace so that her writing style was just like floating clouds and running streams.

冰心的散文被稱爲“冰心體”散文，即以行雲流水似的文字，歌頌自然、母愛和童年，抒發對祖國、故鄉、家人、大海的眷念，滿蘊着溫柔，微帶着憂愁，顯示出清麗的風致。

Essays such as The Post, Thoughts in the Mountains, Letters to My Young Readers, Returning to the South and Little Orange Lamp also gave the reader a sense of beauty close to that conveyed by lyrical poetry or landscape paintings.

代表作有《往事》、《山中雜記》、《寄小讀者》、《南歸》、《小桔燈》等。

Letters to My Young Readers was the earliest work of children's literature in modern China.

其中散文集《寄小讀者》是中國現代最早的兒童文學作品。

Most of these essays were written abroad, as she thought of her family, her hometown and her country. Maternal love and childlike innocence still featured prominently in these works, but the tone was somewhat changed. There was also disappointment upon the shattering of empty dreams, frustration upon the failure to find answers in her search for the meaning of life, and melancholy upon recollection of childhood. She took full advantage of the easy flow of the vernacular as well as the disciplined simplicity of the classical language. She advocated endowing Chinese with a tint of the Western language. The sentences under her pen were elastic and gentle with dancing rhythm.

冰心主張“白話文言化”、“中文西文化”，她的散文既保留了某些文言文的典雅凝練，又適當地“歐化”，使句子靈活婉轉，有自然跳動的韻律感。