《人间词话》英译（四十三）

南宋词人，白石有格而无情，剑南有气而乏韵。其堪与北宋人颉颃者，唯一幼安耳。近人祖南宋而祧北宋，以南宋之词可学，北宋不可学也。学南宋者，不祖白石，则祖梦窗，以白石、梦窗可学，幼安不可学也。学幼安者，率祖其粗犷、滑稽，以其粗犷、滑稽处可学，佳处不可学也。幼安之佳处，在有性情，有境界。即以气象论，亦有“傍素波、干青云”之概。宁后世龌龊小生所可拟耶？

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Of the Southern Sung writers Chiang K’uei had from but lacked feeling, Lu Yu had vital force but lacked tone. They only poet in the Southern Sung worthy to be grouped with Northern Sung poets was Hsin Ch’i-chi. Men in more recent times have considered themselves the true sons of the Southern Sung and only stepsons of the Northern Sung. This is due to the fact that the former could be imitated while the latter could not. And in imitating poets of the Southern Sung they followed either Chiang K’uei or Wu Wen-ying because these two poets could be imitated while Hsin Ch’i-chi could not. When they did try to imitate him, they generally centred on those poems which displayed his wildness and farcical humor, because these were the very aspects which could be imitated while the really fine elements could not. What made his fine poems so fine was that they possessed both a naturalness of feeling and ching-chieh. As far as the imagery of his poems is concerned, they recall ‘a walk beside the white-capped waves, an ascent to the blue clouds’. Could any of the petty-minded novices of later generations bear comparison with him?