摘 要：本文略述三种常见的英语文章结尾方式。第一种是直接呼应文章开头，对正文内容进行概括，给读者一种“首尾照应、自成一体”的完整感。这与我国传统文章写作中“落下”和“大结”的要求以及传统诗学“起承转合”中的“起—合”要求一致。此类结尾多见于宏大叙事的政论，抑或报纸上Op - Ed栏目中见微知著的议论文。第二种结尾方式是以一种新奇、但与正文内容契合关联的方式对文章进行总结，在高度概括正文内容的同时，作者往往提出升华全文的哲学式感悟或洞见。此类结尾多见于富有人生哲理、人情、人性内涵的美文。第三种结尾方式常见于经典小说，不仅呼应开头，而且选择符合人物性格和故事逻辑发展的奇特细节，来刻意加深读者对故事中人物的印象，实现“让故事萦绕读者心头，久久难以忘怀，甚至迫使读者对故事发生原因进一步追问”的特别阅读效果。本文说明了英语好文章结尾常见的句法特征，即警句式短句多，言辞简练优雅、易于诵读的文体效果。

　　关键词:首尾呼应；结构完整；言辞优雅；特别阅读效果；英语写作

　　在《英语写作略谈（5）》一文中，我们论及了什么是好文章的开头。现在我们来谈什么是英语写作中好文章的结尾。

　　我们先接着在《英语写作略谈（5）》中提及的政治文章来说。这是一篇关于美国当代社会的宏大叙事式的政论。开篇从个人叙事的功能，如个体借助叙事表达个人身份，鸣发个人抱怨，表达对社会多重声音的认同或抵抗，以此来吸引社会关注，解决个人或家庭问题。之后，作者循此思路，把读者领入到抽象的国家叙事。个人叙事和国家叙事有很多共同特征：多重性的、互相关联、互相依赖的。作者以这对比和关联来开头，随即提出问题：为何一个美国却存在着“四个美国”的不同叙事。后面的正文无疑会阐述何为“四个美国”，即不同的政治模式、政党的代表人物及其具体执政主张、社会发展模式、经济模式和最终后果，以及为何一个叙事会被另外一个叙事替代。我们来看这篇文章的结尾：

　　（1）ALL four of the narratives I’ve described emerged from America’s failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy of the postwar years.They all respond to real problems.Each offers a value that the others need and lacks one that the others have.Free America celebrates the energy of the unencumbered individual.Smart America respects intelligence and welcomes change.Real America commits itself to a place and has a sense of limits.Just America demands a confrontation with what the others want to avoid.They rise from a single society,and even in one as polarized as ours they continually shape,absorb,and morph into one another.But their tendency is also to divide us,pitting tribe against tribe.These divisions impoverish each narrative into a cramped and ever more extreme version of itself.

　　笔者注：作者在本段提纲挈领，总结了“四个美国”的特征，且用四个单句扼要定义，不仅容易记忆，还能加深读者印象。最后一句指出“四个美国”导致社会不同阶层的裂变，使用了impoverish（使贫瘠，这里理解为“使单一、枯竭”）和 cramped（变形、扭曲）隐喻式表达。divide和division同源词重复使用，强调了分裂特征。

　　（2）All four narratives are also driven by a competition for status that generates fierce anxiety and resentment.They all anoint winners and losers.In Free America,the winners are the makers,and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government.In Smart America,the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress.In Real America,the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland,and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy our country.In Just America,the winners are the marginalized groups,and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating.

　　笔者注：作者在本段指出，争夺社会地位导致了美国社会剧烈的焦虑和不安，由此驱动了“四个美国”的出现。作者使用对比手法，言说了在“四个美国”社会中赢者和输者的各自境况，在逻辑上进一步阐述“四个美国”出现的深层原因。

　　（3）I don’t much want to live in the republic of any of them.

　　（4）It’s common these days to hear people talk about sick America,dying America,the end of America. The same kinds of things were said in 1861,in 1893,in 1933,and in 1968.The sickness,the death,is always a moral condition.Maybe this comes from our Puritan heritage.If we are dying,it can’t be from natural causes. It must be a prolonged act of suicide,which is a form of murder.

　　（5）I don’t think we are dying.We have no choice but to live together—we’re quarantined as fellow citizens.Knowing who we are lets us see what kinds of change are possible.Countries are not social-science experiments.They are organic qualities,some positive, some destructive,that can’t be wished away.Our passions for equality,the individualism it produces,the hustle for money,the love of novelty,the attachment to democracy, the distrust of authority and intellect—these won’t disappear.A way forward that tries to evade or crush them on the road to some free,smart,real,or just utopia will never arrive and instead will run into a strong reaction. But a way forward that tries to make us Equal Americans, all with the same rights and opportunities—the only basis for shared citizenship and self-government—is a road that connects our past and our future.

　　（6）Meanwhile,we remain trapped in two countries.Each one is split by two narratives—Smart and Just on one side,Free and Real on the other.Neither separation nor conquest is a tenable future.The tensions within each country will persist even as the cold civil war between them rages on.(Parker,2021: 78)

　　仔细阅读分析每一句，我们发现，作者对措辞的“经营”十分用心。作者在文章结尾部分多用简单陈述句，绝大多数句子长度不超过12个单词，且都使用对仗句式，如对立、重复、排比。如此句法阵势并置，与语义层面的截然对立呼应，即美国国家和社会分裂的现状。有些句子甚至可以作为箴言或警句阅读、记忆。此外，作者较少使用司空见惯的连接词来实现句间过渡，而是通过对上一句动词（如divide—division）、形容词（如die—dead）或名词（如die —death）的词形变化，完成语义衔接和逻辑连贯，获得典雅优美的修辞效果。更值得一提的是，这个结尾表达具有典型的美式英语特征，即使用短小常见的英语单词，不追求使用长词和特别一本正经的大词。上述引文的第6段不仅重复了文章开头关于“四个美国”的叙事，即Free（追求人的自由权利）、Smart（通过教育培养美国精英）、Real（不是务虚的空洞口号，而是立足美国地方的残酷的真实现状），Just（追求社会公正平权），而且还预言了两个分裂的美国、四种不同叙事之间的张力将永久持续，但是分裂和征服不会带来可以持续的未来。如此“落下”和“大结”的做法（Kirkpatrick & Xu，2012），既是对正文内容的高度凝练，又做到了要言不烦、简洁洗练（washed and refined）（司空图《二十四诗品》语，转引自宇文所安，2003），在读者脑海中留下深刻印痕。

　　 我们再看另一篇《纽约客》（The New Yorker）上题为“When things go missing: reflections on two seasons of loss” 的长篇散文。作者开篇追忆自己近期在不同的地方丢三落四的趣闻轶事，然后从神经认知学、心理学，甚至迷信的角度，介绍了种种关于频繁丢东西的解释，口吻轻松活泼，笔调愉快幽默，既呈现丰富的学识，又充满了谐趣。在貌似漫不经心闲谈拉扯这些琐事的过程中，作者极其自然地穿插了几位诗人和作家对他们逝去的亲友、丢失的信件和衣物饱含诗意的感伤，这给原本庸常琐屑的生活轶事注入了厚重的人间情愫，也为下文探讨的主题，即“失去亲人何其悲痛，生者该如何面对如此永久的失去？”做好了铺垫。在文章的后半部，作者追忆了自己失去父亲之后各种揪心细节，把普通人在照顾即将逝去的亲人时感受的身体和心理的煎熬艰辛，以及在真正失去亲人后肝肠欲断的伤心，描绘得淋漓尽致，令读者身临其境，感同身受。文中有这样一个细节：作者父母40年相濡以沫，彼此默契，哪怕只是一个眼神，对方都能立刻心领神会。作者的父亲在临终前，轻微蠕动了一下嘴唇，母亲立刻明白了父亲的意思，贴上去跟他接吻，像是履行日常的临别仪式。这时，父亲极其艰难地睁开一只含泪的眼，算是向母亲表示感谢。这一细节描写令读者十分动容。

　　至此，追忆亲情的文章似乎可以结束。但是，亲情和挚爱并不是作家写作此文的全部要旨。至亲撒手人间，在作者的生活中留下巨大的无法弥合的黑洞，作家始终走不出亲人离去造成的悲恸阴影。突然，某个晚上，在作家的女伴念到美国诗人惠特曼的《过布鲁克林渡口》的诗句时，作者忽有顿悟，似乎明白了该当如何理解失去亲人的哲学意蕴：失去万物和亲人，乃宇宙造化更宏大的安排（greater scheme of things），这本就是宇宙秩序。对此，我们该如何面对物件的丢失和至亲的消逝？作者接着探讨了lose一词词源学上的语义演变（知识性很强，明显属于典雅型美文），最后过渡到颇具哲学意味的结尾：

　　（1）And yet,if anything,our problem is not that we put too many things into the category of loss but that we leave too many out.One night,during those weeks when I could find solace only in poetry,my partner read “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” aloud to me.In it,Walt Whitman leans against the railing of a ship,exalting in all he sees.So expansive is his vision that it includes not just the piers and sails and reeling gulls but everyone else who makes the crossing: all those who stood at the railing watching before his birth,all those watching around him now,and all those who will be there watching after his death—which,in the poem,he doesn’t so much foresee as,through a wild,craning omniscience,look back on.“Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky,so I felt,” he admonishes,kindly.

　　笔者译：可是，我们的问题，如果有的话，并不是我们在失去的范畴里放置了太多东西，而是忽略了太多。在那些我只能在诗歌里找到慰藉的几个星期当中，某天晚上，我的伴侣大声朗读了《过布鲁克林渡口》给我听。诗歌中，诗人沃尔特·惠特曼斜靠着渡船栏杆，沉醉在目之所见当中。他的所见如此广袤，不仅包括了桥墩、船帆和盘旋的海鸥，而且还包括所有与他一起渡河的人：在他出世之前所有站在船只围栏边上观望的人，此刻在他身边的所有观望的人，还有在他死后将在那里观望的所有人——在这首诗中，与其说他预见到了这些，不如说他借助一个不受羁绊、伸长脖子的全知视角，回望到这些。“正如观望河流和天空时你所感觉到的，我在当时也感觉到了，”他善意提醒道。

　　（2）And,just like that,my sense of loss suddenly revealed itself as terribly narrow.What I miss about my father,as much as anything,is life as it looked filtered through him,held up and considered against his inner lights.Yet the most important thing that vanished when he died is wholly unavailable to me: life as it looked to him, life as we all live it,from the inside out.All my memories can’t add up to a single moment of what it was like to be my father,and all my loss pales beside his own.Like Whitman,his love of life had been exuberant,exhaustive; he must have hated,truly hated,to leave it behind—not just his family,whom he adored,but all of it,sea to shining sea.

　　笔者译：如同那神明一般，我的失去感顿时显得狭隘极了。我对父亲的思念，和对其他东西的思念一样，是经过家父视角过滤之后所显现的人生，是根据他的内心视角所坚持和思考的人生。不过，伴随他的离世而消失的最重要的东西是我完全无法得到的：人生，是在他眼中看到的人生，从内到外，如同我们所有人经历的人生一样。我的所有记忆都无法拼凑出他作为父亲的片刻感受，我的所有失去在他本人失去面前算不了什么。像惠特曼一样，他的生命之爱是热情洋溢、彻头彻尾的。他一定非常讨厌，真的讨厌丢下这个世界——不仅丢下他爱慕的家人，而是丢下生命的全部，大海到波光粼粼的大海。

　　（3）It is breathtaking,the extinguishing of consciousness.Yet that loss,too—our own ultimate unbeing—is dwarfed by the grander scheme.When we are experiencing it,loss often feels like an anomaly,a disruption in the usual order of things.In fact,though,it is the usual order of things.Entropy,mortality,extinction: the entire plan of the universe consists of losing,and life amounts to a reverse savings account in which we are eventually robbed of everything.Our dreams and plans and jobs and knees and backs and memories,the childhood friend,the husband of fifty years,the father of forever,the keys to the house,the keys to the car,the keys to the kingdom,the kingdom itself: sooner or later,all of it drifts into the Valley of Lost Things.

　　笔者译：意识灭绝令人震惊。但是那种失去—我们自身终极的非本质存在—在更加宏大的物序面前，也显得渺小。我们在经历失去的时候，经常觉得失去是反常现象，扰乱了事物的常规秩序。可事实上，失去恰恰是常规秩序。熵，死，灭：宇宙的全部规划皆由失去构成，生命等同一个逆向储蓄账户，我们最终会在这个账户中被夺走一切。我们的梦想、计划、工作、膝盖，背脊和记忆、童年的朋友、五十年的丈夫、永远的父亲、房子钥匙、汽车钥匙、王国钥匙，王国本身：或迟或早，所有这一切都会飘移到“失物谷”去。

　　（4）There’s precious little solace for this,and zero redress; we will lose everything we love in the end.But why should that matter so much? By definition,we do not live in the end: we live all along the way.The smitten lovers who marvel every day at the miracle of having met each other are right; it is finding that is astonishing. You meet a stranger passing through your town and know within days you will marry her.You lose your job at fiftyfive and shock yourself by finding a new calling ten years later.You have a thought and find the words.You face a crisis and find your courage.

　　笔者译：对此而言，极少有慰藉，更无补救机会。我们终会失去我们的所爱。可为何这一点如此重要呢？根据定义，我们并不是生活在终点，我们活在过程当中。那些每天都为彼此邂逅的奇迹而惊叹的一见钟情者是对的；正是“找到”才令人惊讶。你遇到从你的城市经过的陌生人，几天内你就知道你要娶她。你在五十五岁失业，却在十年后惊讶地找到一份新的志业。你有了思想并找到表达它的言辞。你面临危机，但是找到了你的勇气。

　　（5） All of this is made more precious,not less, by its impermanence.No matter what goes missing, the wallet or the father,the lessons are the same. Disappearance reminds us to notice,transience to cherish,fragility to defend.Loss is a kind of external conscience,urging us to make better use of our finite days.As Whitman knew,our brief crossing is best spent attending to all that we see: honoring what we find noble, denouncing what we cannot abide,recognizing that we are inseparably connected to all of it,including what is not yet upon us,including what is already gone.We are here to keep watch,not to keep.

　　笔者译：正是因为短暂，所有这一切才显弥足珍贵，而不是更不足惜。无论失去什么，钱包或父亲，教训都是一样的。消失提醒我们要关注，短暂提醒我们要珍惜，脆弱提醒我们要捍卫。失去是一种外在感知，它敦促我们要更好地利用有限日子。我们短暂的摆渡时间最好花在关注我们的所见所看：实现我们认为是高尚的，拒斥我们无法容忍的；认识到我们与所有这一切紧密关联，无法分离，包括尚未降临我们身上的，包括业已逝去的一切，这些惠特曼知道。我们在现世存在，是为了守望，不是为了持有。

　　这样的哲思性结尾，与前半部分的内容高度关联，是前半部分的自然延伸，更是对前述人生经历的哲学升华。读者不仅跟随作者体悟日常生活中失去亲人的痛苦——这是散文的日常性部分，也跟随作者一起思考并领悟关于这段人生可能包含的人生启迪或生存智慧。无疑，这样的结尾更能给读者留下极其深刻的印象——这是散文的哲思性或智性结尾。

　　接下来，我们再来看法国作家维克多·雨果（Victor Hugo）的小说《巴黎圣母院》（The Hunchback of Notre-Dame）的结尾：

　　After a year and half or two years after the events which concluded this story,when a search was made in the vault of Montfaucon for the body of Oliver le Daim, who had been hanged two days before,and to whom Charles VIII granted the favor of being interred in the church of Saint Laurent with better company,there was found among all those hideous carcasses two skeletons, the one clasped in the arms of the other.One of these two skeletons,that of a woman,had still about it some tattered clothes,apparently of a stuff that had once been white. About its neck was a string of beads of adrezarach seeds, together with a small silken bag,ornamented with green glass,which was open and empty.These objects had been of so little value that the hangman,no doubt,had not cared to take them.The other skeleton,which held this one close in its arms,was that of a man.It was noticed that its spine was crooked,the head had compressed between the shoulder blades,and that one leg was shorter than the other.Also,there was no break of the vertebra in the neck, whence it was evident that it had not been hanged.The man to whom it had belonged had therefore come there of himself and died there.When they tried to detach this skeleton from the one it embraced,it crumbled to dust.（Hugo,2010: 499）

　　两具尸骨，一具把另一具紧抱怀中。一具是女，一具是男。从女的随带的细小物件可以判断是她,吉普赛人。男的脊椎弯曲，头颅缩在两个肩胛骨间，一条腿比另一条腿短。读者可以判断这是巴黎圣母院的敲钟驼子，是卡西莫多。气势恢弘辽阔的《巴黎圣母院》就以这样的描写结尾：两人是多么不幸，但他们在化为尸骨之时，紧紧相拥相爱，如此结尾，令读者何等刻骨铭心！读者不禁思考：爱何以拥有如此巨大力量，在人间烙下如此深邃的命运印痕?是谁造成如此悲剧?这两具尸骨的结尾场景描写，恰恰呼应了小说开篇雨果就教会墙上关于希腊语中“命运”一词的相关说明。

　　美国著名小说家杰罗姆·大卫·塞林格（Jerome David Salinger）的成名作《麦田里的守望者》（The Catcher in the Rye）开头是这样写的：

　　If you really want to hear about it,the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born,and what my lousy childhood was like,and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me,and all that David Copperfield kind of crap,but I don’t feel like going into it,if you want to know the truth.In the first place,that stuff bores me,and in the second place,my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.They’re quite touchy about anything like that,especially my father.They’re nice and all—I’m not saying that—but they’re also touchy as hell. Besides,I’m not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything.I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out and take it easy.I mean that’s all I told D.B.about,and he’s my brother and all.…” （Salinger,1991：1—2）

　　结尾是这样的：

　　THAT’S ALL I’m going to tell you about.I could probably tell you what I did after I went home,and how I got sick and all,and what school I’m supposed to go to next fall,after I get out of here,but I don’t feel like it.I really don’t.That stuff doesn’t interest me too much right now…” （Salinger,1991: 213）

　　作者告诉读者，他已经讲完了成长过程中经历的一段故事。首尾照应，给人叙事完整一体的感觉。

　　最后，我们看《纽约客》刊登的一篇散文《文字工棚》（The Word Shed）。作者在开头是这样来描写当作家的父亲在“文字工棚”的情景的：

　　Every afternoon,when my father arrived home from his job as the feature editor at a newspaper in Dublin,he disappeared into his writing shed.To get there,you had to squeeze your way past the coal bin,the lawn-mower, cans of petrol and paint,ancient bicycle parts.The shed always smelled damp inside,as if the rain rose up out of the carpet.The bookshelves sagged.The low-slung roof had a murky skylight with a hat of gray Irish cloud.

　　From the house,I could hear the tattoo of twofingered typing.The ping of the bell.The slam of the carriage return.It all sounded like a faint form of applause…

　　这是一幅父亲在“文字工棚”里头劳作的图景。

　　笔者译：每天下午，当都柏林一家报纸专题报道栏目编辑的父亲一下班到家，就消失在他的写作棚子里。要到那儿，你得从煤筐、修理草坪的机器、汽油桶、油漆桶、老旧的自行车零件那里挤着才能过去。工棚里总是散发着湿气，似乎雨水从地毯里向上升起一般。书架耷拉着。低矮棚顶露出浑浊的天光，顶着一只灰蒙蒙的爱尔兰云帽。从屋里，我能听见叮叮当当的打字机的铃声，啪哒啪哒的敲字声，打字机色带盒返回的砰砰声，听起来像微弱的鼓掌方式……。

　　后来，父亲塑造的人物故事在课堂上令作者的同学兴奋不已，让他们忘掉了放学回家，纷纷决心要像作者父亲一样创作故事和人物。文章结尾是这样写的：

　　A few years on,when I was a teenager,my father sat me in the shed and recited,from memory,Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse”: “They Fuck you up,you mum and dad.” Fair enough,and I knew what he was trying to say, but I also knew that sometimes—just sometimes—the father you get is the father you want.(McCann,2014)

　　作家最后选择以父亲回忆诗人菲利普·拉金一首题为《这就是诗》中的诗句作为结尾。乍看这句子无论如何也够不上诗的标准，就是地道的脏话。其实，父亲引用拉金的这句话本意是在告诫读者：写作是件极其艰辛的苦活累活，要求你必须殚思竭虑构思，要求你必须搜肠刮肚，寻找贴切语词，这会把你折腾得半死不活，甚至丢掉半个性命。这句粗俗脏话道尽了写作的艰辛本质，真是“话粗理不糙”。作者的“Fair enough,and I knew what he was trying to say...”呼应了文章开头描写父亲在“文字工棚”里劳作的情景。作者深深领悟到父亲引用这句看似脏话的言外之意。以如此突兀的诗句作为文章结尾，可谓是作家大胆出奇的构思：貌似一句脏话却胜过无数言词说明。首尾呼应巧妙自然，毫无造作之迹。

　　总结一下：议论文结尾时，作者通常会扼要总结前述内容，但总结并不是简单机械的语言或内容重复，而是要言不烦地凝练前述观点，并强调或凸显作者本人的立场，让其“不同凡响”的立意和客观论据令读者信服并倍受启发。散文结尾时，作者一般会把个人轶事的描述或议论转而升华到高的哲学境界或人生宇宙观，具有独到的超验哲学洞见，给读者以精神或灵性启迪。创意小说结尾时，则偏重出奇新意，希望给人留下特别的印象，让读者思考整个故事的意蕴或含义，这正是一个有创意的作家所要追求的特别的阅读效果。

参考文献

　　Hugo,V.2010.The Hunchback of Notre-Dame [M].Translated by Walter J.Cobb.New York,NY: Signet Classics.

　　Kirkpatrick,A.& Xu,Z.2012.Chinese Rhetoric and Writing:An Introduction for Language Teachers [M].Colorado: Parlor Press.

　　McCann,C.2014.The Word Shed [J].The New Yorker,Dec 22 & 29：64.

　　Parker,G.2021.The Four Americas [J].The Atlantic,(7/8):66—97.

　　Salinger,J.D.1991.The Catcher in the Rye [M].New York,NY: Little,Brown and Company.

　　宇文所安.2003.中国文论：英译与评论[M].上海: 上海社会科学院出版社.

　　徐海铭

　　上海外国语大学英语学院教授，博士生导师。

　　陈婵娟

　　上海外国语大学贤达经济人文学院副教授。

　　庄甘林

　　上海外国语大学上外贤达经济人文学院讲师。