E49 书香门第，士绅之家

E49 书香门第，士绅之家

课程导读

上节课我们讲到，出于父亲对文章醇朴风格的坚持，苏东坡耳濡目染，对炫耀浮华的行文风格亦是颇有批判。那么，出生在士绅之家的苏东坡，他的文学天赋是在什么样的家庭氛围中培养起来的呢？他的祖辈们，此前又走出了一条什么样的宦海之路？

英文原文

The home atmosphere seemed just right for the growing up of an adolescent with a strong literary bent.

The library was stacked with books of all kinds.

The grandfather now was a different person; on the merit of his second son's having become an inspector in the finance ministry, the old man had also received an official rank, that of "counselor" at an imperial court of justice.

Such ranks were purely honorary, their chief merit being that of enabling an official to refer to his father as "the Counselor" or "the Commodore," although he might never have seen a court or a ship in his life.

It seemed at times that to die with some such title on his epitaph was all that a man lived for—if one could not live as a gentleman, he at least hoped to die like one.

And if he happened to die too soon, before securing such honors, there was always the convenient device of posthumous titles.

Particularly in the Sung Dynasty, even for the regular officials, one's title had little to do with one's actual post.

Readers of the tomb inscriptions of the Su family may be misled into thinking that the poet's grandfather was a counselor at a court of justice and also an imperial tutor, and that his father was a tutor to the prince, honors conferred upon them when Su Tseyu became a vice-premier.

As a matter of fact, neither had ever held such an office in his lifetime.

Su now had an uncle who was an official and two aunts who were married to husbands holding government offices.

Both his paternal and maternal grandfathers held official ranks, one honorary, as we have just pointed out, and the other actual.