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I did not mean all modern literature, but the literature which is aimed at the mass market.
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然而，Hofmann教授在此修正之后，马上又有以下新论：
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One of our leading magazines, Time, formerly claimed that the style throughout the magazine was so standardized that the personality of the reporters had been stripped away. The style became known as “Timese”—a separate language like Chinese or Japanese. Time magazine has since modified its editorial policies to allow for more individual voices and styles in some sections of the magazine.
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可见，quick and easy, simple and clear的文字风格已成时代之潮流，浩浩荡荡，不可阻挡，就连著名刊物Time也力不从心。
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为什么旧时的文学作品如此受到冷落呢？Hofmann教授做了以下几点饱蘸个人感情的分析：
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语言现状：To my ears, the modern argot sounds as strange as the English of Chaucer, but much less melodious or imaginative. Teenagers have developed their own short-hand codes for use on cell phones. MTV and Rap musicians explore language, images, and values that I find deplorable. Much television programming is maudlin, sentimental, mindless junk. Talk shows are trivial or banal beyond belief; nothing in that milieu requires language of any quality or style. Life at the crotch level requires few words and less style.
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There are villains aplenty in the assaults on language and style. Governments at all levels, abetted by lawyers, create the most godawful arcane, turgid, incomprehensible corruption of the language imaginable. The military slaughters the mother-tongue. Propagandists, politicians, advertising agencies, and hustlers of all varieties explore language as a means, not of communication, but of misrepresentation, distortion, and manipulation. The religious community is not innocent in all this. Preachers and evangelists give the lie to all their pieties. The King James version of the Holy Bible whose English language was tutor and inspiration to generations of famous writers has been rendered into a watered-down, bland dribble of sentences lacking the power and rhythms of the older version.
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Hofmann教授的忧思：Much of the literature that was studied in our schools 50 years ago has been replaced to accommodate the new political correctness. Because I am old and tutored in that traditional literature, I lament its loss, but there are those—perhaps the majority—who would say, “It’s about time we gave the other voices a chance to be heard.”
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1）文化现状：Our culture is so full of distractions and media blitz that the printed word (in excess of two sentences) gets very little attention. Radio, television, music, movies, automobiles, drugs and alcohol, sports, etc. all compete for the public’s attention, time, and money—especially money. On quiet shelves in libraries and bookstores, in a few select magazines, quality literature waits for the rare devotee.
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2）新事物层出不穷：So much is new. Everyone is forced to learn so many new things—computers, cell phones, a myriad of electronic devices, new concepts, new discoveries, changing world scenes and politics, new ideas… . Science and the space program alone mean changing our thinking almost daily. Just keeping up with the present means there is little time for the past. And all of those new things introduce new vocabulary. We now have software that will write our letters for us automatically, and computer programs equipped with artificial intelligence that study and anticipate our style of writing and make suggestions.
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3）社会的多样性：Diversity. We call ourselves a pluralistic society in which many cultures and many life styles exist side by side, and each minority wants its voice heard and its culture addressed. Schools today have classes in Afro-American literature, Hispanic studies, women’s literature, gay literature, etc. Those classes have often replaced the literature which formed our past—the literature produced by Anglo-Saxon and European white males.
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4）相对短暂的历史和移民精神使然：We are a young country with scarcely 300 years of history behind us, and that history began with the fervor to be different from the Europe of old. Generations of our immigrants wanted to start a new life here. Casting off the old and beginning anew is deeply imbedded in our national character, even when the old is only yesterday. If the traditions of language must also be cast off, so be it—at least that seems to be the modern attitude.
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4 句美
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汉语四字句（Four-Character Sentence），多见于古代的诗词、骈文和辞赋，也多见于现代汉语。四字句，又何尝不是现代汉语传承古代文言的瑰宝呢？
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这种特殊的语言形式，唯汉语才有。它精练、圆润、整饬、简明、优美。现代汉语的成语，大多是四字句。一个故事、一种现象或一条哲理，被自然而然地浓缩于四字之中，堪称语言杰作。
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本书所讲的四字句并非狭义的“四字格”或“四字成语”。四字格或四字成语，通常有相对固定的措辞。四字句的措辞可以是固定的，也可以是作者自拟的。如：
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站在金顶望去，云海茫茫，一望无际，翠松红枫，美不胜收，真是一派峨眉胜景。
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此四字句，其中“一望无际”、“美不胜收”属成语，系固定措辞，而“云海茫茫”、“翠松红枫”则属于作者自拟。但同时，也得指出，自拟四字句构成的小段，往往更具表达活力。更具可读性。上句就可改写为：
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从金顶望去，云涌涛卷，翻金舞银，松翠枫红，披日迎风，真是一派峨眉胜景。
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两相比较，不难看出，由于“卷”、“翻”、“舞”、“披”、“迎”这几个动词很传神，富有形象感，这几个四字句把峨眉的景物更鲜活地呈现在读者眼前。
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四字句这种语言形式，确实传递了汉语语言美感的个性。
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1951年3月13日，周恩来总理在杭州写信给邓颖超，信中有如此一段：
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桥旁有六和塔，沿桥而行，左右观览，钱江风景，至为壮丽。我们曾冒细雨拜岳坟，登孤山，山顶眺望，全湖在望，殊为大观。湖滨山岭，梅花盛开，红白相映，清香时来，美景良辰，易念远人。
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此书信几乎全由四字句构成，满目锦绣。舍此，便不能与所写之美景相配也。四字句完全可以写得清新自然，毫无雕琢之痕，文采斐然，却又通俗晓畅。
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须一提的是，四字句这种特殊句式是以文言为母体孕育而得。其典雅美，其书卷气，皆深深植根于传统文化土壤。现在，译者用白话进行翻译。但要使译文有品位，有蕴蓄，有美感，就离不开学习文言，并从中汲取借鉴一些有用的东西。比如：
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