We feel as we process the world around us that we know things for and as what they are.

我们觉得我们认识的事物,都是事物真实的本质。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选

But we have not yet been able to find a claim,an interpretation, which is true,interesting,fairly special about death, as opposed to trivially true about everything, and giving us some relatively interesting insight into the nature of death.

但还是没有找到一种，真实，有趣并且是死亡独有的，相对于对所有事物的普遍事实来说，并且能给我们关于死亡本质有趣见地的诠释。

耶鲁公开课 - 死亡课程节选

Whereas most utterances purport to be saying something true about the actual state of things in the world, literary utterance is under no such obligation, the argument goes, and ought properly to be understood as fiction making it up as opposed to referring.

大多数言辞都是对事物的真实状况的,真实反映，而这种观点认为，文学没有这个义务，应该把文学理解为小说,它是虚构而不是实指。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选