这个balance什么意思

meng45

看美国文学史时遇到一句话，In Roger Willianm we have  a balance to John Cotton.
麻烦解答一下。谢谢

batpig

balance 在这里应该有势均力敌的意思，而两个人对比的话，会不会是指两个人能力相当，有相似的意思？

meng45

谢谢，有点感觉，但还是有点迷惑

云卷残风

平衡物;抵消因素

meng45

那整句话又怎么说通那

batpig

In Roger Willianm we have  a balance to John Cotton.
在罗格威廉姆身上，我们可以看到和约翰克顿相似的地方。

Go2africa

这两个人曾经在宗教和政治上的观点有分歧，当时他俩是势均力敌的。

TheYeti

原帖由 meng45 于 2007-8-29 21:37 发表
看美国文学史时遇到一句话，In Roger Willianm we have  a balance to John Cotton.
麻烦解答一下。谢谢

This means the two are opposites. The two extreme views balance each other.
Imagine you have a scale balance 天平 with only one weight on one side. The scaler is tipped: "unbalance." To even it out, i.e. to balance it, you put an equal weight on the other side. Now the scale is balanced.

I don't know who Roger William and John Cotton are, but the sentence clearly implies they are polar opposites.  Rewriting the sentence, we have: We found in Roger William a counter-balance to John Cotton. Or The effect of Williams is to even out the influence of Cotton.
Hope that will help you in understanding the meaning of this sentence. Sorry, my Chinese is not very good, so I can't help you translate it. (I have not written a "formal" composition in Chinese in 40  or more years.)

batpig

thanks for your explanation, now i get the meaning---opposite but with the same strength?

meng45

谢谢theyeti，也许生活口语也有这样的表达是这样的意思吧，我看了上下文，应该就是这个意思
cotton 和williams都是Puritan，但崇尚的教义不同，也许就是batpig说的opposite but with the same strength

kevinyang80

who is theYeti? A Chinese living abroad? Know but write little Chinese?

Batpig, now can you tell me the final translation?

blueeye0

同意２楼的

perome

英美文学才考完

demon820909

明白了，谢谢