In 1722, Daniel Defoe published A Journal of the Plague Year – a supposed account of the ‘great plague’ of 1665. It is commonly thought to be one of his most incisive pieces of ‘realist’ fiction. And, in our moment, one of his most prescient. The purpose of this paper is to revisit Defoe's Journal in order to stimulate reflection on our present experience of living through the ‘plague year’ of 2020. There is much, as we shall see, about governance during a plague that is resonant – but much also about ‘hearts melted into tears’, about suffering, how it is felt and how it is perceived. The purpose of the Journal, according to Defoe at least, was to inform ‘those who come after’, so that they might be better prepared, so that they would not make the same mistakes. We will see.

1722 年，丹尼尔·笛福 (Daniel Defoe) 出版了《瘟疫年刊》 ——据称是对 1665 年“大瘟疫”的描述。这通常被认为是他最精辟的“现实主义”小说之一。而且，在我们这一刻，他最有先见之明之一。本文的目的是重温笛福的日记，以激发对我们目前度过 2020 年“瘟疫年”的经验的反思。正如我们将看到的，关于瘟疫期间的治理有很多引起共鸣——但也有很多还有关于“心融化成泪水”，关于痛苦，它是如何被感受的以及它是如何被感知的。期刊的宗旨至少根据笛福的说法，是通知“后来者”，以便他们做好准备，以免犯同样的错误。我们会看到。