论文题目 浅谈神话和宗教类型的 专 业
西方文学典故
摘要
在英语语言文学中,有许多西方文学名著,隐含着大量的文学典故。这些典故大多出自基督教的《圣经》,古希腊、北欧时代的神话。这些典故往往成为我们学习西方文化的巨大障碍。这篇文章就对神话和宗教类型的西方文学典故做了简要的谈论。具体对希腊神话、北欧神话以及基督教的《圣经》中的几个文学典故分别做了谈论。
关键词：西方文学典故 ; 圣经 ；象征意义
Abstract
In English language literature, there are many famous western literature, concealing massive literary allusions. Most of these allusions are from the Holy Bible of Christianity, Greek or the Nordic Myth. These allusions usually become the monumental impediment for us to learn the western culture. This article gives a brief discussion on myth and religious western literary allusion. Specifically speaking, it makes discussions from Greek and Nordic Myth and Holy Bible of Christianity on several literary allusions separately.
Key words：western literary allusion ; Holy Bible ；symbolic significance
Contents
Ⅰ.Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
Ⅱ.Greek Myth .................................................................................................................................. 1
Ⅱ.1.Pandora' box .............................................................................................................................. 2
Ⅱ.2.Sword of Damocles ................................................................................................................... 2
Ⅲ．The Nordic Myth ....................................................................................................................... 3
Ⅲ．1. The twilight of the gods ........................................................................................................ 3
Ⅳ.The Holy Bible of Christianity ..................................................................................................... 4
Ⅳ.1. Grail ......................................................................................................................................... 4
Ⅳ. 2. Original sin .............................................................................................................................. 5
Ⅳ.3.Babel tower ............................................................................................................................... 5
Ⅴ.Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 6
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Ⅰ.Introduction
In English language literature, there are many famous western literature, concealing massive literary allusions. Most of these allusions are from the Holy Bible of Christianity, Greek or Roman myth and fable, or the Nordic Myth, Shakespeare's famous drama and different times’ Fable story and folklore in many country. These allusions usually become the monumental impediment for us to learn the western culture. If readers aren’t familiar with these literary allusions, they will have difficulty in understanding the authors’ original intention and creational goal in works, or they will misinterpret the meaning and make many jokes.
The Holy Bible, respected for the classics by Christianity, not only has religious myth and fable story ,the statute book, and the religious canon relating to ancient Jew, but also it gives people rich knowledge in historical facts. The Holy Bible is one of the important world cultural inheritances, and it has an indelible influence in the formation and the development of western culture.
If you want to learn western culture well, and learn English language literature well, you must have certain understanding about the western literal allusion. This article gives some analysis and discussion partially on myth and religious western literary allusion. And, it mainly makes explanations on Greek myth, Nordic myth, and the Holy Bible of Christianity, and it makes brief discussion separately to several allusions. It is far so much for you to learn western literary allusion well. If you want to study it well, you need to understand more allusions and deeper allusions. Ⅱ.Greek Myth
Greek Myth, is oral or literal myth relating to Greeks’ god, hero, nature and universal history. Greek myth includes two parts: the god’s story and heroic fable. The god’s story involves the origin of universe and humanity, the
production of god and evolution and so on. It is said that Greek has 12 Olympus gods, and they charge kinds of natural and life issues and things, and they compose Olympus god system taking Zeus as the center.
The heroic fable stems from the worship to ancestor, and it is a kind of artistic review for Greek to the ancient history and struggle against the nature. Most of the leading character in this kind of fable is the descendant of god and person, and they are hero of half person and half god. Their physical strength is excellent, heroic extraordinary, which manifests humanity’s heroic spirit and tenacious will conquering the nature. And they become the incarnation of gathering ancient people’s power and wisdom.
Ⅱ.1.Pandora' box
“Pandora” is the first women in Greek myth. After Prometheus robs the fire for humanity, the deity Zeus attempted to retaliate, he ordered fire god to make a beautiful woman Pandora with clay, and gave it to Prometheus’s brother as his wife. Pandora is very pretty, but she is also very awfully. She actually opened a box , Zeus gave her husband, and made the sick, crazily, disasters, evil and envy fly out at once, and only hope was kept in the box, causing the world to be full of disasters. Afterward, people used “Pandora’s box” this allusion as the origin of disaster.
Ⅱ.2.Sword of Damocles
“Sword of Damocles” is a favored minister of the tyrant Di Owne Sues in Greek myth. He usually said that the king was amazingly fast in order to please Di Owne Sues. One day, Di Owne Sues invited he to the royal palace to feasting, and Di Owne Sues asked him to sit on the king’s throne, and there was a sharp sword in the top of him. The king’s intention was to make Damocles realize that although he was in throne, the sword had the possibility to fall any time. This also seemed that the king wasn’t fortunate, and he had the misery all the time. Afterward, people usually use “Sword of Damocles” this allusion as momentarily possibly occurring .
Ⅲ．The Nordic Myth
In the Nordic Myth, because of Nordic special geographical environment, the Nordic ancients seldom were attacked by flood and other natural disasters. Therefore, their deconstruction myth do not took the natural disaster as a subject, and the present place was in the myth end. But the most special was that their deconstruction myth not only destroyed humanity world, but also all gods and their homeland were destroyed completely in this cruel war. Simultaneously, this deconstruction was doomed when gods created this world, and nobody can avoid, and nobody can not stop. Therefore, at the beginning of the Nordic Myth, its tragedy has been locked firmly, and the final “The twilight of the gods” has pushed this tragedy to bright and cruel climax.
Ⅲ．1. The twilight of the gods
The Nordic Myth, the most famous is the twilight of the gods which is the final chapter of myth. The scene which this myth describes has reached the critical point of the human imagination at that time.
Everything begins from the death of Baerde, a god of luminosity. This pet of anything and all gods was so handsome and brilliant that all things in the world vowed not to hurt him. But because of Mabinogi’s instigation, a small and weak mistletoe didn’t vow, and he killed Baerde at all gods’ celebration. Henceforth, when everything sobbed for Baerde’ death, Mabinogi instigated coal giant not to shed tears for Baerde, which caused him unable to return the god. After this, the world lost luminosity, and became sag and dark. Meanwhile, the twilight of the gods arrived inevitable along with his death.
The world tree burned out, and the world destroyed. Hence, after the Nordic Myth blooded earth experiencing the final frigid climax, it dropped slowly finally. But the deconstruction wasn’t equal to withering away. After the
twilight of the gods, with the rebirth of the world, survivors started the difficult course of reconstruction. Generations of Uygur Beijing people, continued to be along ancestors’ trail, drifted in difficult marine, and demonstrated their dauntless life. Ⅳ.The Holy Bible of Christianity
“Holy Bible” is an important cultural heritage of Judea, holding a prominent status in the world cultural history. Western literature, art, especially works in the middle century and others selected material from Holy Bible. And it was also quoted repeatedly in the massive western literature, art, the philosophy, the history and so on.
“Holy Bible” includes 66 volumes records, history, poetry, correspondence and so on, written by many different authors lasting hundreds of years. “Holy Bible” contains “New Testament” and “Old Testament”. The original works of “Old Testament” was written in Hebrew, which was ancient Jew’s language. “Old Testament” was Judaism bible originally. “New Testament” was written in Greece, which was the language of all Roman Empire mastering when Jesus was alive. “New Testament” was Christianity’s classics, recording Jesus’ historical fable, Jesus’ words and deeds, the condition of early church, apostles’ correspondence and the enlightenment of gods and so on.
Ⅳ.1. Grail
“Grail” spells “grail” originally, stemming from ancient French “gradal”. But “gradal” evolved from “gradalis”, a middle century Latin, representing some kind of tableware. The most traditional explanation of grail was when Jesus suffered distress, and it was a chalice used to put the Jesus’ blood.
The concrete description of grail in Holy Bible is this: After dinner, he also took up the cup and said: “This cup is a new testament used my blood. When you drink it, you should do it like this in order to commemorate me.” He took up cup once again to
thank, and he passed them over, they all drunk. Jesus said: “This is my blood for new testament, and it comes out for multi-streams of people.” He took up cup to thank, and passed them over again, they all drunk, too. Jesus said: “All of you drunk this, because this is me blood for new testament. It came out for multi-streams of people, and causes the crime to result in the amnesty.
Ⅳ. 2. Original sin
One word “Original sin” is from fable of Christianity. It refers to the crime of humanity bringing from birth and cannot elute. In the Holy Bible says:
Human has two kinds of crimes- original sin and principal crime. The original sin is the root and evil left behind by ancestor crime; and the principal crime is the crime violated by private person in his life..
Christianity tells people clearly that the original sin is handed down by the first ancestor Adam. Adam and Eve stole the forbidden fruit, which violates god’s will. So this sin was inherited to the descendants. After Adam, one person has the original sin when he is born. When one person gives birth, he is a sinner in the front of god. Even though a baby who just was born dies, although he hasn’t committed any crimes, he is still a sinner just because of the original sin bringing from his birth. “Original sin” is the religious doctrine of Christianity, and the theology basis. Because of original sin, it needs redeeming and savior, which comes out Christianity. Denying original sin is also denying Christ redeeming, and this time, there is no necessary existing Christianity. Ⅳ.3.Babel tower
The 11th chapter of《Holy Bible·Ole Testament·Genesis》declares: When humanity gathered up and wished to build a high tower leading to the heaven, god attempted to prevent humanity’s plan, so god made human speak different language in
order to make human cannot communicate. When the plan defeated, the humanity had to dispersed. This story attempts to supply explanation for the presenting of different languages and races in the world. The picture of shutdown of high tower has its symbolic significance in the religious art, and it indicates that if the humanity is in hubris, he will end up in the result of disordered.
Ⅴ.Conclusion
This article has given a brief discussion on Pandora’ box and Sword of Damocles of Greek myth, twilight of the gods of The Nordic myth, and the Grail, Original sin, Babel tower of the Holy Bible of Christianity separately. It is not hard to find out of this that there are many western literary allusions having symbolic significance, and these western literary allusions extend to use till now. In learning English, it is very often to quote the western literary allusion. Therefore, it is very important to study western literary allusion. However, the Christianity and the classic Holy Bible have had the indelible influence in the formation and the development of western culture. Not only was at the beginning of the production of Christianity and the middle century of darkness, but also was in renaissance and in neoteric modern age literature changing quickly, Christianity gives the western literature providing in art, and Christianity gives the western literature supporting in spirit. It can say like this: if there isn’t Christianity, there isn’t western culture. Therefore, learning the Holy Bible of Christianity well is good for the study of western literature.
Bibliography
[1]陈光明. 英美作家化用《圣经》典故及其方法[J]安庆师范学院学报(社会科学版), 1999,(01).
[2]卢仲逖. 《圣经》、英美文学及与四十相关的《圣经》典故[J]. 江汉大学学报, 2000,(05).
[3]马焯荣.中西宗教与文学[M].长沙：岳麓书社, 1988[4]聂亚宁. 英语词汇与希腊罗马神话典故[J]常德师范学院学报(社会科学版), 1998,(02).
[5]沈家贤. 浅谈《圣经》典故对英语语言文学产生的影响[J]. 云南教育学院学报, 1996,(05).
[6]唐雪凝,丁建川. 典故词语的文化内涵[J]毕节师范高等专科学校学报, 2005,(02).
[7]魏家海. 希腊神话典故与英美文化[J]. 北京第二外国语学院学报, 2000,(02).
[8]徐葆耕.西方文学十五讲[M]. 北京：北京大学出版社，2003.
[9]袁世全. 关于典故辞典的十大关系[J]安徽广播电视大学学报, 1999,(02).
[10]张洁茹; 西方文学典故浅谈 [J];固原师专学报; 2003年02期; 24-25
7
论文题目 浅谈神话和宗教类型的 专 业
西方文学典故
摘要
在英语语言文学中,有许多西方文学名著,隐含着大量的文学典故。这些典故大多出自基督教的《圣经》,古希腊、北欧时代的神话。这些典故往往成为我们学习西方文化的巨大障碍。这篇文章就对神话和宗教类型的西方文学典故做了简要的谈论。具体对希腊神话、北欧神话以及基督教的《圣经》中的几个文学典故分别做了谈论。
关键词：西方文学典故 ; 圣经 ；象征意义
Abstract
In English language literature, there are many famous western literature, concealing massive literary allusions. Most of these allusions are from the Holy Bible of Christianity, Greek or the Nordic Myth. These allusions usually become the monumental impediment for us to learn the western culture. This article gives a brief discussion on myth and religious western literary allusion. Specifically speaking, it makes discussions from Greek and Nordic Myth and Holy Bible of Christianity on several literary allusions separately.
Key words：western literary allusion ; Holy Bible ；symbolic significance
Contents
Ⅰ.Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
Ⅱ.Greek Myth .................................................................................................................................. 1
Ⅱ.1.Pandora' box .............................................................................................................................. 2
Ⅱ.2.Sword of Damocles ................................................................................................................... 2
Ⅲ．The Nordic Myth ....................................................................................................................... 3
Ⅲ．1. The twilight of the gods ........................................................................................................ 3
Ⅳ.The Holy Bible of Christianity ..................................................................................................... 4
Ⅳ.1. Grail ......................................................................................................................................... 4
Ⅳ. 2. Original sin .............................................................................................................................. 5
Ⅳ.3.Babel tower ............................................................................................................................... 5
Ⅴ.Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 6
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Ⅰ.Introduction
In English language literature, there are many famous western literature, concealing massive literary allusions. Most of these allusions are from the Holy Bible of Christianity, Greek or Roman myth and fable, or the Nordic Myth, Shakespeare's famous drama and different times’ Fable story and folklore in many country. These allusions usually become the monumental impediment for us to learn the western culture. If readers aren’t familiar with these literary allusions, they will have difficulty in understanding the authors’ original intention and creational goal in works, or they will misinterpret the meaning and make many jokes.
The Holy Bible, respected for the classics by Christianity, not only has religious myth and fable story ,the statute book, and the religious canon relating to ancient Jew, but also it gives people rich knowledge in historical facts. The Holy Bible is one of the important world cultural inheritances, and it has an indelible influence in the formation and the development of western culture.
If you want to learn western culture well, and learn English language literature well, you must have certain understanding about the western literal allusion. This article gives some analysis and discussion partially on myth and religious western literary allusion. And, it mainly makes explanations on Greek myth, Nordic myth, and the Holy Bible of Christianity, and it makes brief discussion separately to several allusions. It is far so much for you to learn western literary allusion well. If you want to study it well, you need to understand more allusions and deeper allusions. Ⅱ.Greek Myth
Greek Myth, is oral or literal myth relating to Greeks’ god, hero, nature and universal history. Greek myth includes two parts: the god’s story and heroic fable. The god’s story involves the origin of universe and humanity, the
production of god and evolution and so on. It is said that Greek has 12 Olympus gods, and they charge kinds of natural and life issues and things, and they compose Olympus god system taking Zeus as the center.
The heroic fable stems from the worship to ancestor, and it is a kind of artistic review for Greek to the ancient history and struggle against the nature. Most of the leading character in this kind of fable is the descendant of god and person, and they are hero of half person and half god. Their physical strength is excellent, heroic extraordinary, which manifests humanity’s heroic spirit and tenacious will conquering the nature. And they become the incarnation of gathering ancient people’s power and wisdom.
Ⅱ.1.Pandora' box
“Pandora” is the first women in Greek myth. After Prometheus robs the fire for humanity, the deity Zeus attempted to retaliate, he ordered fire god to make a beautiful woman Pandora with clay, and gave it to Prometheus’s brother as his wife. Pandora is very pretty, but she is also very awfully. She actually opened a box , Zeus gave her husband, and made the sick, crazily, disasters, evil and envy fly out at once, and only hope was kept in the box, causing the world to be full of disasters. Afterward, people used “Pandora’s box” this allusion as the origin of disaster.
Ⅱ.2.Sword of Damocles
“Sword of Damocles” is a favored minister of the tyrant Di Owne Sues in Greek myth. He usually said that the king was amazingly fast in order to please Di Owne Sues. One day, Di Owne Sues invited he to the royal palace to feasting, and Di Owne Sues asked him to sit on the king’s throne, and there was a sharp sword in the top of him. The king’s intention was to make Damocles realize that although he was in throne, the sword had the possibility to fall any time. This also seemed that the king wasn’t fortunate, and he had the misery all the time. Afterward, people usually use “Sword of Damocles” this allusion as momentarily possibly occurring .
Ⅲ．The Nordic Myth
In the Nordic Myth, because of Nordic special geographical environment, the Nordic ancients seldom were attacked by flood and other natural disasters. Therefore, their deconstruction myth do not took the natural disaster as a subject, and the present place was in the myth end. But the most special was that their deconstruction myth not only destroyed humanity world, but also all gods and their homeland were destroyed completely in this cruel war. Simultaneously, this deconstruction was doomed when gods created this world, and nobody can avoid, and nobody can not stop. Therefore, at the beginning of the Nordic Myth, its tragedy has been locked firmly, and the final “The twilight of the gods” has pushed this tragedy to bright and cruel climax.
Ⅲ．1. The twilight of the gods
The Nordic Myth, the most famous is the twilight of the gods which is the final chapter of myth. The scene which this myth describes has reached the critical point of the human imagination at that time.
Everything begins from the death of Baerde, a god of luminosity. This pet of anything and all gods was so handsome and brilliant that all things in the world vowed not to hurt him. But because of Mabinogi’s instigation, a small and weak mistletoe didn’t vow, and he killed Baerde at all gods’ celebration. Henceforth, when everything sobbed for Baerde’ death, Mabinogi instigated coal giant not to shed tears for Baerde, which caused him unable to return the god. After this, the world lost luminosity, and became sag and dark. Meanwhile, the twilight of the gods arrived inevitable along with his death.
The world tree burned out, and the world destroyed. Hence, after the Nordic Myth blooded earth experiencing the final frigid climax, it dropped slowly finally. But the deconstruction wasn’t equal to withering away. After the
twilight of the gods, with the rebirth of the world, survivors started the difficult course of reconstruction. Generations of Uygur Beijing people, continued to be along ancestors’ trail, drifted in difficult marine, and demonstrated their dauntless life. Ⅳ.The Holy Bible of Christianity
“Holy Bible” is an important cultural heritage of Judea, holding a prominent status in the world cultural history. Western literature, art, especially works in the middle century and others selected material from Holy Bible. And it was also quoted repeatedly in the massive western literature, art, the philosophy, the history and so on.
“Holy Bible” includes 66 volumes records, history, poetry, correspondence and so on, written by many different authors lasting hundreds of years. “Holy Bible” contains “New Testament” and “Old Testament”. The original works of “Old Testament” was written in Hebrew, which was ancient Jew’s language. “Old Testament” was Judaism bible originally. “New Testament” was written in Greece, which was the language of all Roman Empire mastering when Jesus was alive. “New Testament” was Christianity’s classics, recording Jesus’ historical fable, Jesus’ words and deeds, the condition of early church, apostles’ correspondence and the enlightenment of gods and so on.
Ⅳ.1. Grail
“Grail” spells “grail” originally, stemming from ancient French “gradal”. But “gradal” evolved from “gradalis”, a middle century Latin, representing some kind of tableware. The most traditional explanation of grail was when Jesus suffered distress, and it was a chalice used to put the Jesus’ blood.
The concrete description of grail in Holy Bible is this: After dinner, he also took up the cup and said: “This cup is a new testament used my blood. When you drink it, you should do it like this in order to commemorate me.” He took up cup once again to
thank, and he passed them over, they all drunk. Jesus said: “This is my blood for new testament, and it comes out for multi-streams of people.” He took up cup to thank, and passed them over again, they all drunk, too. Jesus said: “All of you drunk this, because this is me blood for new testament. It came out for multi-streams of people, and causes the crime to result in the amnesty.
Ⅳ. 2. Original sin
One word “Original sin” is from fable of Christianity. It refers to the crime of humanity bringing from birth and cannot elute. In the Holy Bible says:
Human has two kinds of crimes- original sin and principal crime. The original sin is the root and evil left behind by ancestor crime; and the principal crime is the crime violated by private person in his life..
Christianity tells people clearly that the original sin is handed down by the first ancestor Adam. Adam and Eve stole the forbidden fruit, which violates god’s will. So this sin was inherited to the descendants. After Adam, one person has the original sin when he is born. When one person gives birth, he is a sinner in the front of god. Even though a baby who just was born dies, although he hasn’t committed any crimes, he is still a sinner just because of the original sin bringing from his birth. “Original sin” is the religious doctrine of Christianity, and the theology basis. Because of original sin, it needs redeeming and savior, which comes out Christianity. Denying original sin is also denying Christ redeeming, and this time, there is no necessary existing Christianity. Ⅳ.3.Babel tower
The 11th chapter of《Holy Bible·Ole Testament·Genesis》declares: When humanity gathered up and wished to build a high tower leading to the heaven, god attempted to prevent humanity’s plan, so god made human speak different language in
order to make human cannot communicate. When the plan defeated, the humanity had to dispersed. This story attempts to supply explanation for the presenting of different languages and races in the world. The picture of shutdown of high tower has its symbolic significance in the religious art, and it indicates that if the humanity is in hubris, he will end up in the result of disordered.
Ⅴ.Conclusion
This article has given a brief discussion on Pandora’ box and Sword of Damocles of Greek myth, twilight of the gods of The Nordic myth, and the Grail, Original sin, Babel tower of the Holy Bible of Christianity separately. It is not hard to find out of this that there are many western literary allusions having symbolic significance, and these western literary allusions extend to use till now. In learning English, it is very often to quote the western literary allusion. Therefore, it is very important to study western literary allusion. However, the Christianity and the classic Holy Bible have had the indelible influence in the formation and the development of western culture. Not only was at the beginning of the production of Christianity and the middle century of darkness, but also was in renaissance and in neoteric modern age literature changing quickly, Christianity gives the western literature providing in art, and Christianity gives the western literature supporting in spirit. It can say like this: if there isn’t Christianity, there isn’t western culture. Therefore, learning the Holy Bible of Christianity well is good for the study of western literature.
Bibliography
[1]陈光明. 英美作家化用《圣经》典故及其方法[J]安庆师范学院学报(社会科学版), 1999,(01).
[2]卢仲逖. 《圣经》、英美文学及与四十相关的《圣经》典故[J]. 江汉大学学报, 2000,(05).
[3]马焯荣.中西宗教与文学[M].长沙：岳麓书社, 1988[4]聂亚宁. 英语词汇与希腊罗马神话典故[J]常德师范学院学报(社会科学版), 1998,(02).
[5]沈家贤. 浅谈《圣经》典故对英语语言文学产生的影响[J]. 云南教育学院学报, 1996,(05).
[6]唐雪凝,丁建川. 典故词语的文化内涵[J]毕节师范高等专科学校学报, 2005,(02).
[7]魏家海. 希腊神话典故与英美文化[J]. 北京第二外国语学院学报, 2000,(02).
[8]徐葆耕.西方文学十五讲[M]. 北京：北京大学出版社，2003.
[9]袁世全. 关于典故辞典的十大关系[J]安徽广播电视大学学报, 1999,(02).
[10]张洁茹; 西方文学典故浅谈 [J];固原师专学报; 2003年02期; 24-25
7