作者:L. Baltazar
DOI:10.1093/litthe/15.1.40
日期:2001.3.1
George Eliot early repudiated supernatural Christianity, but she continued to regard the Bible as an irreplaceable cultural repository and ethical source, enthusiastically embracing the new historical critical method, and viewing with repugnance the reactionary apologetics offered by Anglican scholars in support of the doctrine of biblical infallibilism. The extent of Eliot's interest in and knowledge of these matters has not, for the most part, been fully realised. Eliot was a biblical scholar in her own right, proficient in Greek, Latin and German, and well-versed in the intersecting disciplines of philology and mythography This expertise finds a fictional outlet in Middlemarch. The Reverend Edward Casaubon is engaged in researches the aim of which is to prove etymologically the priority and historical accuracy of Genesis as over against the legendary accounts of other ancient civilisations, a project which to a large extent controls the action of the novel. Eliot's relentless critique of his ‘Key to All Mythologies’ amounts to an extremely informed debunking of the infallibilist position
乔治·艾略特早期否定了超自然的基督教,但她仍然将《圣经》视为不可替代的文化宝库和伦理源泉,热情地接受新的历史批判方法,并对英联盟学者为支持《圣经》无误主义教义所提供的反动辩护感到厌恶。艾略特对这些问题的兴趣和知识在很大程度上并未得到充分认识。艾略特是一位独立的圣经学者,精通希腊语、拉丁语和德语,并熟悉语言学和神话学等交叉学科。这种专业知识在《米德尔马契》中找到了虚构的出口。爱德华·卡索邦牧师从事的研究旨在从词源学上证明《创世纪》在历史上的优先性和准确性,与其他古代文明的传奇故事相对立,这一项目在很大程度上左右了小说的情节。艾略特对他所著的《所有神话的钥匙》的无情批判实质上是一种对无误主义立场的极其深刻的揭穿。