The Bible's Influence on EnglishAmerican Literature《圣经》在英美文学作品中的影响.doc

THE BIBLES INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE Abstract As the sutra of the Christianity, the Bible has a great influence on both English and American literature and offers an eternal theme of their literary creation .English and American writers use stories of the Bible by three main methods. First, they quote person's names or stories of the Bible as the characters' names or plots of the creations from the Bible directly. Sometimes they make some changes on the original stories. Sometimes they quote stories directly from the Bible as the writing materials. Second, they make use of symbolic meaning of the Bible by some technical such as simile, metaphor and symbolism, so that the stories could exert a great influence on contrasting with the new products. Third, they merge the plots of the Bible to give connotative efforts to the readers.  Exploring the methods helps us know the western culture and consciousness, have a good appreciation and study for the English-American literature.key words: English-American literature ; the Bible; methods  圣经在英美文学作品中的影响摘要作为基督教的经典，圣经对英美文化影响深远，为英美文化创作提供了永恒的母题。英美作家化用圣经故事的主要方法有：直接引用圣经中的人名作为作品的人物名称，或直接引用圣经故事或对原型故事进行变形或处理，作为创作素材；通过比喻，隐喻或象征等手法，把圣经故事的寓意融汇到作品情节中或人物性格里，使这些故事发挥有力的陪衬作用；使作品中的人物，故事和情节与圣经故事大体对应，让圣经能穿越时空的限制，从而发挥隐含的参照作用。探讨英美作家化用圣经的方法，有助于我们了解英美文化的思想意识，更好的学习，欣赏乃至研究英美文学作品。关键词：英美文学；圣经；方式Contents1. Introduction.12. The Bible's Influence on English-American literature2.1 Quoting the Bible directly.22.2 Using the symbolic meaning of the Bible.3 2.3 Merging the plots of the Bible.53. The reasons of the Bibles influence on English-American literature.74. Conclusion .8 Notes.8Bibliography.9The Bible's Influence on English-American Literature1. Introduction The Bible is an epic that records the history of the ancient Hebrews, or the Jews, and also a philosophical work with deep meaning. In composition, it consists of two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament talks about the religious history of the Jews while the New Testament covers Jesus' life and the history of the production and development of Christianity. The title "Testament" means contract. According to the Bible, God elected the Jews as his believers or electors in the beginning and appointed with the Jew's patriarch Abraham that he could give Canaanland (Palestine in nowadays) to them and make them live in peace and work contentedly. But later the Jews were depraved gradually and began to adore idols. God got very angry and made them encountered a series of disasters, while he appointed that he would send a Savior to save them. The Savior is Jesus and Jesus story is recorded in the New Testament .God said Jesus was his son. Whoever believed in him were his electors. Jesus' believers became the Christians and Christianity came into birth. Consequently, Judaism and Christianity believe in the same God.The Bible has a great influence on all westerners because it has the most popularity, the deepest influence, the biggest circulation and the most readers. Some people even read nothing but the Bible all their lives, or get their knowledge mainly from the Bible. In Britain and America, the Bible is also used as a textbook and component of students education. The concept and philosophy of the Bible has been deeply pervaded into the consciousness of the westerners. Besides, although the Bible is not literary work, it has a high literary value. The styles of the Bible are in great numbers. They contain fable, legend, myth, poem, essay, short novels and so on. Its language is simple but effective. Its rhetoric is colorful, such as metaphor, symbolism and simile and so on. Because of all its qualities and importance, the Bible has become the eternal theme of literary works. It affected English and American literature so much that many English and American writers use the language, styles or stories of the Bible in their works consciously or unconsciously. This thesis will analyze the three main methods that the English and American writers made use of the Bible. From the methods and the analysis, we can see the Bibles great influence on English and American literature.2. The Bible's Influence on English-American literature2.1 Quoting the Bible directly It is not difficult to find that some authors directly quote phrases from the Bible as the titles of their creations or take peoples names in the Bible as the names of their characters. In this way, they make their own works correspondent with or related to the Bible. The first epic in English literature, Beowulf, can serve as an example. Beowulf talks about God and says that the monster half-human Grendal is one of Cain's descendants. Cain's story originates from one chapter of the Old Testament -the Creation. Cain was the son of the first man Adam and the first woman Eve, who were made by God. He killed his brother Abel because of envy, and then he became the first sinner in the world. According to the Bible's spirit, relating the fierce Grendal to the sinner Cain is reasonable.Also, some authors use stories in the Bible directly as the creating materials. We can see it from one story of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales-The Monks Tale. The author wrote a monk who looked as though he enjoyed the good life. He ignored the old and strict ways because he liked the modern world and the indulgent life style. He completely ignored the rulings of St. Benet and St. Maur. In the tale, the monk quoted the story of Adam's depravation in Eden to express his feeling of seeking freedom. The story of Adam's depravation in it originated from the Bible- the Creation. God pioneered the world from a chaos. He created the sky, the earth, rivers, animals and plants. And he used mud to make a man named Adam. Then when Adam was sleeping, God drew out a rib to make a companion to him, who is Eve. Their living place was wonderful. There were beautiful flowers and fruits with moderate breezes all over. All that they needed was available. This is the scene of the Eden. God told them that they could do everything they wanted but ate the fruit on the knowledge tree. Later Eve was provoked by the devil to eat the fruit, and she asked Adam to eat it, too. When God found out, under the irritation, he swept them away from the Eden. This is the cause of the original sin.There are also many American writers that used the Bibles stories to create their works. One chapter in Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass, Children of Adam contains 16 poems. Although they do not have a certain relationship, the whole chapter was run through by the story of Adam in Eden. The speaker in the first poem is Adam. He was satisfied with his past and nowadays. He felt warm and nostalgic about everything in front of him, thinking that was a real paradise. Under Whitmans pen, Adam and Eva were fully frank and plain and filled with a deep love for life. If we associate this with Whitmans pride for the living American during the rising time of the developing country, it is reasonable for the writer to use the story of Eden to express his optimistic attitude. In the 8th poem, the writer seems to mix himself with Adam. “I” implies that Adam does not die. His pure spirit does not disappear. Meanwhile, the poem also means to show people all over the world that the Americans pioneering the wild and developing the west was to rebuild Eden and recover the lost heaven and the simplicity of the original man actually. This is also the song of the construction revolution. In the 16th poem the writer has become Adam. His spirit is extremely pure after a nights sleeping. It seems that he gets a rebirth. Obviously, the poet broke the traditional yoke and applied the story cleverly to serve his writing. Children of Adam begins with the appearance of Adam and ends up with the writer-one of Adams descendants turning to Adam. It is very right to express the writers concept for the modern mans growth. The whole poem leaves and Grass is the masterpiece to sing the Americans rebuilding the Eden. So the writer Whitman has the name of Adams poet. The story of Adam in Eden was also adopted by the great poet John Milton in the 17th century and became the stencil of the epic poem Paradise Lost. The long poem Paradise Lost used the story from the Bible to express Miltons feeling. Although it was taken from the Bible, the poet's mind was not confined by the original. Over half of the poem describes Satan. A series of his behaviors expressed his reaction against God when he lost love in the heaven and schemed to take revenge on God and lured Eva to eat the fruit, which reflected Satan's indomitable lofty sentiments and aspirations. Milton was a pious Puritan. He should have used his exquisite pen to praise God, but he galloped his imagination to describe the devil Satan as a unique hero. It is difficult to understand the contradiction between the author's world outlook and the writing. But when we look back the life of the poet, the puzzle could be solved. The poet once took part in the 17th Republic Revolution with full enthusiasm, only to suffer the failure of the revolution and the restoration of the empire. But he did not stop fighting. Thus the Satans image became the symbol of the Puritan Revolutionaries. The description of Adam and Eva in the poem also set us thinking. When they were led by the angers to the east door and looked back, “ And on the Eastside of Garden place/ Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbers/ Cherubic watch and of the a Sword the flame” 3 They did not lose heart but soon cleaned the tears and faced the boundless world traversing them. The poem meant to express that man could be mature really only by tasting the life on his own. So, to some extent, the story from Creation in the Bible offers a medium to express the authors idea. 2.2 Using the symbolic meaning of the BibleAuthors often quote the symbolic meaning of the Bible to make readers accept their works easily. This method is more obscure than the former one-quoting the names of the Bible directly as the names of their works. This method can make the Bible exert a great setoff influence. Take William Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice as an example. In the first scene the fourth act, Portia who disguised herself as a man appeared as a lawyer and pretended to refute the requirements by Bassanio. This made the fierce Shylock who was under the hostile atmosphere feel gratified. He cant help shouting “A Daniel come to judgments yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honor thee!”2 Here, “Daniel” is an allusion from the Bible. The Old Testament says that Daniels talent was extraordinary. One time, two evildoers teased a woman when she was getting a bath, the woman refused, then the two men falsely accused the women. The court believed them and sentenced the woman to death. Daniel came in time and interrogated them separately. The two men made many mistakes. Finally the woman was set free. Because of his stories, Daniel became widely accepted as the symbol of a wise and fair judge, and this symbolic meaning was what “Daniel” conveyed in Shylocks shout. Seeing the iceberg floating on the sea, we find that the tip above the water is only a small part of it. The relationship between the Bible and English-American literature is just like that between iceberg and the tip. Sometimes a sentence, a poem line, even a word has something to do with the Bible. The feeling is stronger when reading William Blakes poem. One of the poems in the collections Songs of Innocence, which he wrote for children-Lamb describes a hairy happy lamb. It sometimes drinks along streams, sometimes eats grasses over the mead. Its tender voices bring happiness to the gorge. The poet cant help asking the lamb: “Little lamb, who made thee?”3, then the poet seems saying some natures mystery that “a man had the same name as you. He was meek and mild, and once he became a child” 4 “We are called by his name”5, “The Gods sheep” in the new Testament is Jesus. John who gave baptism said that “He is the Gods sheep, and he came to save man.” Jesus was the Gods son and was sent to the earth by the Gods will. The Virgin Mary was pregnant without a marriage. Then Jesus changed and became her son. So it is said that "Once he became a child "6. And the New Testament records clearly Jesus' tenderness and modesty. Thus, to appreciate Blake's so short poem, we should read the Bible before.Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre has also used some symbolic meanings of the Bible to make the work have a strong artistic effect. For example, the big fire in Ferndean is just like the fire that Jesus used to give baptism for man. In the ending part, Jane Eyre hurried to the house of Ferndean to meet Mr.Rochester. When she was several hundreds meters away, she heard his sorrow and despairy sounds for asking her. Rochester lived lonely in Ferndean. After losing the manor house, left hand and eyes, he only left regrets, and regrets made him regain the manor house." The manor house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions; deep buried in a wood"7 ，" The darkness of natural as well ag of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked round in search of another road. There was none: all was interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage-no opening anywhere."8 Here, in this gabled house lived a regenerated Adam-Rochester. Rochester once considered himself second to none in the world, but after the big fire, he became so honest and simple in the gabled house. So the big fire in Jane Eyre seems to mean:" Jesus' giving baptism for man by fire."Another example in Jane Eyre is the comparison of Rochester to Samson. The secrets of them were both hid in their hair. When Jane Eyre came into Ferndean, the appearance of Rochester had also changed: “That looked desperate and brooding -that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson." 9. Samson, in the Bible is a strongman, who fought and killed a lion bare-handed. His unlimited strength was hid in his hair. God gives him the service to save Philistines by his hair. The hair's master was his own master. One who can control his hair can control his life. At the end of the novel, the plot that Jane Eyre combed his black and dense hair uses the symbolical meaning of the Bible secretly, thus it makes the novel gain a deep symbolic effect and end very properly.