上帝的力量——论《小城畸人》的宗教现代性

The Strength of God:Religious Modernity in Winesburg,Ohio

安德森的《小城畸人》呈现了一幅现代性宗教图景:小城的那群孤独异化的畸零人经历了理想和信仰的强烈碰撞,他们对信仰或怀疑、或虔信、或迷恋,他们的特殊宗教体验表征了现代社会理性和信仰的张力关系。小说揭示了安德森复杂的宗教情怀和宗教现代性思想:宗教在现代社会失却了整合一切的权威地位,但人们内在的宗教性和宗教冲动依然存在。宗教整合功能从传统社会的体制化宗教转向了现代社会的主体性宗教,世俗与宗教的紧张关系得到纾解。

Sherwood Anderson presents his grotesques in the town have gone through violent Winesburg,Ohio a world picture of modem religion.The conflicts between their ideals and their faith in God.Their particular experiences such as skepticism,religiosity and obsessions,symbolize the tension between rationality and faith in modem age.Anderson expresses his conflicting views of Christianity and religious modernity,of which religion loses its authority in all aspects of social life and governance,but levels of religiosity are not declining.The integrating function of religion undergoes a shift from institutional religion to privatized one, thus contributing to the easing of the tension between secularity and Christianity.