传教士汉文小说的发展及其作为宗教文学的启示意义

The Enlightening Significance of Missionary Novels in Chinese as Religious Literature

传教士汉文小说由晚明耶稣会士开启先声,西方传教士以中国古代小说之形叙写基督教文化之实,模仿中国古代小说体例和语言,又在其中融入西方宗教和文化内涵,构成新的小说文本在中国流传。传教士汉文小说是将宗教与文学结合的范本,传教士努力跨越横亘在中西文化之间的鸿沟,试图在文化冲突中实现平衡,对于宗教文学的研究和跨文化的宗教传播不无启示性。

During the late Ming Dynasty, Jesuit missionaries break the new ground in writing novels in Chinese. When protestant missionaries come to China in the 19th century, their Chinese literary writings have been transformed from historical-biographical literature and sketchbooks in classical Chinese targeted at a few upper-class scholars to popular novels for plain folks. By imitating the style and language of Chinese classical fiction and integrating the Western religious and cultural connotations,missionaries create new novel texts which are widely spread in China. As a model of the union of religion and literature, those novels are intended to publicize Christianity with a multiplier effect by turning to the great appeal of literature. In their writing process, missionaries try hard to bridge the gap between Chinese and Western cultures and strike a better balance between the cultural conflicts, which is quite enlightening in the transcultural dissemination of religion.