朝圣:英国旅行文学的精神内核

14-17世纪,以枟曼德维尔游记枠、枟坎特伯雷故事集枠和枟天路历程枠为代表的三个朝圣文本,建构了一个从西方到东方、从本土到异域、从内心世界到外部世界的立体的朝圣-旅行空间。在这个空间中,东方的圣地与异域的奇迹互相并置,基督教的世界观与异教的信仰互为镜像,虔诚的宗教信念与粗鄙的世俗欲望互相交织,形成一个源远流长的叙事传统。近代英国的旅行文学正是在这个朝圣传统的影响下逐渐脱颖而出,形成自己的空间想象、主体性意识、跨文化交往原则,以及相应的叙事策略和结构模式的。从这个意义上说,朝圣文学是英国乃至欧洲旅行文学之精神内核。

Pilgrimage :The Spiritual Nucleus of English Travel Literature

Three literary texts of pilgrimage from the 14th to the 17th century , namely The Travels of Sir John Mandeville , The Canterbury Tales and The Pilgrim's Progress , built a three-dimensional space of pilgrimage-travel in English literature . These three texts span from the West to the East ,from the domestic to the exotic and from the interior to the exterior .They started a long narrative tradition where the Holy Land and alien miracles coexist , the Christian worldview and the pagan beliefs mirror each other , and the pious religious faith and the low profane desires intertwine . It is this tradition of British pilgrimage literature that exerted influence on and gave impetus to the rise of modern English travel literature with the gradual formation of its space imagination , subject consciousness , principles of cross-cultural communication and correspondingly its narrative strategies and structural patterns .In this sense , the pilgrimage literature may be considered the spiritual nucleus of English and European travel literature .