Religious Dimension Of "Carnival": On Bakhtin's Theory Of "Carnival"

By other's faults, wise men correct their own. The dissertation aims at a theoretic and comparative study in cross-literature and cross-culture against the background of vast religious culture. It examines the relationship between the carnival and religions (mainly the polytheism and the Christianity), themes and cultural significances of the religion in Bakhtin's Carnival Theory. It's the commencement of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory that the carnival is originated from the religion. Historically, the academia has already reached a consensus, in which the carnival is derived from the religion. By scrutinizing, we can find a definite relation of its origin: the carnival is derived from polytheism as well as the Christianity. To some extent, the carnival is the synthetic product by mixing polytheism and the Christianity, which has been clearly proved in the European cultural history. In his seminal works of Dostoyevsky's Poets and Rabelais's novels and Folk Culture during Middle-age and Renaissance, Mikhail Mikhailoviech Bahktin, who is erudite and well-informed, directly put religious thoughts as the crucial components, and regards embedded religious ideals as its important narrative strategies. For instance, Bakhtin's religious life reflects his prominent religious consciousness; Influences from the Christian culture and Russia's"Silver Times"serve as its religious background for his theory; Discourse Theory and Dionysiac Theory are taken as one of the theoretic resources which can be further delved into. Carnival elements in content forges a close relationship with the religious theme: carnival laughs and religious taboos, carnival body and religious aesthetics, carnival images and saints of the religion, carnival parodies and religious texts; In doing so, religious and spiritual appeals pervade, constructing a in the intimacy between the literature and the culture, and having an influence on contemporary literature and foreign literature studies in China. This dissertation, though criticizing Bahktin's illusion, i.e. a detachment of the reality, gives applause to religious connotations in Bakhtin's Carnival Theory and values in the study of the religion. This dissertation can be divided into six parts.The first chapter introduces contents of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory, including the origin of the carnival and the religion, the construction of the religion and Bakhtin's frame of work, the research status quo of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory in addition to his research methods. The author clarifies some key term's defining boundaries, and elaborates its research objects, approaches, principles, etc, to explain the framework of the dissertation in terms of contents and theories. On a historical and logical basis is Bakhtin's Carnival Theory connected with the religion. Historically, the academia has already reached a consensus, in which the carnival is derived from the religion. The new reasoning approach of dualistic way of thinking, the research principle in the folklore, the basic domain limited into three key words, carnival day, carnival style and carnivaleque, combined with the concrete analyzing structure on the religious, cultural and literary level, contributes to some kind of systematic features of theory constructing in Bakhtin's works. The study on Bakhtin nowadays differs from western to oriental states. One prominent feature of the study on Bakhtin in his homeland is—paying more attention on the discovery of Russia's local denotations of the spiritual culture, and distinctively practicing a route of"localization", for instance, by discussing the relation of carnivals and laughs, researching on historical relations between carnivals and the Ages, and studying extended issues, such as intellectuals'fate. The western world not only discovers Bakhtin, but also studies him in line with the interpretation in discourse towards trends of literary thoughts of the day. It distinguishes itself as correspondences between the angle of reading and key words of 20th century western literary theory and contests of related issues. The western study on Bakhtin is markedly different from that in Russia. One important distinction is that western study on Bakhtin has no concern about Russia's local spiritual culture. Rather, they have already intensified the theory's academic aspects of"expansion and challenge"before the fully understandings of Bakhtin's definitions and connotations. Markedly distinguished from Russia's"localization'and western"otherness", the research on Bakhtin in China is stepping beyond the elementary stage of data collection and settlement, and striving upward to discover origins, cultural roots, and comparisons in Chinese and western culture.The second chapter holds a microscopic view by describing Bakhtin's religious personality and his religious complex,"un-religiously religious pursuit". Bakhtin's concern with the carnivals and the religion is not accidental, but derived from subjective elements and objective environments. With his Christian identity and religious tendencies as subjective elements and objectively influenced by Russia's Orthodox, Bakhtin develops his academic interest initially beginning with the religious philosophy. Considered from the religious identity, Bakhtin is a Christian, and also, a lifelong believer of the religion. To some extent, Bakhtin's life is permeated with the overwhelming religious complex. Russian Othodox acts as the edification for Bakhtin's childhood. An ideologist without the religious thought is totally insulated from creating theories full of religious connotations. As an ideologist with religious thought, Bakhtin enlightens his academic life and research theories with religious philosophy. Bakhtin's early thought on philosophical and aesthetic aspects of the subjects takes on the thick Neo-Kantian color. Bakhtin's discourse and communication with Russia's other religious ideologists is one of his more important academic activities.The third chapter explains religious origins and theoretical basis of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory. Bakhtin builds his theory with a solid theoretical basis, no mater in terms of thinking patterns or its theoretical reference and influences. It's an inheritance and development of Discourse Theory and Dionysiac Theory. Firstly, the paper focuses upon the claim that Discourse Theory and Dionysiac Theory are philosophical and religious foundations of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory.On the one hand, dialogue, in a philosophical sense and within a boundary of discourse theory, is human's basic way of existence; from the perspective of languages, the dialogue is the essence of language. Dialogue and monologue, coexisting and opposing, are two speech patterns. No matter to what extent the religiously humanistic significance that Bakhtin's"others"and"I"have, and to what extent the free spirit is presented in Bakhtin's Carnival Theory, it is only his ideal of dialogue that inherits the interpretation of"I"and"others"in the religious discourse. When Ivanov concludes that"absolute equality"exists in the collective unconsciousness in"I"and"others"from Dionysiac Theory, Bakhtin's absorption and development on the basis of the dialogue, totally impels contradictions and co-existences between the carnival and the religion become inevitable after the dialogue. It is also on the level of dialogue that Bakhtin's Carnival Theory insists upon the basis of the dialogic philosophy, continuously enriches itself, and develops into an eternal direction of dialogue with the God.On the other hand, Dionysiac Theory is an important source for Bakhtin's Carnival Theory, to which Nietzsche and Ivanov are both directly contributing. The Dionysiac Theory enlightens Bakhtin's philosophy of birth and death, rather than temporary carnival. A passage from the mythology, after Nietzsche and Ivanov's metaphysical and refined interpreting, has greatly influenced Bakhtin's theoretic commencement and his value-orientations. Between Nietzsche's Dionysiac Theory and Bakhtin's carnival an extreme intimacy of"dialogic relation"exists. On the one side, Bakhtin borrows resources from the mythological world, and permutes"Dionysus"with the"Carnival"by way of"displacement"in discourse, and at last, develops Nietzsche's Dionysian spirit into his unique carnival spirit; on the other side, Bakhtin apparently leads a different way from Nietzsche ranging from interpreting contexts to religious attitudes and spiritual orientations in the following souls of the Dionysiac Theory. He eventually transforms Nietzsche's aesthetically artistic ideal of"Traum und Rausch"("Dream and Drunk") into a religious spiritual demand of"leading two lives", and fulfills"a transcendental journey from the God to the man". Within the territory of Russia, Ivanov's explanation of Dionysiac Theory has also influenced some parts of Bakhtin's theory. Apparently, Bakhtin's intimacy with Russian local culture and convenience in communications has strengthened his understanding of the Dionysus Theory in a deep level, which contributes to Bakhtin's religious preference in his theoretic acceptations.Secondly, focusing on the religious basis for Bakhtin's Carnival Theory, the paper lays emphasis upon the influence of Christian culture and Russia's"Silver Time",and in particular macroscopically discusses Russia's unique religious background; including the Orthodox tradition under Byzantium culture, Christian culture origin and"Silver Time"in philosophy renaissance. Generally speaking, Orthodox plays an important role in Russia's social life and spirit in terms of scale and culture. It exerts an enormously immeasurable influence over Russian's humanistic culture, philosophy, social science, literature and arts.The fourth chapter explains crucial elements and its religious theme in Bakhtin's Carnival Theory. It elaborates on the internal relationship and cultural connotations between Carnival Theory and the religious culture, from the following four aspects: laughs and religious conflicts, carnival bodies and the religious intimacy, carnival images and religious saints, carnival parody and religious texts. Among them, laughter is a basic element in the relationship with the religion. Bakhtin's carnival is closely next to profaneness, taboos and religious attitude, and thus, he zealously argues against opposing jocosity with the religion, and calls for intimacy and connection between two parties. Deriving from its intimacy with the religion, the carnival human bodies unbridle their asceticism and break through the dualist acquisition in the western philosophy tradition; thus it embraces some essence of religious culture, a portion of"religious value"and sort of religious esthetics. In the Carnival Theory, Bakhtin describes clowns, fools and cheaters in literatures, and endows them with sort of mysterious connotations as well as worldwide literary meanings. They are of the same kinship with heroic figures like the Creator, the Devine Fool in Russian tradition, and have obtained special religious meanings in Bakhtin's topple, debasement,"crown and de-crown"and"others". In the context of the Orthodox literature, the carnival literature can be considered as a challenge of"high literature"against the"low literature". But if regarded from a religious perspective, the degraded fool and clown develops from the prototype of the"cultural hero"and"divine fool"in religion, because neither the cultural hero nor the divine fool is a single anti-Christian culture. On the contrary, they belong to a pro-Christian culture. In carnival parodies and religious text-telling, Bakhtin emphasizes impacts of"Mennippean and Carnivalesque"upon religious texts, relationships between"carnival"elements in Christian literature and"Latin Satire"together with"sacred parody", and more directly presents cultural links between the carnival and the making of religious literature.The fifth chapter mainly describes the religious resort in Bakhtin's Carnival Theory. Ideal world is the eternal theme to the religion and the literature. Religion tends to negate the real world, such as the return of life in Buddhism, the idea of redemption in Christianity, in order to eventually obtain spiritual fulfillments and psychological comforts. Less caring the physical presence, or not at all, Bakhtin subverts the existing fetters. He always expects human's spiritual presence and the"spiritual otherness", one extremely abstract religious spirit. Among seemingly contradictory binary oppositions, such as the"alternation and upgrade","affirm and negate","a second life", Bakhtin endows them with connotations of spiritual emancipations and exposes human's original resort towards the human personalities. He is seeking human's"ultimate home"in the carnival, the spiritual emancipation in the subversion, the Dionysiac increasingly fierce spirit in the carnival, together with a kind of religious and spiritual resort.The sixth chapter discusses Bakhtin's Carnival Theory and its influences in China. The value of Bahktin's Carnival Theory lies in its religious tradition and ideas. Moreover,it goes so deep as to expand our understanding about religious culture and ideas, and find the carnival itself as some elements in a religious background. In this way, ideas concerning the carnival in China's contemporary literature and foreign literature studies come up now and again with fresh views brought about by the carnival. Bahktin's Carnival Theory enriches perspectives on China's research on Dostoevsky and Rabelais, and adds useful language resources and methodology foundations on the religious aspects of the literary works. Far beyond the literary arts and the philosophy, Bakhtin's Carnival Theory touches upon the religious history studies; it also shows the plural features in the understanding of religious history with a far-reaching influence over carnival and laughs research; for example, Ruth Coates have connected Bakhin's Carnival Theory with the Christianity and the religious history, and they have made useful adjustments on the foundations of carnival's religious value, which helps the research on religious history with different features and styles.In a word, the relationship between the carnival and religions are complex and ambiguous, among which the utopia ideals in the cultural intimacy become heated issues for scholars. Issues around ambiguous relationships between the carnival and the religion, intimacy between the carnival culture and the religious culture, and the broadened topic concerning Bakhtin's religious view and life philosophy, will obtain new meanings during communications of eastern and western culture, and contemporary scholars'interpretations. Thus, we can draw a conclusion that the carnival is immeasurably important in terms of religious significance and its impact. The religious research of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory in the literary study is worthwhile for a deep exploration academically.