ABSTRACT

Graham Greene’s novels are often discussed – and evaluated – in light of the author’s religious preoccupations. As Greene was a convert to the Catholic faith from a nominal Anglican upbringing, critics have often addressed the representation of Catholicism in his work as an alternative – and minority – discourse of modernity, trying to categorize his religious affiliations and utilizing his theological concerns as a means of interpreting the moral discourse of his narratives. Moving beyond the debate of such categorizations, in this paper the authors examine Greene’s conversion as an individualized process, reconsidering his religious conversion through an analysis of one of the key paradoxes that extends throughout all of Greene’s work: his sustained argument for the ‘virtue of disloyalty’ found in both his essays and novels. Through the lens of Yuri Lotman’s cultural semiotic theory and, concretely, his notion of the frontier, this essay suggests a fresh understanding of the role that his conversion played in his developing moral and political vision. By focusing on four of Greene’s major novels, The Power and the Glory, A Burnt-Out Case, The Honorary Consul and Monsignor Quixote, the authors examine how Greene apprehends the frontiers of his Catholic faith.

摘要

格雷厄姆·格林（Graham Greene）的小说经常根据作者的宗教信仰进行讨论和评估。由于格林是从名义上的英国国教成长为天主教徒的convert依者，因此批评家们经常在他的作品中以天主教的代表作为现代性的替代选择（少数派），试图将他的宗教信仰归类并利用他的神学关注作为解释其叙事的道德话语的手段。除了围绕此类分类的争论之外，在本文中，作者将格林的s依作为一个个体化的过程进行了考察，通过分析贯穿格林所有作品的主要悖论之一，重新考虑了格林的宗教conversion依：在他的论文和小说中都发现“不忠”。通过尤里·洛特曼（Yuri Lotman）的文化符号理论的视角，以及具体而言，他对前沿理论的理解，这篇文章提出了对他的conversion依在他发展的道德和政治视野中所起的作用的全新理解。通过关注格林的四本主要小说，《权力与荣耀》，《精疲力尽的案例》，名誉领事和吉克索特先生，作者研究了格林如何理解其天主教信仰的前沿领域。