This essay meets at the crossroads of religion and literature, insofar as it concerns the extent to which fictional characters can articulate religious viewpoints. The subject here is D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love with particular focus on the novel’s main character, Rupert Birkin. This essay argues that Birkin’s particular worldview, and the source of the strangeness with which it is encountered, is due to its location outside Judeo-Christian frameworks and inside a fundamentally “Gnostic” one. To prove this argument, I first adumbrate essential features of the Gnostic myth and then proceed to show how Birkin both reflects and departs from them.

中文翻译：

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论语用学

本文涉及宗教和文学的十字路口，涉及到虚构人物在多大程度上可以表达宗教观点。主题是DH劳伦斯的《恋爱中的女人》，特别着重于小说的主人公鲁珀特·伯金（Rupert Birkin）。本文认为，伯金的特殊世界观，以及与之相遇的陌生性，源于其位于犹太教-基督教框架之外以及根本上属于“诺斯替”框架的地方。为了证明这一论点，我首先强调了诺斯替神话的基本特征，然后继续说明伯金是如何反映和偏离它们的。