Abstract

This article reads Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial in parallel with Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–16). It sets the novel within the context of the Grünewald revival in France and Germany during the first part of the twentieth century. The revival culminated in a wave of veneration that turned the altarpiece into a symbol of national suffering in the closing days of World War I. Against this background, the article argues for a connection between the intense focus on Christ’s “splayed hands” and the repertoire of manual gestures that Kafka scatters throughout his novel. Borrowing critical language from Bruno Latour and Joseph Koerner, the article argues that Kafka’s hands can be read as an iconoclastic analysis of Grünewald’s altarpiece. In the novel’s final scene, K.’s own splayed hands mark an attempt to turn himself into a living icon and transform his executioners into the iconoclastic breakers of his Christ-like image. The final section of the article uses this tableau as a means of rethinking current debates about the relationship between Christianity and secularism. Latour’s and Koerner’s work on iconoclash, the article suggests, makes Kafka’s image destruction a creative moment in a longer history of Christian iconoclasm.

摘要

本文阅读弗朗茨·卡夫卡的小说《审判》与 Matthias Grünewald 的 Isenheim Altarpiece（1512-16 年）平行。它将小说置于二十世纪上半叶法国和德国的格吕内瓦尔德复兴的背景下。复兴在崇敬浪潮中达到高潮，这使祭坛在第一次世界大战的最后几天变成了民族苦难的象征。在这种背景下，文章认为对基督“张开的手”的强烈关注与曲目之间存在联系卡夫卡在他的小说中散布的手动手势。文章借用布鲁诺·拉图尔和约瑟夫·科尔纳的批评语言，认为卡夫卡的手可以被解读为对格鲁内瓦尔德祭坛画的反传统分析。在小说的最后一幕中，K. 自己张开的双手标志着他试图将自己变成一个活生生的偶像，并将他的刽子手变成他基督般形象的破坏者。文章的最后一部分使用这个画面作为重新思考当前关于基督教与世俗主义之间关系的辩论的一种手段。拉图尔和科尔纳的工作文章认为，偶像破坏使卡夫卡的形象破坏成为基督教偶像破坏历史上一个创造性的时刻。