“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi Faculty of letters Doctoral School of Philological Studies CHELBAN (Dorcu) CORINA REMYTHOLOGIZATIONS OF THE CHRISTIC MYTH IN THE MODERN NOVEL Doctoral dissertation Scientific Coordinator, Ph D Prof. VIORICA S. CONSTANTINESCU Iaşi, 2012 1 Summary Key words: myth, literary myth, christic myth, myth criticism, myth analysis, remythologization, transposition, transfiguration. The paper Remythologizations of the Christic myth in the modern novel approaches the Christic myth in some of the 20th century novels. The Christic myth has always aroused the curiosity, not only of writers, but also of critics, in general. This paper aims at deciphering the characters of the Christic myth, subjected to demythologization in literature: Jesus, Judas, Pilate, Mary, Mary Magdalene and the relationships among them. The novel which approaches the Christic myth defines itself and it delimits not starting from its formal characteristics, but most of all through the significance of overtaken deeds. The characters cutout from the canonic text often lose their divine essence, they become contemporary to politically oppressed generations, whose freedom of speech hides behind reshaped history. They lose their divine essence as some of the mythemes of the Christic myth are taken from uncanonical Gospels. In these books, Jesus is presented much more humane and there appears much information concerning His life, which is not found in the canonic text. We must admit that seven of the nine novels, which we have in view, are largely inspired by apocryphal texts. The present work aims at the comparative analysis of the modern and the target text, being structured in five chapters. Thus, in the first chapter, The hermeneutics of the Christic myth, which is a theoretical chapter, I tried to discuss the problem of the literary and of the biblical myth. I approached the myth from various perspectives: sociological (Claude Levy Strauss), psychological (Jung, Freud); I talked about literaray myth and the relation between it and religion, about transposition and transfiguration of the Christic myth. I used Ziolkowski’s theory concerning the two ways of treating the Christic myth (transposition, transfiguration) for analysing the novels we have in view. Another point discussed in this chapter is the biblical intertext and the rewriting of biblical quotations. An important aspect of the paper was the discovery of apocryphal sources for some of these novels. In the second chapter, Resignifications of the Christic myth in the novels of Giovanni Papini and François Mauriac, I analysed two novels: Life of Christ by Giovanni Papini and Life of Jesus by François Mauriac. For this chapter, I chose novels in which the Christic myth appears as a linear biography, tributary to accounts of the canonic Gospels. To Giovanni Papini, Jesus appears alive and integrated in the world, humanized and integrated in the profane. The author follows the biblical chronology, trying to create a new gospel. Papini insists on the human side of his character. This novel is the result of his conversion to catholicism. The novel represents a transcription of the Christic myth, where the author tries to help the readers become aware of the really important things in life: the faith. The author inspired 2 himself both from the canonic Gospels and from apocryphal sources, the information being very well elaborated and integrated in the novel. The Christic myth appears humanized and integrated to the profane. Faithful to the evangelic text, François Mauriac creates a character with a very personal feature. Jesus appears as both man and God, with his passions and forgiveness. In these novels we have a transposition of the Christic myth as the characters belong to the same antic space and they perform the same functions as in the canonic text. The novel of François Mauriac, Life of Jesus, illustrates as Papini’s novel, the misery of man without God. The author respects the canonic Gospels. The main character appears with the Aramaic name: Yeshua. With Mauriac's novel we can remark the interesting narrative structure of the novel, as he makes ample use of the retrospective of biblical events. The style of the novels preserves something from the sobriety of the biblical style. Yeshua is the total opposite of the Judaic mentality. It is original and interesing the interpretation of Mauriac concerning Judas. He belived that he was the one Jesus loved less, and this is the reason why he betrays Jesus. Mauriac defends Judas, as the apostle did not imagined the consequences of his deed. For the other chapters, I chose novels which rely less on canonic writings, being based on information takenover from apocryphal sources. The third chapter, entitled Irony and parody in the transposition and transfiguaration of the Christic myth, treats an ironic and parodic perspective of the Christic myth, in three novels: The Gospel according to Jesus Christ by José Saramago, Christ recrucified and The last temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. Although, these novels have been discussed, there was not yet made a comparative study between the novel and the canonic or apocryphal Gospel which inspired it. In these novels, the authors present the biblic myth using irony and parody. The ironic and parodic perspective make the canonic text lose its mythical character, but in such way that the characters do not lose their quality of heros. Saramago rewrites a biography where Jesus can be found anywhere around us, the important thing is to understand that, above all, the biblical character represents the human nature itself. Jesus, in the heretic version of Saramago, is not only too humane, but he revolts against the supreme will of God. In Saramago's novel, Jesus does not preach love, compassion, humility and symphaty, key moments of his Gospel message, revolutionary for his age. He preaches only repentance, discovering thus the main mecanism which leads man to God. José Saramago reinvents the Christic myth using irony. The author did not want the indecisive recall of the Gospel's content on more or less imaginative bases, but he wished to consider the Bible from a temporal and historical point of view. What shocks most in this novel is the audacity of speculating sacred texts, in order to draw out of the imaginative subsiadiary less significant aspects, much too humane to associate them to the divine. We could state that the author suggests a new hermeneutic of the sacred text, as the biblical events acquire in his novel other conotations. The 3 characters of the Christic myth are humanized, the author emphasizing their psychological state and completing the myth with new scenes from the apocryphal Gospels. We identified a series of characteristics of this novel drawn from apocryphal sources: the creation of another character, Zelomi, the birth of Jesus in a cave (Gospel of Jacob), the mediocre ability of Joseph, the carpenter (Arabic infancy Gospel), the predilection and special friendship with Mary Magdalene, the guilt inherited from the father because of the massacre of the innocents. Saramago distroys the dogme of the virginity of the Vergin Mary, claiming that Jesus was created as any other human. The course of biblical events is changed to confuse the reader. Joseph saves from the massacre only his son, fact for which he will feel guilty the rest of his life. Saramago’s novel proposes a “textual tour” in the biblical universe, especially in the apocryphal Gospels, from where he draws out the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This aspect of his novel scandalized the public opinion then. He takes this information from the Gospel of Philip. The novel develops, in fact, the meeting and the confrontation between Jesus and God. An innovation in Saramago’s novel is also the humanized appereance of the Devil, which is presented as opposed to God. The climax of the novel is the meeting of the three, in a boat in the middle of the sea. God exposes his plan to save the world, and Jesus should only accept it. It is interesting the Devil’s proposition, that God give up all this and receive him back in heaven. God refuses and Jesus must die. The author introduces through his novel the most important western work from a historical perspective. Saramago’s Gospel, far from announcing a good news, communicates a feeling of helplessness and dismay of man in front of God. This represents an example of reversal of the only possible history accepted by the christian mentality. Such an undertaking serves, if not to a remythologization of the biblic text, to the reflection of the reader on this topic. Equally humane appears Jesus in the two novels of Nikos Kazantzakis. The author, in his turn, demythicizes the christic myth through his confrontation with the spirit of the age. The novel Christ recrucified is a transfiguration of the Christic myth, as its characters send through analogy to the characters of the biblic myth. Not turning aside from the biblical characters, the novelistic characters receive their role depending on the resemblence with the biblical ones. Thus, the characters from Licovrisi village must perform the role of the biblical characters. The force of the christian myth appears clearer as it animates some of the characters. The author tries God’s incarnation in a space where the faith has faded away. The village does not respect the rules of the Church anymore, degrading morally from bad to worse. Those who will bring the deliverence in the region are the ones who will play the roles given by the leaders of the village, but for this, they must give up the habits acquired in the real existence. The role of Christ puts Manolios to the hard test of purification and straying away from temptations. A salvation, for the ones overrun by sin, is also the returning of the exiled who have the power of 4 transforming them spiritually.