Cosmopolitan Spiritualities: Decadence and the Varieties of Spiritual Form, 1876-1900

世界性灵性：颓废与灵性形式的多样性，1876-1900

• 批准号: 2571995
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2571995
• 关键词: Cosmopolitan; Spiritualities; Decadence; Varieties; Spiritual

This thesis offers the first sustained exploration of the profound, and largely unacknowledged, debt which Decadent writers owed to transnational spiritual exchanges between East and West. My research focuses most closely on the work of Oscar Wilde, whose eclectic engagement with spiritual traditions ranging from Taoism to Theosophy and Catholicism has yet to be adequately explored. I argue that Wilde's deep interest in ritual practices across these varied traditions exerted a major influence on his equally eclectic use of literary forms, from aphorism to novel to prose poem.Rather than emphasising the centrality of one spiritual tradition to Wilde's work, as previous scholars have done, I propose the model of 'spiritual cosmopolitanism' as key to understanding a broader context of transnational exchange which emerged in the late nineteenth century. My research complicates traditional notions of Decadence as a Classically-focused movement by drawing attention to the profound influence of non-Western spiritual traditions on Wilde's thought and artistic practice. Drawing on recent developments in affect theory, this thesis also proposes new parallels between ritual and literary forms. Much like spiritual rituals, what role might different literary forms serve in helping to cultivate ethically useful affective states in their readers, viewers, and participants?

本文首次对颓废派作家对东西方跨国精神交流所欠下的深刻而又不为人知的债务进行了持续的探索。我的研究主要集中在奥斯卡·王尔德的作品上，他与道教、神学和天主教等精神传统的兼收并蓄还有待充分探讨。我认为，王尔德对这些不同传统中的仪式实践的浓厚兴趣对他同样不拘一格地使用文学形式（从格言到小说再到散文诗）产生了重大影响。与其强调一种精神传统对王尔德作品的中心地位，不如像以前的学者那样，我提出了“精神世界主义”的模式，作为理解世纪后期出现的跨国交流的更广泛背景的关键。我的研究使传统的颓废观念复杂化，因为它引起了人们对非西方精神传统对王尔德思想和艺术实践的深刻影响的关注。借鉴影响理论的最新发展，本文还提出了仪式和文学形式之间的新的相似之处。就像精神仪式一样，不同的文学形式在帮助读者、观众和参与者培养道德上有用的情感状态方面可能发挥什么作用？