The Pleasure Of The Text-The Book Of Judith In The Multinarrative Perspective

As one of the works with conspicuous narrative and theological characteristics in Apocrypha, the book of Judith has been subject to long-term attention from scholars both home and abroad. However, an exhaustive scrutiny of the researches made on this book reveals that no studies whatsoever have as yet been made on it as an independent text. Therefore, the aesthetic traits contained in this work have been to a large extent neglected. Furthermore, the investigations made on the characteristics of the times in which this work was brought out have been invariably restricted to a demand for the religious knowledge at that time, with no mention of the carnivalized literary features impregnated in this book. The present thesis, with Judith as its object of research and adopting relevant narratological theories, attempts an exploration of its artistic features and draws a conclusion of its historical values on such basis.The present paper consists of the preface, the text and the conclusion.In the preface, the author first makes clear the object of textual research and spells out the reasons for adopting relevant theories. Then the author subjects to brief retrospection the present research situation and the inadequacies of the studies of Judith on a domestic and international basis. Finally he puts forward the significance for choosing such a topic.The text is composed of three chapters.The first chapter,"Classics of Narrative", employs the structuralist narratology to analyze the narrative art of the book of Judith in an attempt to explore the aesthetic value of its form. This chapter analyzes the narrative characteristics of the text mainly in the light of the Greimasian theories of binary opposition and narrative grammar.The second chapter,"Fictions of Authority", analyzes the text from the perspective of feminist narratology to probe into the questions of female authority of the text. Scholars have long been concerned with the feminist consciousness of this book and have been in broad disagreement in this regard. In this connection the author makes an exhaustive examination of the questions of female authority in the text through recourse to relevant theories. Finally, a conclusion is drawn that by reiterating the female authority, the text achieves a tortuous identification of the male authority. This chapter mainly argues from the four aspects of focus, voice, discourse and figures.The third chapter,"Carnivalization of Narrative", analyzes the carnivalizational literary characteristics of the book of Judith in the light of Bakhtin's poetics of carnivalization. As one of the representatives of early Jewish novels, its transition from oral literature to written literature and the times in which it was brought out impregnate this book with rich carnivalizational features. This chapter mainly analyzes this feature from four aspects: art thought, images of the characters, the literary work itself and the type of this work.The concluding chapter,"Pursuit of Value", attempts an exploration of its"historical value"in the perspective of the narrative art of Judith on the basis of the previous three chapters. First of all, this chapter clarifies the role played by the narrative characteristics of this book in the formative period of early Jewish novels, and affirms the significance of this process. Secondly, this concluding part restores the work to history to ascertain its unique role in the process of the construction and maintenance of the national identity. This chapter, which aims for an analysis of the book's historical value, serves as a summary and an elevation of the previous research.