本論文討論安潔拉‧卡特（Angela Carter）的小說《馬戲團之夜》（Nights at the Circus）以及凱瑟琳‧鄧恩（Catherine Dunn）的小說《畸人之愛》（Geek Love）， 特別著重作品對馬戲團表演藝術以及異常身體的呈現。卡特與鄧恩對馬戲團的描 繪刻意地曖昧矛盾，一方面具有顯著的哥德（Gothic）文學暗黑風格，以怪誕與 醜惡為特色，顛覆典範性的美學與道德標準，但另一方面卻又充斥神聖空間與儀 式行為的指涉，洋溢貌似崇高超越的宗教情懷與神話意象。哥德詩學與宗教這兩 種大相逕庭，甚至互相排斥的美學風格與意識形態，融會在卡特與鄧恩的後現代 馬戲團小說中，使得她們筆下的馬戲團演變為一種「哥德式教堂」，但不是傳統 建築史意義上的哥德式教堂，而是哥德風的「暗黑系神祇」（“Gothick Gods of Darkness”）獲得崇拜的異端世俗教堂。在此，二十世紀晚期以來對於宗教傳統 的種種破壞或革新運動獲得隱喻性的表達。在卡特與鄧恩的馬戲團小說中，恐怖 與神聖互相衝擊，卻非彼此消解，反而互相詮釋，從而結合為獨特新穎的美學與 意涵：馬戲團既是畸人秀的恐怖舞台，也是創造神秘體驗的儀式祭壇，表演藝人 既是被剝削賤斥的社會邊緣人，卻又是承諾救贖恩典的大女神與救世主。於是， 通俗娛樂、宗教精神與哥德詩學幾個大異其趣的主題互相融會，在卡特與鄧恩的 書寫中鎔鑄為一種嶄新感性與原創性的文化表達，藉此馬戲團再現的文藝史添注 新意，複雜化我們對於宗教／神聖性的理解，也進一步延續與豐富了哥德美學 傳統。

This article discusses Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus and Catherine Dunn’s Geek Love, with particular emphases on their representation of the circus and the extraordinary body. Carter’s and Dunn’s renderings of the circus are intentionally double- faced: on the one hand, their circuses are highly Gothicized, characterized by grotesquery, monstrosity and subversion of normative aesthetic and moral values; on the other hand, their circuses abound in ritualistic spaces and acts, religious sentiments and mythic imageries. The two apparently contradicting sets of stylistic and ideological characteristics compounded, Carter and Dunn’s postmodern circus novels seem to fantasize about a new possibility of “Gothick church”; it is not comprehended in the traditional architectural sense of “gothic”, but rather in the sense that the circus serves as a profane church where the “Gothick Gods of Darkness” are worshiped and the late-twentieth-century revolutionized imaginations about transcendence are unleashed. Their fictions make sacredness and terror thoroughly blended and infiltrated into each other; the circus becomes the stage/altar for the rite of initiation into terrible truth to be “performed” (by the dubious freakish high priests as well as entertainers). In this manner, the several apparently distinct institutions—spectacle, religion and the Gothic genre—become merged, into one new kind of sensibility and cultural expression. Carter and Dunn transform the circus into the new form of “Gothick church,” refreshing the artistic representation of the circus culture, complicating our understanding of the meaning of religion/holiness and enriching contemporary Gothic writings.