外国语言与文化

On the Literariness and Literary Aesthetic Practice in the Post-theory Era

Mingjian Zha    003-013

Column：Topics in Literary Aesthetics

Abstract：Contemporary theories have deconstructed the concepts of literature and literariness, as well as the conventional aesthetic values and criticism associated with them, leading literary studies toward cultural studies. While these theories employed in cultural studies reject the idea of a fixed essence in literature, dismiss traditional aesthetics, and broaden the conceptions of literature and literariness, they also introduce new ways to deepen our understanding of literariness and challenge established aesthetic perspectives. In the “post-theory” era, new formalism emphasizes not only traditional aesthetic forms but also the socio-historical contexts that shape them, aiming to integrate both aspects. ...

The Reaffirmation of the Literature's Aesthetic Value by the Aesthetic Turn in the Western Literary Theory

Chi Zhang    014-025

Column：Topics in Literary Aesthetics

Abstract：In the 20th century, Western literary theory flourished, but the “literariness” advocated by formalism was not widely valued. Since the rise of structuralism in the 1960s, many schools have not studied the aesthetic value of literary works. Harold Bloom has almost single-handedly defended the aesthetic value of literature. The aesthetic turn of literary studies is not only a reconstruction of aesthetic criticism, but also a reaffirmation of the aesthetic value of literature.

"In the Wheel and Grind of the Days": Topophilia in A Scots Quair

Qiang Hu    026-035

Column：Research on Writers and Their Works

Abstract：As a representative figure of the Scottish Renaissance, Lewis Grassic Gibbon holds significant intellectual value for understanding Scotland's history. A Scots Quair presents the characters' burden of historical pressure with a profound sense of history, depicting a unique survival experience and emotional im...

The Dialogue between "Spirit" and "Flesh": A Probe into the Relationship between Mother and Daughter in L'Ingratitude from the Perspective of Unnatural Narrative

Qi Feng    036-047

Column：Research on Writers and Their Works

Abstract：Ying Chen, a Chinese-Canadian female writer in french, fictionalizes in her novel L’ingratitude the story of a rebellious daughter, Yanzi, who challenges institutionalized motherhood and intends to deconstruct patriarchal centralism with her “matricide” behavior. Ying Chen constructs an unnatural story world where the boundary between life and death is blurred. Yanzi’s death and the separation of spirit and flesh not only make the dying ghost become the participant and promoter of the story waiting for Yama’s transport to get a “new life”, but also become ...

On "Desiring Machines" in Blood Meridian

Xiaoping Zhang, Ying Cheng    048-060

Column：Research on Writers and Their Works

Abstract：Violence in McCarthy's novel, Blood Meridian is not only criticized by academia but also a difficult point to study. The application of the concept of Deleuze and Guattari’s “desiring machines” to explore the causes of “blood” or violence with the consideration of historical and social context of the United States as well as Ameri...

Writing Back to the Empire and Re-mapping World Literature: A Study of Midnight’s Children of Salman Rushdie

Peilin Wang, Jianchong Nan    061-072

Column：Research on Writers and Their Works

Abstract：Title: Writing Back to the Empire and Re-mapping World Literature: A Study of Midnight’s Children of Salman RushdieAbstract: The Indo-Anglian writer Salman Rushdie and the British writer E.M. Forster have both written about an Indian Muslim Dr Aziz. Such a coincidence deserves attention from literature, politics and culture. On the one hand, the similarity between the two Azizes forms intertex...

The (Anti-) Witch Hunt Campaigns and the Debates between Power, Morality and Knowledge in The Groves of Academe

Yanfang Song    073-083

Column：Cultural Studies

Abstract：Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe is set in a fictional university campus in Pennsylvania in the early 1950s. Through the story of a lecturer who engages in a power struggle to keep his job, it allegorically reflects the “witch hunt” actions and their impact under McCarthyism at the time. The protagonist disguises himself as prey to McCarthyism on the university campus to gain power by carrying out a so called “anti-witch hunt” campaign, disregarding moral conscience and abusing knowledge in the process. This behavior not only reflects the ...

The Historical Writing and Founding Myth of Early Brandenburg-Prussia in Michael Kohlhaas

Yue Zeng    084-094

Column：Cultural Studies

Abstract：Title: The Historical Writing and Founding Myth of Early Brandenburg-Prussia in Michael KohlhaasAbstract: Kleist’s novel Michael Kohlhaas narrates superficially a story about resisting tyranny and pursuing justice. However, from the perspective of covert progression, it is actually writing a splendid Brandenburg-Prussian dynastic history from the side with a hidden method. The novel takes the ...

Politics in Early Greece in the Odyssey

Xiaoyu Zhang    095-106

Column：Cultural Studies

Abstract：Homer's Odyssey, one of the earliest surviving epic poems of ancient Greece, depicts the social and political landscape of Ithaca in vivid detail. Many scholars view Ithaca as a monarchical society with established kingship and statehood. According to the epic materials, the assertion that the state and kingship were fully present in Itha...

City Map, Space, Imagination: The Construction of the Image of Peking in French Archives

Jing Zhou, Yuanbo Chen    107-121

Column：Cultural Studies

Abstract：The map of Peking records and expresses changes of Peking’s urban form from a macroscopic point of view, and is an important representation of the city’s spatial evolution. From the travelogues and letters of French Jesuits in the 17th and 18th centuries to the Peking-based French novels of the 20th century, , the writers wrote and drew a map of the city of Peking according to the diversity of texts, them constructed a literary space for the image of Peking. From individual memories of aesthetic scrutiny to collective memories of shared descriptions, the ...

A Visual Analysis of the Articles on Language and Literature in the International Community of Digital Humanities (2010-2023)

Biao Liang    122-137

Column：Studies of Digital Humanities

Abstract：This paper employs bibliometric method and utilizes CiteSpace 6.2.4 to conduct a visual analysis of the WOS indexed data of 1,128 articles on language and literature in the international community of “Digital Humanities” from 2010 to 2023. The results indicate that the annual publication volume in this field shows an overall increasing trend. The prolific authors, institutions, and countries (regions) are predominantly from Europe and North America, with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration. The hot research topics are concentrated in four ...

Trends and Future Directions in Literary Geography: A Critical Review of The Routledge Handbook of Literary Geographies

Ying Liu    138-149

Column：Book Review

Abstract：The Routledge Handbook of Literary Geographies (2024) focuses on the latest trends in literary geography and anticipates future directions in the field. This is primarily reflected in the following three aspects. First, the Handbook explores new critical methods such as “relational literary geography” and “literary geography in the Anthropocene”. Relational literary geography studies the permeation and interaction between spaces in and out of literature under the framework of “relational geography” and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Literary geography in the Anthropocene probes how to integrate literary geography with eco-criticism within the context of the Anthropocene. Second, the Handbook ...

Illuminating the Contemporary: An Interview with Professor Zhang Zhongzai on His Study and Teaching of British Literature

Kaiwei Xia    150-156

Column：Lushan Bitan

Abstract：Illuminating the Contemporary: An Interview with Professor Zhang Zhongzai on His Study and Teaching of British Literature

Pamela or Shamela: The Textual Performance in Pamela

Jin Tian    001-010

Column：Reinterpretation of Classic Texts

Abstract：The paradox between Pamela and Shamela, as a classic issue, had given impetus to fervent criticism upon the Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela. Based on the performative theory of literature and following the interactive relationship between text and reader, this paper tries to explore the competing performative process and eff...

A Secret Revival: On the Platonic Tradition in Edgar Allan Poe's Eureka and His Aesthetic Thoughts

Lilin Chen    011-021

Column：Reinterpretation of Classic Texts

Abstract：As a representative of American romanticism, Edgar Allan Poe’s aesthetics has won him widespread praise as a genius, but what is barely known is that Poe’s aesthetics originated from the ancient Platonic tradition. Poe’s cosmological essay Eureka is the key to revealing the interconnection between him and the Platonic tradition. Since modern times, from Platonism there emerged two separated paths of rationalism and irrationalism. Poe’s aesthetic career is a process in which both paths coexist and the romantic surpasses the scientific. Eureka continues ...

Uncertain Sound: On the Writing of Sound in Kleist’s Tale “Das Bettelweib von Locarno”

Juexu Chen    022-031

Column：Reinterpretation of Classic Texts

Abstract：This paper examines the representation of sound in Heinrich von Kleist’s Novelle “The Beggar Woman of Locarno,” a work by the prominent German author around the year 1800, and explores the paradoxical experiences and the questioning of reality contained in the Novelle. The inexplicable recurrence of sounds in the Novelle seemingly embodies the will of the old woman, enacting a successful act of revenge on the Marquis. However, this sound, oscillating between clarity and ambiguity, reality and illusion, reflects a chaotic unpredictable world of ...

Cash Nexus and Sympathetic Love: Community Imagination in North and South

Weiqi Yi, Quan Yang    032-042

Column：Community in Literature

Abstract：North and South is a novel that describes the conditions of industrial society in the Victorian era and demonstrates the important role of sympathetic love in Elizabeth Gaskell’s community imagination. In the 19th century, Britain's industrialization and urbanization accelerated, and social transformation led to changes in the structure of feelings. The quiet and leisurely feelings of rural life in the past faded away, while cash nexus gradually became the commonsense of community members. As a result, the contradiction between labor and capital has ...

Imagination of Ecocommunity: Literary Cartography in The Conservationist

Yongling Zhu    043-053

Column：Community in Literature

Abstract：Nadine Gordimer engages in literary cartography to explore the relation between human and ecological holism in The Conservationist, mapping South African farm space, transportation network, and ecocommunity to delve into the roots of ecological crisis and potential solutions. By mapping the farm space, the ...

The First Person Narrative and Modern Self-shaping in Mori Ogai's The Dancing Girl

Liliang Lan    054-065

Column：Narrative and Identity Construction

Abstract：Mori Ogai's The Dancing Girl tells the story of a modern individual's self-awareness, self loss, and eventual return to the national system through the sentimental first person narrative. In terms of narrative, the love confession narrative in the novel is seen as a discourse behavior originating from the awakening of modern individual spirit, expressing an implicit criticism of the state ideology that suppresses individual subjectivity. In terms of character portrayal and spatial setting, the novel utilizes a character akin to trickster or clown and a contrasting ...

Write Back to the Myth of "the White Man's West": Passing into the West in How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Wenting Liang    066-076

Column：Narrative and Identity Construction

Abstract：How Much of These Hills Is Gold, the debut novel by Chinese American female author C. Pam Zhang, is characterized by its haunting new-century vision of the American West. It brings new faces from a Chinese American family to the myth of the American West, a native gold miner, a Chinese fisherwoman and their orphaned girls, focusing on the family’s multiple and intersected types of passing, and featuring an ambivalence to settler colonialism and indigeneity in native or migrant diasporas of the west. This enables the novel to break the limitation ...