外国语言与文化

Narrative Tension and Woman Liberation in July, July

Fangmu Li    002-011

Column：Studies and Chronicles in 21st-Century English Literature

Abstract：The contemporary American novelist Tim O’Brien’s novel July, July features a powerful narrative tension and insightful thematic meaning, well beyond the one-dimensional convention of Vietnam War novels. Combined with the title, the narrative structure builds itself upon an interaction between the present and past, with a cla...

From Fragmented Self to Self-Making: Colonial Memory and Identity Awareness in Anglophone-Caribbean Women’s Fictionalized Autobiographies

Xuefeng Zhang    012-022

Column：Studies and Chronicles in 21st-Century English Literature

Abstract：The narrative form of fictionalized autobiography empowers Anglophone-Caribbean women writers to assert themselves as speaking subjects, telling their lived experiences and colonial memories while articulating their discursive voices. This study examines representative fictional autobiographies by Anglophone-Caribbean women during colonial and postcolonial periods to uncover their colonial memories, explore their living conditions and psychological states, and illuminate the evolution of their identity.

A Cosmopolitan Writing of Irishness: On the Tactics in Colm Tóibín's Cultural Adaptation of the Classical Myths

Yukun Liu    023-036

Column：Studies and Chronicles in 21st-Century English Literature

Abstract：Colm Tóibín’s literary works mainly focus on fictional narratives set in specific spatio-temporal contexts. However, the publication of The Testament of Mary and House of Names demonstrates a major shift in both his writing paradigm and cultural tactics. Both works reflect the cosmopolitan Irish writer’s in-depth contemplation of the past, present, and future of Ireland and human society, while engaging with classical traditions in Western civilization. From the theoretical perspective of adaptation, this article aims to analyze how Tóibín engages in a personal dialogue with the classical world and how these myths represent contemporary concerns ...

Alternative Flavors: Culinary Writing and Citizenship Transformation in Mãn

Lu Yu    037-047

Column：Studies and Chronicles in 21st-Century English Literature

Abstract：Vietnamese-Canadian writer Kim Thúy’s Mãn uses cooking and cuisine as a lens to subvert the traditional trauma-focused narrative of refugee literature. The novel reveals how culinary practices serve as a driving force and intrinsic mechanism for refugee transformation. Rather than merely reproducing diasporic culinary culture, Kim Thúy delves into the intricate interplay of Vietnamese identity, cultural fusion, and colonial history underlying these practices. By moving from the material memory to cultural synthesis, the author constructs a “culinary citizenship” within a historical framework,...

A Study on the New Trends in 21st-Century British Narrative Nonfiction

Anran Zhang    059-068

Column：Studies and Chronicles in 21st-Century English Literature

Abstract：In the 21st century, Narrative Nonfiction has gradually emerged as a significant literary phenomenon in British. As an independent literary genre, Narrative Nonfiction inherits from the realist tradition of British literature and makes innovations. It is characterized by two core features: “authenticity” an...

Hermann Hesse on World Literature and National Literature

Jian Ma    069-078

Column：German Literature Studies

Abstract：From the standpoint that world literature is a combination of diversity and commonality, Hermann Hesse has launched a deep thinking about world literature. On the one hand, he agrees that Germany should absorb the excellent achievements of foreign literature; on the other hand, he also firmly opposes the blindness of tran...

The Writing and Interpretation of the Chinese Revolution in German Political Theater: Tai Yang erwacht as an Example

Jiayuan Lu, Bo Wang    079-088

Column：German Literature Studies

Abstract：At the beginning of the 1930s, the struggle between the left and right forces in Germany entered a heated stage. Against this background, Piscator, the originator of the German “political theater”, brought the play Tai Yang erwacht, which depicted the revolutionary movement of the workers in Shanghai during the Northern Expedition War in China, onto the German stage, and the tenacious and unyielding spirit of the Chinese working class became a weapon for the German Communist Party’s political propaganda. From the conception of the play to the performance, the issue of cross-cultural representation of ...

Ethnic Choice and Moral Growth in "The Spanish Gypsy"

Zitian Ding    089-104

Column：British Literature Studies

Abstract："The Spanish Gypsy" has never received sufficient attention from the academic community. By examining George Eliot's notebook and travel diaries, it is revealed that Eliot artistically processes the Gypsies from two dimensions: literature reading and real-life experiences. This demonstrates that Eliot responds to the common views of 19th-century historical community through literary reshaping of the Gypsy people, further highlighting the ethical consciousness of personal happiness obeying the national cause. Combining the extensive discussion on ethnic issues in 19th-century Britain and Eliot's own ideological background, ...

From Natura per se to Subjective Nature: William Wordsworth’s Conception of Nature and Poetical Presentations through the Notion of Knowing as a Clue

Wei Wang, Meng Pan    105-114

Column：British Literature Studies

Abstract：This article focuses on William Wordsworth’s conception of nature as the subject-matter of study. In terms of relation, Wordsworth’s notion of knowing serves as the basis for his conception of nature, and nature is integrated as the major objective for knowing, existing as an essential part of it. In terms of connotation, nature in Wordsworth’s conception not only possesses natural attributes, but also exhibits a distinct and strong subjectivity, serving as the embodiment of human passions. In the poetical works of Wordsworth, the conception of nature is richly represented. To summarize, Wordsworth’s conception of nature is born out of the empiricist tradition of British philosophy, and serves as a concise expression of certain Romantic literary ideas.

The Construction of Female Subjectivity: Psychiatry and Educational Space in Villette

Jingbo Zhang, Xuemeng Wang    115-124

Column：British Literature Studies

Abstract：With the development of psychiatry and the accumulation of “madness” culture, mental illness has shifted from being a physical issue to a moral one. In the “increasingly refined” Victorian society, marginalized groups who deviated from social norms were morally condemned and branded as “mad.” Mental illness also became a “feminized” condition. Victorian women, constrained by domestic life, became detached from society with the home becoming their safe space, while the social sphere turned into a physical and psychological forbidden zone. The disease and spatial writings in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette intend to ...

The Construction of an Ideal Social Order: A Study on the Chivalry in Simms's Vasconselos

Jiexin Yi, Liangdie Huang    125-135

Column：American Literature Studies

Abstract：The representation of chivalry in Vasconselos by American Southern writer William Gilmore Simms, out of the cultural heritage of Middle Ages and the indigenous culture of the United States, boasts strong realistic allusions. The protagonist Philip Vasconselos’s choice of justice rather than loyalty as chivalric virtues alludes to the stance of the American South holding fast to slavery at the price of secession. His pursuit of love and home instead of expedition and treasure-hunting as chivalric paradigms gives prominence to the positive role of family in counteracting the negative influences of expansionism on society....

The "Deviating" Innovations in Poetics of Russell Atkins's Poetry-Dramas

Xiuxia Chen    136-147

Column：American Literature Studies

Abstract：Russell Atkins is an African American postmodern avant-garde poet renowned for his dedication to breaking with tradition and innovating in poetics. His poetry-dramas exemplify his “deviating” poetics. Atkins crafts his poetry-dramas in “music-form,” employs innovative gothic narration to subtly convey his rebellion against racism, and creates the interdisciplinary theory of Psychovisualism, which he applies to his poetry-dramas writing. His work represents an experiment in postmodern avant-garde poetics, an interdisciplinary aesthetic construction, and most significantly, a challenge to the hegemony of western white culture and a new attempt at formulating language rules by an African American writer.

A Dedicated Trailblazer in the Literary World: An Interview with Professor Wang Jiaxiang on Her Study, Translation, and Teaching

Yiwen Wen    148-156

Column：Lushan Bitan

Abstract：An Interview with Professor Wang Jiaxiang on Her Study, Translation, and Teaching

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 ...