Search

The early 15th-century riddle poem 'I have a Song suster' (poem No. 29 in MS Sloane 2593) is widely anthologized; however, relatively little has been written about it. What do [...]

Stories about despots involve, as any good chronicler will tell you, more than graphic scenes of murder and mayhem. Combining what Ngugi wa Thiong'o calls 'the tragic, the comic, and [...]

In the mid-fourteenth century, in southwest Yorkshire, England, a local sheriff, Sir John Eland, and a group of his men murdered Hugh Quermby and William Lockwood, two supporters of Sir [...]

Though James Joyce is best known as a writer of narrative fiction, his most explicit early articulations of his aesthetic celebrate drama as the superior genre. For Joyce, drama is [...]

'When John Marcher makes his initial attempt to pin down that 'something or other' (457) (1) awaiting him, he compares it metaphorically to a beast crouching in a jungle. The [...]

Many of Thomas Hoccleve's poetic texts explore the problem of the individual creating or maintaining relationships with others, and particularly an individual who has neither fortune, nor rank, nor patrons [...]

Katherine Mansfield's 'The Garden Party' exposes the economic disparities within the white colonial community of New Zealand in the early twentieth century. While the wealthy Sheridan family enjoys a garden [...]

Wright, Julia M. Representing the National Landscape in Irish Romanticism. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2014. 331 pages. Hardcover. $39.95. 'While the land that constitutes a nation undoubtedly plays a material and [...]

Talley, Sharon. Southern Women Novelists and the Civil War: Trauma and Collective Memory in the American Literary Tradition since 1861. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2014.Cloth. $74.00. Sharon Talley opens [...]

What good is telling a lie if everyone knows it's a lie? In Dickens's last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, Lady Tippins sits at the Veneerings' dinner table extolling the [...]

'God sent a poet to reform His earth' (1) The late Victorian poet Agnes Mary Frances Robinson (1857-1944) has recently been the focus of attention of scholars interested in reconstructing [...]

'With its famous emphasis on the problem of interpretation, The Scarlet Letter has often been seen, for better or worse, as a romantic and aestheticist attempt to transcend--or, depending on [...]

Chartier, Roger. The Author's Hand and the Printer's Mind. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014. Paperback. $24.95. Roger Chartier's new book, The Author's Hand and the Printer's [...]

Freedman, William. Joseph Conrad and the Anxiety of Knowledge. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2014. 176 pages. Hardcover. $49.95. Conrad's fiction has notoriously provoked curiosity and anxiety in his [...]

Margaret Harkness's In Darkest London (1889) offers readers a stunning account of urban poverty in London's East End at the end of the nineteenth century. The opening chapter introduces readers [...]

Probably the most famous ending in literature is the enigmatic conclusion of Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn': Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,--that is all Ye know on Earth, and [...]

Touya de Marenne, Eric. Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011. 194 pages. Hardcover $80.00. This anthology ambitiously brings together texts by francophone women writers from [...]

Cixous, Helene. Twists and Turns in the Heart's Antarctic. 2011. Trans. Beverly Bie Brahic. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. Paperback $19.95. Helene Cixous's new book, beautifully rendered in English by Beverly Bie [...]

More than one reviewer of Julian Barnes's Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sense of an Ending, noticed that its title is identical to that of a celebrated work of narrative theory [...]

'With a touch of good-humored self-deprecation, Nick Carraway acknowledges a degree of naivete in the outlook with which he begins his career as a bond-salesman: a set of newly purchased [...]

The article discusses the highlights of the online British Association for Victorian Studies Conference titled "Women and Humour in the Long Nineteenth Century" held from June 23 to 26, 2021. The keynote speech on feminist Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler was delivered by professor Margaret Stetz. Among the themes of the panel discussions and plenary lecture were women and the press, tradition and female slapstick. Also noted is a stand-up performance by Iszi Lawrence at the conference.

The article provides literary criticism to poems of Emily Dickinson and influence of poet R.W. Emerson on his writing. Topics discusses include exploration by feminist critics on social powerlessness in Dickinson's poetry, structure and distinctive language of Dickinson's poems, connection between Daoism, Chan Buddhism, and the works of both R.W. Emerson and Dickinson, Dickinson's exploration of cultivation, meditation, and spontaneous action.

The article analyzes the contemporary city symphony in the avant-garde films "Side/Walk/Shuttle," by Ernie Gehr and "Time Lines," by Runa Islam from the perspective of media archeology and cinéma trouvéve or readymade cinema. The origin of the term based on the idea of panoramic perception is discussed. It compares the elevator and cable car perspectives depicted in the films. The films are described as emphasizing the logic of panoramic view in modern data collection trends.

The article presents the highlights of the third annual Thomas Hardy Society Study Day held at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester, Dorset, England on April 13, 2019. Topics include Hardy's novel "Far from the Madding Crowd," the book's reputation as the 10th greatest love story of all time, and the gender role issues tackled by the novel. Attendees included Professors Paul Niemeyer and Trish Ferguson, and Carolina Elices.

The article offers information on the mixed Chinese images in John Steinbeck's novels such as Cannery Row (1945) and East of Eden (1952) which generate conflicting critical comments from scholars. Topics discussed include respective stances of morality, ethnicity, philosophy, politics or even personal preferences of Chinese images; the attributes of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism; and detailed comparison of ethnicity and cross-culture.

The article focuses on Japanese colonialism in Taiwan during the first half of the 20th century. It argues while the historiography of the colonial paradigm tends to assert the European powers as colonizing forces , the way power in occupied Taiwan impacted the lives and identities of Taiwanese people to recognize their colonizers' superiority and nevertheless to try to assimilate, creating a psychic trauma for characters negotiating their national and personal relations.

The article presents literary criticism on the book "The House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It outlines the characters and explores their symbolic significance. Topics include investigation of the three phases of Holgrave's, character of the book, perspective of social reform; examination of the inseparable relationship between Hawthorne's reformist impulse and historical consciousness; and also an overview of the story is given.

The article focuses on reading of an archival object with reflections on a postcard from Salvador Dalí to Stefan Zweig and turning to archival materials to lend support to often pre-established theories. It mentions "The Post Office Girl" from Stefan Zweig applied to such paraphernalia and also postulating a more integrated model of literary-historical study. It also mentions relationship between history and cultural production during the modern period.

The article analyzes the film "History of Violence" directed by David Cronenberg. Topics discussed include explosive violence appearing more Mafioso; conventional views of marriage and commitment; and the role of the masculinity in the society along with twin versions of manliness long familiar to the Western, though Cronenberg.

A literary criticism of the book "Mrs Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf is presented. It represents the character Septimus Smith in his post-war traumatized state, the character of Septimus symbolizing creative rebellion associated with stifling society, and his obsession with everyday phenomena and his emotional response to them.

A literary criticism of the book "Things as They Are; Or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams" by William Godwin is presented. It represents the fictitious character Caleb Williams' political reflection , Clarissa's problems associated with asymmetrical power and intimate relationship, and Caleb's relationship with Falkland being described in sexual terms.

The article focuses on translingualism of author Francesca Marciano, in which she writes in more than one language or an adopted language. Topics discussed include imperialism and immigration being the motives for literary translingualism, references to transcultural writers who have less in common with translinguals and excerpts from novels by Francesca.

The article focuses on the poetry of Irish Poet W. B. Yeats in Alice McDermott's book "Charming Billy." Topics discussed include relation between Yeat's poetry and the character Billy's life, truth of Billy's life and charges of life lived in fancy, in alcohol and Yeats and embellished memory that has affected many Irish Americans.

The article focuses on the subject erotic discussed in the novel "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte. Topics discussed include resemblance between the events in lives of Jane and Charlotte with reference to Jane's novel "Disciplining Jane", criticism of Charlotte's writing and interpretation of erotic ideology and use of theoretical framework of sadomasochism to conceptualize eroticized power dynamics.

A literary criticism is presented on the Irish author Nahum Tate's play adaptations "The Ingratitude of a Common-Wealth; Or, the Fall of Caius Martius Coriolanus" and "History of King Lear." The plays' adaptations from the dramatic works of playwright William Shakespeare are discussed. Tate's use of the human body as metaphors for British national identity and politics is discussed.

A literary criticism is presented on the 1832 short story "My Kinsman Major Molineux," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the 1979 book "The Ghost Writer," by Philip Roth and the "Diary of a Young Girl," by Anne Frank. The literary works' depiction of a desire for independence, freedom and personal autonomy is discussed.

The article discusses the friendship between German authors Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller during the late 18th century, including Schiller's impact on Goethe's understanding of science and nature. The article references letters and correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, including Schiller's comments on the similarity between Goethe's consciousness and that of an ancient Greek.

The article presents criticism on the book "The Beast in the Jungle," by Henry James. Particular focus is given to the story's protagonist, John Marcher, and to the tiger metaphor in the book, which the author believes relates to British imperialist culture. Additional topics discussed include the British Empire in the 19th century, James' apocalyptic prophecies for the British Empire and imperialism in the U.S. during the late 19th-century.