Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Literature in English, British Isles Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (3)
- Women's Studies (3)
- Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory (2)
- Literature in English, North America (2)
- Theatre and Performance Studies (2)
-
- American Film Studies (1)
- American Literature (1)
- American Studies (1)
- Catholic Studies (1)
- Classics (1)
- Comparative Literature (1)
- European Languages and Societies (1)
- Film and Media Studies (1)
- French and Francophone Language and Literature (1)
- French and Francophone Literature (1)
- History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology (1)
- Other Classics (1)
- Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (1)
- Other Film and Media Studies (1)
- Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies (1)
- Religion (1)
- Russian Literature (1)
- Scandinavian Studies (1)
- Slavic Languages and Societies (1)
- Theory and Criticism (1)
- Keyword
-
- Modernism (27)
- Mssp (22)
- Feminism (8)
- Shakespeare (8)
- Wwi (5)
-
- Gender (3)
- Hamlet (3)
- World war i (3)
- Coppard (2)
- Death (2)
- England (2)
- H.m. tomlinson (2)
- Modernist (2)
- Morality (2)
- Murder (2)
- Occult (2)
- Postwar (2)
- Romanticism (2)
- Tomlinson (2)
- War (2)
- Woolf (2)
- A Modest Proposal (1)
- A day in the potter's life (1)
- A. e. coppard (1)
- A.E. Coppard (1)
- Action (1)
- Adaptation (1)
- Adolescents (1)
- Adventure on a train (1)
- Aesthetics (1)
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 30 of 51
Full-Text Articles in Literature in English, British Isles
Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy
Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
William Blake is an exemplar of Romantic poetry characterized by depictions of the occult, the divine, and human nature. Despite Blake’s reputation as a Romantic poet, many critics claim that there is not sufficient evidence to consider him a nature writer. As a result, Blake’s name is frequently omitted from ecological discussions; some scholars go so far as to claim that Blake’s poetry demonstrates a disregard for nature altogether. This article argues that an eco-critical analysis of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience reveals nature to be Blake’s continual source of inspiration. Within this collection, nature represents the struggles …
“Creating And Maintaining Black Life-Worlds”: The Black Aesthetics Of Bernardine Evaristo’S Blonde Roots And Girl, Woman, Other, Sharanya Dg
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Black Aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into the objects and practices of expressions coming from people who have been racialized as black. These expressive practices then lend to the creation of the life-worlds of people subjected to racist discourses. One such author in the contemporary English society, Bernadine Evaristo, responds to anti-black racist discourses by exploring the cultural plurality of British black life-worlds. This paper is a textual and formal analysis of two experimental novels of Evaristo to study how they distinctly present the quotidian lives of various characters in their racialised bodies to reflect on the sociocultural and political …
Beyond "His Native Town": Travel And Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Erin G. Quinn
Beyond "His Native Town": Travel And Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Erin G. Quinn
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein features a surprisingly extensive variety of locations through which Victor Frankenstein travels, ranging from the vibrant cities of London and Oxford to the isolated Orkney islands and Arctic lands. Scholars have analyzed the roles which some of these settings, namely, the Alps and the Arctic, play in the novel, and many have noted the importance of travel to the text. However, little scholarship exists assessing how Victor’s travels as a whole impact him, as well as their collective purpose within the story. Given the prominence of travel in Shelley’s text, as well as the fact …
Shakespeare’S Prince Of Denmark: Political Pandering In Hamlet, Moriah Theriault
Shakespeare’S Prince Of Denmark: Political Pandering In Hamlet, Moriah Theriault
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Shakespeare's Hamlet contains frequent cultural ties and insights into Danish tradition that depict intentional effort to represent Danish culture. These accuracies can be seen in the description of the castle in Elsinore, the deep-seated conflicts between Christian forgiveness and revenge, and the traditional cannon salutes featured in Hamlet. Shakespeare created these connections to Danish culture for a political maneuver to win the favor of King James and his wife, the Royal Queen Anne of Denmark.
Exploring The Matriarchal Past To Forge A Modern Identity: Maternal Origins In Woolf And Ihimaera, Kirsten W. Burningham
Exploring The Matriarchal Past To Forge A Modern Identity: Maternal Origins In Woolf And Ihimaera, Kirsten W. Burningham
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Though the writings of Virginia Woolf and Witi Ihimaera are “incommensurable” in many ways, I find “commesurablilities”––the kind of commensurabilities the Susan Stanford Friedman seeks out across the planetary landscape of modernism––in the way they negotiate a new creative identity in a modern environment with the bang clash of history and present ringing in their ears. I see this commensurability in at least three key features: 1) Woolf and Ihimaera each gave birth to new literary movements: Woolf was mother to high British Modernism with experimental techniques such as free indirect discourse and the relegation of plot to the background; …
Henrietta Maria: Royalist Women’S Representations Of The French Catholic Queen, Kim Hansen
Henrietta Maria: Royalist Women’S Representations Of The French Catholic Queen, Kim Hansen
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
By the mid-15th century, the royal marriage of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria incited enough conflict to spark civil war, as the English struggled to reconcile between the long-established image of female English domesticity and a pervasive cultural expectation for equality between marriage partners. Any form of equality in the royal marriage called the absolute power of the king into question, as it would imply that his actions had included her direct involvement, and even at times were more representative of her, not his, views. Letters captured at the Battle of Naseby confirmed fears that the queen …
To Put Her In Her Place: An Interrogation Of Death And Gender In Shakespearean Tragedy, Isabella A. Zentner
To Put Her In Her Place: An Interrogation Of Death And Gender In Shakespearean Tragedy, Isabella A. Zentner
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
This analysis investigates the gendered implications of Shakespearean heroines' deaths. Using Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus as case studies, evidence is drawn from the text. This evidence is then supported by extensive historical research and reference to external critical studies of these tragedies. By identifying the gendered aspects of these heroines’ deaths, one can gain a greater understanding of Shakespeare’s view of female autonomy and power. The deaths Shakespeare inflicts often act as a punishment for the heroines' betrayal of traditional gender roles and forcibly return the heroines to the feminine sphere.
“What We Ought To Say”: Debating The Morality Of Dishonesty And Equivocation In King Lear, Markelle Jensen
“What We Ought To Say”: Debating The Morality Of Dishonesty And Equivocation In King Lear, Markelle Jensen
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
King Lear does not reveal the nature of honesty but provides a stage on which the morality of honesty can be debated. The play questions whether honesty is inherently moral at all, or if there are ways in which honesty can be considered harmful and even immoral. Other scholars have noted this as well in characters such as Edgar and Kent, but missing from the critical conversation are the ways in which Cordelia is the pillar of moral goodness in the play, and how her own paradoxical honesty and dishonesty were what enabled Lear to “see better” and ultimately, to …
Intertextuality, Aesthetics, And The Digital: Rediscovering Chekhov In Early British Modernism, Sam Jacob
Intertextuality, Aesthetics, And The Digital: Rediscovering Chekhov In Early British Modernism, Sam Jacob
Modernist Short Story Project
Mark Halliday’s poem, “Chekhov,” published in 1992, raises a simple yet profound question regarding the Russian playwright and author, Anton Chekhov: What do we get from Chekhov? Considering the present article’s particular focus, Halliday’s query may be used to ask how Chekhov influenced early modernist writers (circa 1900-1930) from the British literary context. However, when considering the amount of scholarly work devoted to this question, the initial simplicity of Halliday’s inquiry evaporates, giving way to a breadth of complexity, nuance, and ambiguity. Such ambiguity has led scholars attempting to trace the intertextual convergence between Chekhov and the early modernist writers …
Folklore-In-The-Making: Analyzing Shakespeare's The Tempest And Adaptations As Folklore, Heather Talbot
Folklore-In-The-Making: Analyzing Shakespeare's The Tempest And Adaptations As Folklore, Heather Talbot
Student Works
This paper explores the similarities between folklore and Shakespeare's play,The Tempest. Not only is The Tempest an example of a folkloric story, this paper looks at how this play calls to attention the importance of story and the need for story to adapt in order to survive. Folklore is an oral tradition that is living, or continually adapting. Shakespeare's plays, while written are also performances which can be adapted through interpretations and by adapting to new genres. It is this adaptability which allows Shakespeare's works to continue to thrive and it is this adaptability which will determine how …
Music, Shakespeare, And Redefined Catharsis, Megan Jae Hatt
Music, Shakespeare, And Redefined Catharsis, Megan Jae Hatt
Student Works
The definition of catharsis has changed since the time of Aristotle. A person does not only experience catharsis out of pity or fear from theatric tragedies; they also experience it through laughter, love, and simply immersing themselves into the emotions presented by different forms of media. This essay reviews the catharsis one can experience through contemporary music and Shakespeare as they become submersed in the emotions and spectacle of each respective media. In this essay, I compare and contrast contemporary music and Shakespeare text and performance in order to relate them to this new definition of catharsis by including different …
Children As The Power Of Shakespeare, Samantha Rowley
Children As The Power Of Shakespeare, Samantha Rowley
Student Works
An dive into how children are used in Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. While there has been some extensive research on numerous of Shakespeare’s minor characters, some of his other characters, the minors, have been focused on less. Because they fly under the radar, Shakespeare uses these “minor” characters in order to subtly manipulate his audience, using them as a source of pathos in much the same way adults use children to manipulate audiences while silencing the actual opinions of the children they claim to represent. However, though he may often use children for this effect due to their fragility, Shakespeare …
The Divinity That Shapes Our Ends: Theological Conundrums And Religious Scepticism In Hamlet, Kyler Merrill
The Divinity That Shapes Our Ends: Theological Conundrums And Religious Scepticism In Hamlet, Kyler Merrill
Student Works
This paper proposes that Shakespeare deliberately incorporated speculative theology into Hamlet to stimulate religious scepticism. It explores the troubling implications of the ghost’s behaviour, cinematic adaptations of the murder testimony, and the characters’ moral failings in the purportedly Catholic cosmos of Elsinore.
Understanding Proust, Rio Turnbull
Understanding Proust, Rio Turnbull
Modernist Short Story Project
French author Marcel Proust was at the forefront of exploring the literary device “stream of consciousness” as its usage began to rise in the early 1900s. He seemed particularly interested in using “stream of consciousness” to delve into memory. What may be the most articulate statement of Proust about his philosophy of memory, according to O’Brien, is as follows: “Yes, if memory, thanks to oblivion, could not contract any link, throw any chain between it and the present minute, if it stayed in its place, on its date, if it kept its distance, its isolation in the hollow of a …
Francis Gregg And Horror Feminism, Sarah Jensen
Francis Gregg And Horror Feminism, Sarah Jensen
Modernist Short Story Project
For centuries, humankind has been fascinated with horror. From the cruel arenas where gladiators fought to the death in Ancient Rome, to todays Halloween blockbusters, there is no short history for a genre that can creep into any particular story, with just a few ingredients. I believe that horror captures attention through the storytelling mode of relatability. Horror asks of its readers and viewers “what would you do?” Horror is inherently scary because it triggers human empathy and fear for the characters. Experiencing a horror movie or listening to a true crime podcast today can be a validating experience as …
Modernism In Postwar Times: Life Through The Short Story, Daniel Sowards
Modernism In Postwar Times: Life Through The Short Story, Daniel Sowards
Modernist Short Story Project
“The Mole” by Gerald Bullett, is a literary text that comments on postwar life and events that are ahead of its time. It was published in the British periodical, The London Mercury, in May of 1923 and was written post WWI in a time when literature was still reflecting the effects of the war. During the short story “The Mole,” there are many connections surrounding the Gubbins’ and war. In Voyant, where the mole is mentioned, Mrs. Gubbins is also mentioned. This reveals that Mr. and Mrs. Gubbins’ marriage is a war and her mole is a constant reminder …
Grief And Color In A. E. Coppard’S “The Princess Of Kingdom Gone”, Sydney Sterrett
Grief And Color In A. E. Coppard’S “The Princess Of Kingdom Gone”, Sydney Sterrett
Modernist Short Story Project
Only about a year after the horrors of World War I, England was doing its best to reestablish itself as a seat of cultural and artistic value. Many journals and magazines ran new poetry and stories that were meant to relive war time or move on from it, but nearly everything seemed to be colored by the sights that the surviving young men had seen in the trenches. In November of 1919, A. E. Coppard published a short story in the Voices of Poetry and Prose magazine—a magazine that was meant to help readers recover from the war through new, …
Apples And Orchards, Exteriority And Interiority: An Examination Of The Agency Of Objects In “In The Orchard”, Natalia Green
Apples And Orchards, Exteriority And Interiority: An Examination Of The Agency Of Objects In “In The Orchard”, Natalia Green
Modernist Short Story Project
“In the Orchard” is a short story written by Virginia Woolf and published in the Criterion in April 1923. The Criterion was a journal that focused on publishing high-brow literature; it contained works from authors such as T.S. Eliot (who also edited the journal), George Saintsbury, and, of course, Virginia Woolf. Eliot created the Criterion with the purpose of publishing writing that contained the unconventional practices seen in modernist writing. Banerjee notes this motive when he states, “He [Eliot] also believed that it was through the journalistic channel that he could promote the kind of revolutionary poetry that he and …
All Is Fair In Love In “War”, Sabrina Thomas
All Is Fair In Love In “War”, Sabrina Thomas
Modernist Short Story Project
Love has always been a complicated concept. The battlefield of love is difficult, and heartbreaking to navigate. Members of the Bloomsbury Circle in the 1900s would have felt the complications that come along with love. The Bloomsbury Circle was a literary group known for its promiscuity along with some of its well-known members such as Virginia Woolf (Shone). Mary Hutchinson was an honorary part of the Bloomsbury Circle and entered into an affair with Clive Bell (Beechey). Her short story “War,” published in a 1917 edition of The Egoist follows a woman named Jane who is taking part in an …
Individual Femininity And The Modernist Epiphany, Megan Davies
Individual Femininity And The Modernist Epiphany, Megan Davies
Modernist Short Story Project
The 20th century author Frank Swinnerton was well respected for writing “excellent, credible stories about contemporary people, usually living in or near London, [people who were] intelligent and aware of the times they were living in but concerned above all with their relationships as friends, enemies, lovers, or rivals in love” (Times). Despite Swinnerton’s relative renown, his biographies do not mention that he wrote short stories, so the discovery of his short stories in at least two 20th century periodicals, The Open Window and Rhythm, sheds light on a largely ignored aspect of the author’s …
Middle Class Anxiety In “Wang-Ho And The Burial Robe”, Malcolm Lamb
Middle Class Anxiety In “Wang-Ho And The Burial Robe”, Malcolm Lamb
Modernist Short Story Project
“Wang-Ho and the Burial Robe” was published by The London Mercury in 1918 and would later be included as the seventh story in Ernest Bramah’s 1922 fantasy anthology, Kai Lung’s Golden Hours. Though published in a well-respected journal alongside the likes of Virginia Woolf and Siegfried Sassoon, “Wang-Ho and the Burial Robe” has little in common with the modernist trends of the early twentieth century. The story features no stream of consciousness, experimentation in new styles, epiphany, commentary on sexuality or gender, evocative imagery, reference to the Great War, or religious symbolism. In fact, it seems safe to suppose that …
Predicting The Future For A Victorian World: A Digital Exploration Of “Domestic Studies In The Year 2000 A.D.”, Kimberly Plater
Predicting The Future For A Victorian World: A Digital Exploration Of “Domestic Studies In The Year 2000 A.D.”, Kimberly Plater
Modernist Short Story Project
While “Domestic Studies in the Year 2000 A. D.” may be E. S. P. Haynes’s only piece of fiction, it captures two of his main ideologies in two very short stories. The stories adopt a dystopian view toward the future, looking ahead 87 years with two scenarios depicting average life in the year 2000. Both stories tackle decidedly controversial topics for the early twentieth century: individual freedoms and gender roles. The story found an appropriate home in the progressive periodical The New Freewoman, which heavily promoted the advancement of women, taking progressive stances on equality and feminism. Part one …
Hg Wells’ Anticipations : More “Perishable” Feminism, Kacey Sorenson
Hg Wells’ Anticipations : More “Perishable” Feminism, Kacey Sorenson
Modernist Short Story Project
In researching H.G. Wells’ evolving views on eugenics, race, anti-Semitism, and women, there was a noticeable absence of scholars referring to his last chapter of Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought. Regardless of why it has been overlooked, the aim of this study is to use the last chapter of Anticipations specifically to emphasize and confirm what feminist scholars have extracted as Wells’ view of women: what he proudly owned as feminism was dismissed by his contemporaries as “very perishable” (Kirchwey 308).
Finding A Foreign Home In Katherine Mansfield’S “The Daughters Of The Late Colonel”, Sam Jacob
Finding A Foreign Home In Katherine Mansfield’S “The Daughters Of The Late Colonel”, Sam Jacob
Modernist Short Story Project
The latter end of Katherine Mansfield’s life (1915-1923), a time considered by many to be the most fruitful years of her career, also marked a period of self-examination and introspection for the author. Much of this self-reflection focused on Mansfield’s long-standing frustration with her New Zealand heritage—which she had abandoned in favor of a bohemian life of writing and creativity—with an emerging desire for a more traditional sense of home and domestic life. Two letters written by Mansfield during this time reflect the dissonance caused by these desires. The first letter, written in 1915 to her husband, John Middleton Murray, …
Cynical Indictment Or Genuine Elevation? Ethel Smyth’S “An Adventure In A Train”, Chad Kang
Cynical Indictment Or Genuine Elevation? Ethel Smyth’S “An Adventure In A Train”, Chad Kang
Modernist Short Story Project
Ethel Smyth’s short story, “An Adventure in a Train,” was featured in the London Mercury in 1920. As the journal tried to “help bridge the gap in discussion of literary criticism that was made during the first world war… reconnecting the learned public to literary spheres,” anyone acquainted with the periodical would assume that Smyth’s “An Adventure” would contain literary richness and social commentary (Hipol). Interestingly, however, the plot of “An Adventure” is quite straightforward and lacks any vivid action that is usually associated with any “adventure” story. Indeed, the narrator gets on a train, talks to a middle-aged woman, …
H.M. Tomlinson’S “Barbarism” As Post-War Ptsd, Jessica Hogge
H.M. Tomlinson’S “Barbarism” As Post-War Ptsd, Jessica Hogge
Modernist Short Story Project
On its surface, “Barbarism” by H.M. Tomlinson describes an English adventurer in the jungles of Malaysia. He returns to England to find it more barbaric than the uncivilized jungles he just left. However, by examining the story in light of H.M. Tomlinson’s history of anti-war sentiment, I see “Barbarism” as commentary on World War I. Specifically, I believe that the short story describes the consequences of war that a soldier experiences personally—PTSD (or “shell-shock”), guilt, and isolation. In “Barbarism” Tomlinson creates a tone of anxiety through his word choice, brings to light the complications of differentiating between cowardice and shell-shock, …
“The Price Of An Inspiration” And Feminism, Hana Buhler
“The Price Of An Inspiration” And Feminism, Hana Buhler
Modernist Short Story Project
There is the saying, “Behind every great man is a great woman.” During the Victorian period, this saying could be considered the theme as women were supporting their husbands and children from within the home. Eventually though, women no longer wanted to be behind. Instead they wanted to be more involved with society by being alongside men. The short story “The Price of an Inspiration” by Ellen A. Smith published in The Argosy May 1900 volume demonstrates this eagerness through a woman named Kathleen Hayes alongside her classmate Carl Brenner. The two come to learn throughout the story that as …
Detachment: An Analysis Of Nugent Barker’S “Mrs. Sayce’S Guy”, Caroline Bressler
Detachment: An Analysis Of Nugent Barker’S “Mrs. Sayce’S Guy”, Caroline Bressler
Modernist Short Story Project
“Mrs. Sayce’s Guy,” by Nugent Barker is an inconclusive, mysterious ghost story centered around the events of the British national holiday, “Guy Fawkes Night,” which takes place on November 5th. In particular, the story focuses on Mrs. Sayce as the main character; a sickly woman who finds herself in a conflicted family situation. Nugent Barker uses unlikely characters, such as the face, to give depth and mystery to his story. As a personified actor, the face is a performative aspect of what is happening psychologically, resulting in a story about consciousness, interiority, and a distrust of humanity and …
Steven Acroyd Goes To War: Expressions Of The War Experience In “The Victim”, Sydney Squires
Steven Acroyd Goes To War: Expressions Of The War Experience In “The Victim”, Sydney Squires
Modernist Short Story Project
While “the image of the ‘shell-shocked soldier’ remains one of the most enduring of the First World War” (Keown, “Statements”), it is nearly impossible to find information about women’s trauma from World War I. While women were noncombatants, they were still heavily involved in warfare: they built the machines, drove the ambulances, and tried to keep their city from being bombed. However, after the war, their psychological trauma was not taken seriously. However, these war experiences still carried significant psychological weight for those who bore them. May Sinclair is one example of this: she was on the Belgian warfront for …
“A Perfect Stranger”: The Domestic Power Struggle In “Samson And Delilah”, Shelby Shipley
“A Perfect Stranger”: The Domestic Power Struggle In “Samson And Delilah”, Shelby Shipley
Modernist Short Story Project
D.H Lawrence's short story “Samson and Delilah” was first published in vol. 21 no. 100 of The English Review, a modernist magazine that ran from 1908 to 1923 before it was absorbed into The National Review. According to the Modernist Journals Project, the magazine is described as “being more "modernist" than it actually was” however it was still “a major literary journal of the transitional period” (Modernist Journals Project). The English Review’s first editor, Ford Madox Hueffer, played an instrumental role in D.H Lawrence's literary career. In 1909, Impressed with Lawrence's talent, Heuffer published some of his poems in …