Author：ZHU Yuhan, LUO Xinping

Abstract: The aristocratic gentleman in Shakespearean romantic comedy and the witty trickster in Jonsonian satirical comedy represent the dual traditions of English Renaissance comedy, yet both are flawed: the former lacks agency in resolving conflicts, while the latter exhibits uncivility. In The Way of the World, William Congreve transcends these models by creating Mirabell as a Lockean gentleman—a synthesis of the aristocratic protagonist’s grace and the trickster’s resourcefulness. Inspired by John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Mirabell embodies rational self-governance, moral...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：XIE Minmin

Abstract: In assessing the quality of poetry, George Santayana advanced a graded criterion that may be termed a “trilevel theory.” Although this conception originally emerged from his reflections on poetry, it came to serve as an overarching framework for his broader literary vision, mirroring his views on some literary elements such as form, matter, and theme. What is especially compelling is the latent unity of Santayana’s diverse intellectual roles—philosopher, aesthetician, and literary critic—within this literary structure. His pursuit of aesthetic excellence, advocacy of realism and literary...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：Visam MANSUR, Nergiz Öznur VARDAR

Abstract: This article examines Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People through the intersecting frameworks of grotesque realism and unnatural narrativity to explore how form and language mediate subaltern experience. Set in the aftermath of a fictionalized Bhopal disaster, the novel defies conventional narrative structures through a posthuman narrator, Animal, whose grotesque hybrid identity challenges anthropocentric and neoliberal paradigms. The analysis foregrounds how Sinha employs bodily imagery, obscenity, and narrative fragmentation to critique dominant institutions such as law, medicine,...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：WEN Yiwen

Abstract: Given its direct borrowings from and intertextual relations to other similar texts, “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” has often been accused of flagrant plagiarism or lack of originality. Such a simple assertion ignores not only Poe’s deviation from these sources but also his rationale for such initiatives. While duly recognizing Poe’s indebtedness to his predecessors and contemporaries, this paper proposes to examine Poe’s literary re-creation and parody by concentrating on his subtle treatment of these borrowed texts, and in so doing, look also at his subversive approach to colonialist...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：DING Hongwei

Abstract: If our focus is only applied to Western countries, then the concept of “mobility” may bear on such areas as social phenomena, cultural ideas, and literary themes; hence the possibility to examine what the concept contains and how it has evolved in the past from different perspectives, especially with regard to how different authors represent it in their works. With an expansion of our horizon, we may revisit the ideological elements pertinent to “mobility” that mark the dawning moments in Western modernity, such as ideas related to the Protestant Reformation and the rise of the middle class. ...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：DING Fan

Abstract: This essay traces the complex trajectory of socialist realism as both a creation principle and a critical framework in modern Chinese literary history. Beginning with the transmission of Soviet literary theory, particularly through the 1950s reception of Ivanov S. Pidakov’s An Introduction to Literary Theory, the paper examines how Chinese intellectuals struggled with the interpretive enigma of socialist realism, oscillating between its official programmatic definition and its contradictory literary practice. By revisiting the roles of Maxim Gorky, Andrei Zhdanov, and other Soviet writers and...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：HONG Zicheng

Abstract: In the first thirty years of contemporary Chinese literature, the approach to Western classical literature was complex. On the one hand, the translation and research of Western literary works before the 20th century saw significant progress. On the other hand, interpretation was marked by caution and high vigilance: there was a persistent focus on class and socio-historical criticism to identify the “limitations” of the times and class depicted in the works, in order to guard against the “negative factors” potentially hindering the cultivation of a new socialist people and new literature....

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：LIU Jing, XU Minhui

Abstract: While studies exploring the emotions experienced by translators have recently proliferated, few of these have focused on literary translators’ emotions by taking into account the defining features of literary texts, and examinations of the influence of the translator’s emotions on the translated text and its reception are rare. The present study focuses on literary translators’ emotions, taking as a case study Gladys Yang and her translation of the Chinese short story “Love Must Not Be Forgotten.” It draws on the distinction between fiction emotion and artefact emotion proposed by the film ...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：LUO Yuan, Deidre LYNCH

Abstract: Professor Deidre Lynch from the Department of English at Harvard University published a chapter entitled “Love of Literature” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory in 2022. During the author’s visiting scholarship at the Department of English at Harvard from 2022 to 2023, an interview was conducted with Professor Lynch focusing on this chapter, exploring the role of “love of literature” in literary studies. Lynch discusses the continuity between her 2015 book Loving Literature: A Cultural History and her 2022 chapter in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory, emphasizing her ,,,

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation

Author：WANG Yili, Yves GAMBIER

Abstract: This interview was conducted between Yves Gambier and Wang Yili in February 2024 in Turku, Finland, in order to give an overview of audiovisual translation (AVT) in the context of modern technology. In this interview, the current status of AVT in translation studies was discussed first, followed by the impact of technology on emerging issues such as cloning of voice, manipulation of images, and the changes of roles of audiences in AVT. ...

Vol. 9 No. 2 Dec. 2025      Time：2025-12-01 View Citation