Sexual and Erotic Transgression Through Aesthetic History: A Study of Algernon Charles Swinburne

This article examines the relationship between Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poetic writing and history, especially in regards to how he explores sexual transgressions. The article begins with how aestheticism works in tangent with history to further these transgressions within a historical context and especially within the realm of Victorian Christianity. Next, Swinburne’s medieval aesthetics in “The Leper” will be analyzed in regards specifically necrophilia and the taking care of a leper, and how the writing of this poem was both a condemnation of Christianity and an accidental upholding of it. The violent homoeroticism and monstrous femininity of “Anactoria” are also looked at in reference to a classical history and how he tried and failed to use homoeroticism to his advantage in attempting to transgress against Victorian ideals. Finally, an examination of the relationship between Swinburne’s writing and history will conclude that Swinburne damned his own pre-Raphaelite/aesthetic movement as well as the Decadence movement that came after by accidentally associating these sexual and gender oriented transgressions with aestheticism.

A “Defect of Justice”: Congregationalism, the Calvinist Problem, and the Unitarian Solution in Sylvester Judd's Margaret

This article contributes to a small body of criticism concerning Sylvester Judd’s 1845 novel Margaret. Largely described as a “Transcendentalist” novel that critiques the Calvinist theology prevalent in late-eighteenth-early-nineteenth century New England village society, I argue for an interpretation of the novel that is concerned the interaction between Calvinism and the Congregationalist model of social and religious organization over time. Rather than just exposing the negative social ramifications Calvinist doctrines like total depravity can have on New England society, I assert that the novel exposes the limitations in Puritan Congregationalist ideals espoused by early figures such as John Winthrop through the example of Livingston. The new Unitarian-congregationalist model Livingston adopts in discarding Calvinism suggests Judd’s resolute faith in Winthrop’s original Congregationalist mission. Judd does not imagine a radical Utopia, but instead offers a more pragmatic reform that is fundamentally Unitarian in its emphasis on humanity's essential goodness and limitless capacity for moral improvement.

World, Worlds, Worlding: A Review of Pheng Cheah's What Is a World? On Postcolonial Literature as World Literature

Review of Pheng Cheah, What Is a World? On Postcolonial Literature as World Literature. Presents an overview of Cheah's argument regarding normativity and temporality in worlds and worlding, a summary of chapters, and an assessment of the book's contribution to philosophy, world literature, and postcolonial studies.

Going Slumming in Mexico: Rereading Primitivism in Katherine Anne Porter’s Flowering Judas and Other Stories

Katherine Anne Porter’s short story collection Flowering Judas and Other Stories from 1935 features most of the author’s engagement with Mexico as a setting and its social realities after the revolution. While most scholars agree that Porter’s experiences during her stays in-Katherine Anne Porter’s short story collection Flowering Judas and Other Stories from 1935 features most of the author’s engagement with Mexico as a setting and its social realities after the revolution. While most scholars agree that Porter’s experiences during her stays in Mexico crucially shaped her artistic vision, there is less agreement on the specificities of her image of Mexico. While the short stories have been read as either a gradual disillusionment with Mexico or a generally colonialist take on the country and its political struggles, these readings, however, miss some of the most remarkable features of these stories. In contrast, this essay argues that taken together the Mexican stories can be understood as an early critical engagement with the political consequences of primitivism. By highlighting the problematic elements of primitivist discourse in both the work of expatriates in Mexico and what Porter perceives as the shifting away from socialist realism in muralism, these stories dramatize in how far primitivism not only skews the artists’ perception of the native population but, in fact, helps to cement exploitative social realities by romanticizing poverty, naïveté, and struggle. Mexico crucially shaped her artistic vision, there is less agreement on the specificities of her image of Mexico. While the short stories have been read as either a gradual- disillusionment with Mexico or a generally colonialist take on the country and its political struggles, these readings, however, miss some of the most remarkable features of these stories. In contrast, this essay argues that taken together the Mexican stories can be understood as an early critical engagement with the political consequences of primitivism. By highlighting the problematic elements of primitivist discourse in both the work of expatriates in Mexico and what Porter perceives as the shifting away from socialist realism in muralism, these stories dramatize in how far primitivism not only skews the artists’ perception of the native population but, in fact, helps to cement exploitative social realities by romanticizing poverty, naïveté, and struggle.

Epic on an American Scale: Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio

In this article I examine the link between ancient Greek epic and American Midwestern Agrarianism. Specifically, I examine how Greek and Roman epic influenced Modernism as evidenced in one of the earliest Modernist works, Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. I find that Anderson employs many epic elements to convey the link between the two empires and emphasize the epic nature of the collapse of American Agrarianism.

A “Defect of Justice”: Congregationalism, the Calvinist Problem, and the Unitarian Solution in Sylvester Judd's Margaret

This article contributes to a small body of criticism concerning Sylvester Judd’s 1845 novel Margaret. Largely described as a “Transcendentalist” novel that critiques the Calvinist theology prevalent in late-eighteenth-early-nineteenth century New England village society, I argue for an interpretation of the novel that is concerned the interaction between Calvinism and the Congregationalist model of social and religious organization over time. Rather than just exposing the negative social ramifications Calvinist doctrines like total depravity can have on New England society, I assert that the novel exposes the limitations in Puritan Congregationalist ideals espoused by early figures such as John Winthrop through the example of Livingston. The new Unitarian-congregationalist model Livingston adopts in discarding Calvinism suggests Judd’s resolute faith in Winthrop’s original Congregationalist mission. Judd does not imagine a radical Utopia, but instead offers a more pragmatic reform that is fundamentally Unitarian in its emphasis on humanity's essential goodness and limitless capacity for moral improvement.

Decorating the Performative Body in Tender Is the Night

In Tender Is the Night (1934), Fitzgerald uses clothing and fashion to heighten the sense of time period as well as to enhance the ways in which the world, on both sides of the Atlantic, was changing. However, changes on the surface frequently do not reveal a change in underlying motivations for dress. In Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald uses clothing in symbolic ways that allow characters to perform roles to achieve their goals. Through the ways bodies are shaped in the novel, Fitzgerald reveals that clothing, shopping, and perfectly bronzed skin have the power to make great economic statements about oneself. Additionally, clothing in Tender Is the Night demonstrates ways in which traditional gender roles and stereotypes were changing during the modernist era. Though many things had changed during the 1920s, characters continued to use their bodies as blank tablets upon which to write, enacting powerful and purposeful performances that always have rhetorical ends. Fitzgerald’s use of clothing in Tender Is the Night reflects the way that clothing, particularly for those abroad, had the power to demonstrate societal changes in gender roles as well as social class.

Their Eyes Were Watching a Goddess: Zora Neale Hurston's Vodou Subtext

Written in Haiti but set in Florida, Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God makes rich use of Haitian religious traditions to empower African American women. Vodou, the religion of the slaves, was both a religious act and a political one in Haiti. African slaves continued to find power in the evocation of their gods to defy the colonial powers. Hurston taps into the subverted powers of the Vodou pantheon and rituals to speak to her American audience, linking the physical rebellions of the earthly world with the spiritual world. One voice of Hurston's double narrative speaks to those who are unaware of Vodou imagery, and one for those who are. Several scholars have noted Janie’s connection to the Haitian goddess of love, Erzulie. This paper seeks to expand the scope of the Vodou connections to retell the story on a mythological level. This layered reading resolves many of the curiosities in the text and, through the power of the Cosmic Zora’s words, evokes not a Vodou curse, but rather a healing cure for America’s racial wounds.