Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219
Browse
4 results
Search Results
Item Untitled(英語學系, 2017-03-??) Henk VynckierPicture galleries with painted portraits of family members, once an essential fixture in the halls and manors of Europe’s nobility, declined in prestige and cultural relevance following the end of the ancien régime and the widespread adoption of photography and other new visual media in the nineteenth century. Around the same time, however, the portrait gallery emerged as a significant literary motif and began to proliferate in Gothic fiction, satirical tales, fin de siècle novels, and other fiction. This migration of the gallery into the realm of literature represents an important revaluation of the cultural capital associated with this art form and calls attention to the troubled cultural protocols and visualities of an age which saw the rise of a rival institution, viz., the public museum. The purpose of this article is to trace the history of the motif of the portrait gallery from its beginnings in Horace Walpole, Walter Scott, and other Gothic authors over the fin de siècle generation of J.-K. Huysmans, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Schwob, and R. M. Rilke to modern adaptations by James Joyce, Hermann Hesse, Salman Rushdie, Giovanni de Lampedusa, and others. As such, it offers a genealogy of literary portrait galleries and contributes to an emerging field, viz., the literary history of material culture.Item A Tale of Two Diaries: Robert Hart’s Encounter with “Mont Blanc Albert” in Canton, Sept. 1858(英語學系, 2015-03-??) Henk VynckierWhen still a junior official in the British Consular Service in Canton, Robert Hart (1835-1911), who would later achieve fame as the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, met Albert Richard Smith (1816-60), the mid-Victorian comic writer and diorama presenter, who was traveling in China to collect material for a stage show. Though both reported on Smith’s visit to Canton in their respective diaries, Hart’s brief interlude with Smith has never been discussed and the relevant passages in their diaries have not been cross-examined. Yet, close reading the respective diary entries next to one another for the first time some one hundred and fifty years after they were composed can achieve several objectives. First, the diaries provide some raw material for the biographical understanding of the young Robert Hart, which is important considering that more than a hundred years following his death there is as of yet no complete biography of “the most powerful Westerner in China” (Jonathan Spence). Second, they illustrate the generic and stylistic differences between a diary which is meant to be published and one which is conceived as a purely private “closed book” diary. Third, they shed light on two different modes of seeing/narrating China—the sightseeing tourist Smith and the long-term expatriate resident Hart—and, thus, contribute to our understanding of the British imaginary of China during the heyday of empire.Item Foreword “Asia, Your Asia”: Reflections on Orwell and Asia(英語學系, 2014-05-??) Henk VynckierItem Interview with Orwell Scholar John Rodden(英語學系, 2014-05-??) Henk Vynckier