Interpreting The Clockmaker from the Perspective of Greenblatt’s Cultural Poetics

Thomas·C·Haliburton(1796-1865)establishes a literary fame as“the first Canadian writer to establish an international reputation”and a great humorist,with the publication of his masterpiece The Clockmaker(1836).Centering on Nova Scotia,the origin place of Canadian literature and the first British colony in Canada,the book conveys deep concerns on local reality under the British colonization in the 1830s.Haliburton as a Loyalist firmly opposes violent revolution against the British Empire whereas promotes gradual evolution in the colony.This is a typical demonstration of ideological contradictions in colonies.Greenblatt’s Cultural Poetics generally explores political consciousness and ideology in literary texts.It surpasses the dichotomy mode of Western radical ideology and never views the relationship between domination and resistance as a simple confrontation.From the perspective of Greenblatt’s Culture Poetics,this essay interprets the process of“improvisation of power”,“subversion”and“containment”in the colony reflected in The Clockmaker in order to explore Nova Scotians’awakening of independence awareness in the 1830s.

Mrs. Browning's Poetess: Poetry of Dedication and Commitment

Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh was well accepted in Britain and America when published in 1856 during the Victorian era. An epic-like autobiographical novel-verse in its form, Aurora Leigh concentrates on a thirty-year-process of a talented poetess, Aurora, who is destined to write with dedication and commitment, for art, and for truth. With the approaches of New Criticism and Cultural Poetics study, this thesis will focus on the identity of Aurora Leigh as a poetess, who is neither a revolutionary feminist writer, nor an suffocating"angel in the house". As a pious daughter of God and a sympathetic descendant of Virgin Mary, Aurora performs an intelligent role in reconciling masculine power with feminine tenderness. Meanwhile, as a prophet preacher, Aurora embraces an epiphany through years of seeking and wandering and eventually constructs her own city of poetry in which an interwoven pattern of time and space conveys her ambition of being a female Homer.

From Cultural Memory to Poetic Memory： Ancient Greek Practices of History Beyond the ＂Great Divide＂

In a recent comparative confrontation between the Peloponnesian war and the Polynesian war, the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins asked for the agents of history： individuals？ communities？ the social classes？ the economic structures？ the social structures？ Actually, for the American anthropologist, ＂no history without culture.＂ But the question is to focus on the different discursive forms which transforms the events of history in historiography, in a （referential and not fictional） story; these different （often poetic） forms of historiography shape a collective and cultural memory. The Greek case is particularly significant under that point of view as far as historiography is always situated between oral tradition and written tradition （Jack Goody）, between poetic forms and forms of prose, with an important political, social, religious, and ideological impact.