This article proposes postmodern narrative techniques in John Fowles’ fiction, emphasizing their intertextual nature and philosophical implications. Drawing on theoretical foundations of postmodernism, reader-response criticism, and intertextual theory, the study analyzes how Fowles uses metafictional devices, temporal fragmentation, and polyphonic narration to destabilize traditional narrative authority. The focus is on the novels The French Lieutenant’s Woman, The Magus, and Daniel Martin, where the author’s narrative playfulness is intertwined with existential concerns and historical reimaginings. The study also highlights how Fowles bridges literary traditions, tracing explicit and implicit intertextual references to Victorian literature, classical mythology, and modernist narrative practices.

Rationalists portray science as reason’s crown and see any deference to feeling and imagination as an attack on reason. They dismiss Romanticism as mere regression and ignorance. The Romantic period (late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century) is, arguably, a fertile overlap of science and poetry. Rather than functioning as isolated disciplines, science and poetry in the Romantic era shared a language of wonder, imagination, and veneration for nature that defied the mechanistic rationalism of the Enlightenment. This paper reviews the collaboration between poets and scientists that reshaped cultural conceptions of knowledge, the natural world, and the human mind. Romantic thinkers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, along with natural philosophers like Humphry Davy and Goethe, treated imagination as a valid mode of inquiry. Their writings present nature not as an inert machine but as a dynamic, living organism. Wordsworth’s Prelude frames scientific observation as a moral and spiritual journey, while Coleridge’s theory of the “esemplastic imagination” parallels the unifying ambitions of contemporary natural philosophy. Similarly, Goethe’s morphological studies combined meticulous empirical methods with aesthetic insight, anticipating integrative approaches in modern science. Romantic literature registered ambivalence toward industrial and technological change. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein dramatized anxieties about unchecked scientific ambition, reflecting broader cultural tensions between vitalist and mechanistic worldviews. Romantic women writers such as Anna Laetitia Barbauld interrogated the gendered power structures of scientific discourse, widening the cultural conversation. By foregrounding feeling, creativity, and ecological sensitivity, Romanticism forged an integrated epistemology in which scientific discovery and poetic expression reinforced one another. This synthesis influenced Victorian literature, early environmental thought, and contemporary science communication, demonstrating the enduring relevance of Romantic ideals. The paper argues that revisiting Romantic science and poetry reveals a historical model for bridging today’s perceived divide between the sciences and the humanities. It attempts to show that imagination and empirical inquiry can coexist as complementary ways of knowing.

This study examines the representation of social class in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights through the lens of Marxist literary criticism. While previous research has discussed themes such as class hierarchy, symbolic power, and economic determinism, limited attention has been given to how these dynamics are directly embedded in the novel’s dialogue and narrative interactions. To address this gap, this research analyzes twenty selected textual excerpts using key Marxist concepts, including class struggle, ideology, and material conditions. The study employs a qualitative descriptive approach, drawing on the works of Marx and Engels, Eagleton, and other theorists to interpret how language and character behavior reflect social positioning. The findings show that Wuthering Heights portrays a deeply stratified social environment in which identities, decisions, and conflicts are shaped by class-based power relations. Heathcliff’s marginalization, Catherine’s status-driven choices, and Hindley’s abusive dominance embody recurring patterns of oppression and resistance consistent with Marxist theory. The study concludes that Brontë’s novel not only dramatizes interpersonal tensions but also exposes the structural inequalities that govern them, offering a more nuanced understanding of how Victorian literature reflects and critiques social class. This research contributes to existing scholarship by providing a dialogue-centered, textually grounded analysis that clarifies the mechanisms of class representation more precisely than broader thematic studies.

<i>Vanity Fair</i> and the End of the Everyday

Abstract Rationalists portray science as reason’s crown and see any deference to feeling and imagination as an attack on reason. They dismiss Romanticism as mere regression and ignorance. The Romantic period (late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century) is, arguably, a fertile overlap of science and poetry. Rather than functioning as isolated disciplines, science and poetry in the Romantic era shared a language of wonder, imagination, and veneration for nature that defied the mechanistic rationalism of the Enlightenment. This paper reviews the collaboration between poets and scientists that reshaped cultural conceptions of knowledge, the natural world, and the human mind. Romantic thinkers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, along with natural philosophers like Humphry Davy and Goethe, treated imagination as a valid mode of inquiry. Their writings present nature not as an inert machine but as a dynamic, living organism. Wordsworth’s Prelude frames scientific observation as a moral and spiritual journey, while Coleridge’s theory of the “esemplastic imagination” parallels the unifying ambitions of contemporary natural philosophy. Similarly, Goethe’s morphological studies combined meticulous empirical methods with aesthetic insight, anticipating integrative approaches in modern science. Romantic literature registered ambivalence toward industrial and technological change. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein dramatized anxieties about unchecked scientific ambition, reflecting broader cultural tensions between vitalist and mechanistic worldviews. Romantic women writers such as Anna Laetitia Barbauld interrogated the gendered power structures of scientific discourse, widening the cultural conversation. By foregrounding feeling, creativity, and ecological sensitivity, Romanticism forged an integrated epistemology in which scientific discovery and poetic expression reinforced one another. This synthesis influenced Victorian literature, early environmental thought, and contemporary science communication, demonstrating the enduring relevance of Romantic ideals. The paper argues that revisiting Romantic science and poetry reveals a historical model for bridging today’s perceived divide between the sciences and the humanities. It attempts to show that imagination and empirical inquiry can coexist as complementary ways of knowing.

This research examines the complex representation of social class in Victorian literature, analyzing how major authors depicted, critiqued, and reinforced class hierarchies during a period of unprecedented social transformation. Through systematic analysis of canonical works by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, and Thomas Hardy, this study reveals how literary representations both reflected and shaped contemporary understanding of class identity, social mobility, and economic inequality. The research employs close textual analysis combined with historical contextualization to demonstrate how Victorian writers navigated the tension between social criticism and literary convention. Findings indicate that while Victorian literature increasingly challenged rigid class boundaries, it simultaneously reinforced middle-class values and perspectives as normative. The study contributes to understanding how literature functions as both mirror and constructor of social reality, with implications for contemporary analysis of class representation in cultural texts.

In so-called civilized societies, women who defy traditional norms or engage in “immoral” behavior are harshly judged and excluded. This dynamic is evident in Thomas Hardy’s The Ruined Maid, Augusta Webster’s A Castaway, and Émile Zola’s Nana, where female characters are portrayed as morally transgressive and socially irredeemable, reinforcing rigid binaries between virtue and vice. Applying Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality (1989), this paper explores how class, gender, societal expectations, and sexual politics converge to shape these women’s identities and societal reception. Findings reveal that the “fallen” women in the Victorian literary works resist confinement through economic agency, self-awareness, and even spectacle. Rather than passive victims, they emerge as complex figures whose lives defy singular interpretation. This study critiques the moralistic frameworks of Victorian literature while foregrounding intersectionality as a critical method for dismantling dominant narratives that persist in shaping modern gender norms. Ultimately, it calls for more liberating readings of women’s transgressions across time.

Abstract: This themed issue studies key coinages and linguistic borrowings of the long nineteenth century, foregrounding how such new words and fledgling phrases were ushered into works of Romantic and Victorian literature. The introductory essay first theorizes and historicizes “neology” and its kindred long-nineteenth century coinage, “neologism.” It then summarizes the argument and scope of the issue, paying particular attention to how each contributor’s essay relates to the themed issue’s larger areas of inquiry: “Neology and Genre,” “Neology and the State,” and “Neological Theory and Praxis.” This introduction discusses how the themed issue pays tribute to neology’s sprawling forms: they manifest as wordplay, etymological and multilingual borrowings, newly conjured compound words, canny acts of punning, old terms twisted into new parts of speech, and more. As a stretching of language, neology can take shape as a riposte to censorship, a travelogue, a sign of the times, a reckoning with the past.

The main aim of this paper to bring out major problems, issues and challenges of women and their significant role in Victorian literature. The Victorian era (1837–1901) marked a period of significant change in British society, and the role of women was a central concern in literature of the time. This research paper explores the representation of women in Victorian literature, analyzing how female characters reflect the complexities of gender roles and cultural transformations. This paper investigates the literary portrayal of women by prominent authors such as Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Charles Dickens. The paper also highlights the important themes such as femininity, marriage, class, morality, and agency.

The Victorian Age (1837–1901) was a crucible of contradictions—an era marked by industrial triumphs, democratic awakenings, and scientific revolutions, yet shadowed by moral rigidity, spiritual unrest, and social disparity. This paper explores how Victorian literature became a site of cultural negotiation, reflecting and refracting the tensions between progress and tradition. Through an interdisciplinary lens, it examines the impact of reform movements, scientific scepticism, and shifting moral codes on literary production, highlighting the nuanced responses of writers like Tennyson, Arnold, Dickens, and Ruskin. Central to this inquiry is the concept of the "Victorian Compromise," a cultural strategy that reconciled conflicting ideologies—faith and reason, aristocracy and democracy, imagination and empiricism. Tracing these negotiations across poetry, prose, and socio-political discourse, the paper argues that Victorian literature did not merely mirror its age but actively shaped its intellectual and emotional contours. The study reaffirms the Victorian Age as a dynamic and dialogic period, whose literary legacy continues to provoke critical engagement and reinterpretation.

The Moonstone, published in 1868, is a work of Victorian literature that has received little attention but is profoundly important. It sheds a definitive light on colonialism and the theme of othering set in the backdrop of a detective story. This paper discusses and attempts to unravel how the novel engages with the theme of British imperialism and the associated cultural considerations in its simplest form: a diamond is stolen from an Indian temple and brought to England. The Moonstone is a physical item, but its meaning expands to the symbol of the cultural and spiritual plundering requisite for colonial conquest. It prompts thinking around the notions of loss and belonging and the consequences of having imperial power. The novel's multi-narrative approach has been cited as a way of understanding how differing views on the same topic, in this case, colonialism and othering, can be affected by class and race. This argument is significant for understanding the different responses by British people to the curse of the diamond and the muted responses from Indian priests who wanted the diamond back. The article covers the erasure of the voices of the British-colonized Indian subjects and the moral dilemmas posed by the treasure mentioned above. It pursues the very goals Collins was critiquing by restating the divide between the rational West and the mystical East and how they embellish colonial rule. With a postcolonial view, this article explores the themes of guilt, cultural restoration, and displacement embedded in the text.

Two Victorianists in the English department at The University of New Haven describe their efforts to meaningfully incorporate Victorian studies into general education courses after a Victorian Literature survey was removed from the curriculum. Though the curriculum they are building is inspired by integrative liberal arts initiatives, the authors note how their curriculum and pedagogy is distinct from the great books tradition that guides other programs, outlining strategies for teaching literature with student-selected texts and art history with object-based analysis.

This paper examines Maggie Tulliver’s desire in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of flight. Challenging readings that view her desire as merely repressed, this study argues that it functions as a form of deterritorialization that disrupts nineteenth-century British patriarchal norms. Drawing on the concepts of territorialization, deterritorialization, and becoming, this paper traces Maggie’s flight from oppressive environments such as Dorlcote Mill and St. Ogg’s. Her interactions with Philip Wakem and Stephen Guest suggest a movement toward becoming-nature and the formation of rhizomatic connections that allow her to exceed social and familial boundaries. Her fraught relationship with her brother Tom operates both as a source of repression and as a catalyst for her flight. By framing the novel as an Anti-Bildungsroman, this study highlights its function as a socially engaged critique that reconfigures conventional paradigms of growth and integration. Maggie’s death can be interpreted as a moment of radical deterritorialization, exposing the constraints Victorian society places on female subjectivity. Ultimately, this paper offers a renewed reading of Maggie’s narrative trajectory and contributes to broader discussions of desire, gender, and subjectivity in Victorian literature.

This essay considers what a rewilding critical practice would look like with reference to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). At the ecological turn in literary studies, what is there that remains to be said about one of the most canonical novels in Victorian literature? To rewild Jane Eyre, a novel better known for its domestic interiors and production of individualist subjectivity, is to pay attention to the traces of its narrative shadow forests and strange otherweathers, to the latent potential of the novel’s more-than-human forms. Attending to Jane Eyre’s untamed sections, we discover how rewilding attunes us to a dynamic set of aesthetics and ontologies: the substrate and aerial, the ghosted and spectralised. Instead of mastering the unruly ‘wild patch’ of Jane’s wander through moorland wilderness, we wonder over it, even as it presses us into the present moment of ecological crisis. A tarrying with the strange, ludic rewilding has the potential to reactivate the dormant systems of even our most familiar literary objects.

This article constructively explores the emergence and development of realism in Victorian literature, particularly within the novel genre. It provides insight into the socio-political context of the period and discusses the creative methodologies utilized by influential writers like Charles Dickens, George Eliot and the Bronte sisters. By examining the transition from romantic to realist narrative modes, the study highlights the significant contributions of Victorian novels in portraying complex social realities and giving a voice to marginalized groups. Furthermore, it underscores how these works contributed to the moral and intellectual development of society. The paper also reflects on how the genre’s formal features, such as scope, character complexity, and length, effectively mirror the broader cultural transformations occurring in 19th-century Britain, fostering a deeper understanding of the literary landscape of the time.

Environmental Justice in Early Victorian Literature by Adrian Tait (review)

A classic example of romantic literature, Wuthering Heights is also an example of the way Victorian literature moves beyond Romanticism to embrace the modern age. The iconic romantic hero (Heathcliff) who must suffer othering, discrimination, and rejection to eventually die a romantic death, also paves how for the modern world and its ethos of embracing difference and otherness. The “other” in Victorian England was this constant threat to the status quo, the latent revolution that the Victorians have feared and anticipated. However, Hegelian (and other) conceptualizations of the meaning of the “other” as a prerequisite signifier of the self challenges this conventional image of the “other” as a mere outside object. In this paper, we read Heathcliff as a metaphoric defense mechanism against the fast pace of modernity. Combining textual analysis with a contextual regard for the spirit of the age in which the novel was written, the paper proves that Heathcliff’s ordeal is the scapegoating of the romantic hero who helps the society to mature and accept otherness and modernity.

Abstract This research investigates the themes of artificiality and social alienation in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, examining how urban settings in Bath and Milton encapsulate the social complexities of Victorian society during the Industrial Revolution. Employing a comparative literary analysis, grounded in urban and social theory as articulated by experts such as Simmel and Parkins, this study highlights how city spaces both reflect and reinforce societal constraints and individual behaviours. Data was gathered through close readings of the primary texts, supported by secondary sources, and analysed to explore patterns of social interaction and urban influence on character development. The findings reveal how Bath’s societal superficiality shapes Catherine Morland’s experience, while Milton’s industrial harshness impacts characters like Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton, illustrating the varied ways urban settings foster artificiality and exacerbate social divides. This research contributes to understanding Victorian literature's critique of societal structures, emphasizing the value of authenticity and human connection amid social pressures.

A Study on the Linguistic Adaptation of Language Modeling Techniques in Translating British Victorian Literature

Abstract This short article approaches intertextuality as a network, as a form of ‘reading with’ and in company which is inevitably complex, mediated and fragmentary. It takes as its primary example a chapter from George Eliot’s last novel Daniel Deronda (1876) in which Dante is explicitly present: on the one hand, as the words for a song from Gioachino Rossini’s opera Otello (1816); on the other, via a paraphrase by Alfred, Lord Tennyson placed as the chapter’s epigraph. This example confirms Caroline Levine’s argument about transnational ‘networks allow[ing] us to reconceive what is proper to Victorian literature’, so as to include Dante, for example (Levine, ‘From Nation to Network’, Victorian Studies, 55.4 (2013), 647–66 (p. 664)). Yet it also raises vital and even worrying questions about the canon as a network, about the presence and role of fragmentation and about an overreliance on authors and authorship.