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The tradition of love poetry since Francesco Petrarca was imported to England and Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella and Shakespeare’s sonnet series in the sixteenth century follows the Italian poet. John Donne in the seventeenth century was also a master of innovative and provocative love poems. This paper analyzes the works of the two poets, John Donne, who composed religious works both in poetry and prose, including the Holy Sonnets, after becoming an Anglican priest, and George Herbert whose religious poetry shows his piety and literary achievement. As in his past experiments of numerous inventive love poems, Donne dynamically reveals the relationship between God and man in his religious poetry, while Herbert strives to emphasize the value of religious poetry in contrast to secular poetry. In Donne’s poems, the poetic persona usually speaks in exaggerated and histrionic but in some of his later works such as “Since she whom I loved” his religious feelings are expressed in more subtle and sophisticated ways. Herbert emphasizes controlling his ambition as a poet by ultimately giving up decorative language to show God’s love in human language. God’s simple but beautiful language stands as the goal his poetry is directed as is shown in his “Jordan (I)” and “Jordan (II).”

This study examines how Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? aligns with the posthuman Gothic while also exposing stratified exclusion and inequality within human society. It argues that the novel’s source of horror stems not merely from the collapse of boundaries between the human and the nonhuman but also from the ways these boundaries function as mechanisms of social and political precarity. The preservation of human identity paradoxically operates as a form of power that excludes certain beings within humanity. Thus, the anxieties of posthuman Gothic are not solely ontological crises but are deeply entangled with biopolitical forces that regulate precarity. Focusing on John Isidore, this study explores these concerns through Judith Butler’s concept of precarity. Isidore’s life exemplifies how hierarchical classifications of humanity lead to exclusion and the invisibilization of those deemed unworthy of a “livable life.” However, Isidore simultaneously reshapes and extends his capacity for empathy, reaching out to those living in precarious conditions. Finally, this paper examines how the novel interrogates the possibility of solidarity beyond political and social regulatory structures—particularly the use of empathy and Mercerism--by foregrounding care and interdependence.

This study examines how the core contents of “Daniel,” “Revelation,” God’s Grace, and Snow Crash, which remind us that humanity can be destroyed by uncontrollable pride and selfishness, are interconnected as simulacra, forming an algorithmic relationship with one another. Like “Daniel,” “Revelation,” and God’s Grace which are apocalyptic literature, Snow Crash shows humanity’s constant craving for a higher dimension to overcome an absurd world, which becomes the driving force to lead the metaverse. In this process, it is revealed that the fundamental contents of “Daniel,” “Revelation,” God’s Grace, and Snow Crash are closely correlated through their simulation relationship, forming an algorithmic structure. While “Daniel,” “Revelation,” and God’s Grace superficially depict a dystopian society that may occur in the future, Snow Crash specifically challenges itself to manifest a new dimension beyond human control. Neal Stephenson’s experimental writing, driven by the hope of subverting the limitations of humanity, visualizes a virtual world that is the metaverse in Snow Crash. In conclusion, Snow Crash which leads people to higher dimension has an algorithmic relationship with apocalyptic literature, driving the emergence of the metaverse while embodying a cyberpunk “Revelation.”

This study explores Sarah Ruhl’s play Eurydice from a Nietzschean perspective. The work reinterprets the Orpheus myth, focusing on Eurydice’s perspective as she actively chooses to return to the underworld. While previous studies have mainly examined Eurydice’s agency and the significance of her choice, they fall short of delving into the play’s deeper exploration of death itself. Similarly, the Orpheus myth fragments that inspired the play emphasize the absoluteness of death, with Eurydice’s choice in the play ultimately leading to the consequences of embracing death. This study first examines Nietzsche’s understanding of Greek tragedy as the unification of Apollonian and Dionysian artistic impulses. It then critiques Apollonian perspectives on death and identifies the necessity of a Dionysian approach to overcome these limitations. Finally, it traces the balance of these perspectives within Eurydice, interpreting the meaning of death as presented in the play. In particular, it reveals how the Apollonian impulse to romanticize the afterlife ultimately collapses under Dionysian principles of forgetfulness and silence. This analysis highlights not only the play’s gendered subversion of myth but also its tragic reconfiguration of mythic motifs.

In this paper, I examine the recurring themes of the five interconnected short stories from Thomas Hardy’s Life’s Little Ironies. The short stories revolve around the themes of discrimination against lower class women, premarital pregnancy, motherhood, marital incompatibility, and the longing to escape from the confines of the middle class homes. The heroines with lower social status who marry middle-class men suffer from class prejudices due to their illiteracy or lack of education and dream of escaping from homes. The middle class women who marry for financial security find themselves incompatible with their husbands and dream of escaping from their unhappy marriage to pursue self-fulfillment or liberate their repressed desires through sexual fantasies about intelligent and sensitive men. Leonora, the unmarried mother of “For Conscience’ Sake,” becomes financially independent through her own labor. Car’line Aspent, the heroine of “The Fiddler of the Reels,” chooses to liberate her sexual desires for a violinist instead of marrying an engineer who would guarantee her financial stability. These heroines gradually break away with Victorian marriage customs, gender roles, and class hierarchy, and transition to modern ideas which are embodied in the opening of the railways in southern England and the Great Exhibition of 1851.

This article analyzes Ken Liu’s science fiction “The Perfect Match” (2012) as a story that depicts a near-future world wherein optimism in the promises made by an AI assistant called Tilly is both a dominant affect and a central belief that undergirds the system. By bringing together the insights of Lauren Berlant and Yuval Noah Harari, I argue that “The Perfect Match” demonstrates how naive optimism in the promises of AI can turn “cruel” by creating and sustaining a world of fantasies and failed promises. This essay first examines the ways Tilly mediates dating and relationships for human users, as they reflect the broader workings of a society that centers around Tilly’s promises. It then discusses how optimism in perfect data grounds Tilly’s promises and how the hyper-efficient world of AI depicted in the story betrays rather than fulfills these promises. In so doing, this article argues that “The Perfect Match” provides not a warning about AI per se but a caution against placing naive optimism in the promises of AI. Ultimately, through a critical examination of “The Perfect Match,” this essay calls for skepticism about the possibility and desirability of finding a “perfect” date and “perfect” data, among other fantasies produced in the age of AI.

This article analyzes Ha Jin’s novel War Trash through the lens of historiographic metafiction, drawing on Linda Hutcheon’s theories such as ‘intertextuality,’ ‘paratextuality,’ and ‘self-reflexivity’. Historiographic metafiction challenges the notion of a singular, objective history by embracing a multiplicity of truths. It argues that history is no longer a monolithic narrative, but rather a collection of fragmented and individual histories. This perspective also applies to literary historiography. Hutcheon destabilizes the distinction between history and fiction, contending that historiographic metafiction creates a new form of historicity through “the textual incorporation of intertextual past(s) as a constitutive structural element” (“Historiographical Metafiction” 4). This article examines how War Trash functions as both a work of historical fiction and a fictionalized account of history. To support this analysis, the article explores the techniques of historiographic metafiction employed by Jin, such as paratextuality, intertextuality, and self-reflexivity. Lastly, it argues that historiographic metafiction holds significant potential for amplifying the voices of POWs in modern Chinese history, a group whose narratives have often been marginalized or silenced.

This paper aims at studying Agatha Christie’s viewpoint on Akhnaton’s three policies in Akhnaton. The first policy is the radical political and religious reformation. As a result, he succeeded in weakening the power and wealth of the priests of Amon, but failed to convert Egyptians to monotheism from polytheism. Christie emphasizes Akhnaton’s disregard of the advice and warning of Nefertiti, Ay, and Horemheb. The second policy is his innovation in arts. These examples include roofless and open temples dedicated to Aton, Akhnaton’s Hymn to the Aton which embodies Aton’s essential attributes, relief works describing Akhnaton’s family as deities, and other aspects of Amarna culture such as unconventional court dress and daily ceremony of Akhnaton and Nefertiti riding a chariot. Christie shows that the second policy declined as the first one failed. The third policy is his diplomatic policy. Whenever an ally in crisis asks for reinforcements, Christie reveals Akhnaton’s passive measures to uphold peace and brotherhood result in territorial loss. Therefore, Christie dramatizes the bright and dark sides of Akhnaton’s three policies in a balanced manner while depicting Akhnaton positively on the whole in Akhnaton.

The purpose of this study is to investigate high school English teachers’ perceptions of the four core competencies in the 2015 Revised National English Curriculum: English communication, self-management, community, and knowledge information processing. The study examined how teachers prioritized the competencies, integrated them into instruction, and perceived students’ competency development. It also explored teachers’ views on the exclusion of creative thinking and aesthetic sensitivity competencies from the English curriculum. Forty teachers participated in a survey, and the collected data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results showed that teachers prioritized English communication and knowledge information processing over other competencies both in perceived importance and classroom implementation. Although English communication was highly valued, teachers perceived greater student improvement in knowledge information processing. Regarding creative thinking and aesthetic sensitivity competencies, opinions were divided; some questioned their relevance to English education, whereas others recognized their increasing importance. These findings suggest that successful implementation of competency-based curriculum requires improvements in teacher training, policy support, and revised evaluation systems.