Papers by Junjie QI
Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 2023
Despite the dis-affinities of Charles Dickens’s and Thomas Hardy’s literary genius, and the dissi... more Despite the dis-affinities of Charles Dickens’s and Thomas Hardy’s literary genius, and the dissimilarities in generic form and fictional style between David Copperfield (1850) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), each text features a child-woman, Dora Spenlow and Elfride Swancourt respectively. This affinity amid sundry dis-affinities between these two novels looks less surprising when considering the fact that the Victorian novel seems to be populated by child-women, that is, grown-up women who possess physical and mental features normally assumed to be unique to children. The ubiquity of the figure of the child-woman in the Victorian novel is a literary corollary of the Victorian fascination with childhood and girlhood. The cherished assets of girls – innocence, dependence, naïve charm, tenderness – all conform to the Victorian feminine ideal. This idealised conception of girls inevitably leads to the prolongation of girlhood at the expense of mature femininity, thereby bringing forth a multitude of grown-up girls. Victorian girlhood and the child-woman as a category of age inversion have received considerable critical attention over the past four decades. While much critical attention has been devoted to issues of gender inversion and class inversion in the het- erosexual relationships in A Pair of Blue Eyes, few critics have examined the issue of age inversion in the novel. Whereas Dickens’s Dora is a familiar example in critical inquiry into these issues, the study of Elfride as a child-woman in relation to issues of gender and social class interrogated in the novel remains largely a neglected quarry.1 When read in tandem with each other, each text sheds extra exegetical light upon the fictional treatment of the child-woman in the other. This essay argues that the two novels offer a compelling case for comparative analysis, which will contribute new insights to the ongoing scholarly conversation about the figure of the child-woman and provide a reading of Hardy’s text, in particular, that fills a hole in Hardy scholarship.
Neohelicon, 2022
The spectral presence of Edgar Allan Poe in Thomas Hardy’s works has been occasionally pointed ou... more The spectral presence of Edgar Allan Poe in Thomas Hardy’s works has been occasionally pointed out by critics that situate Hardy within the Gothic tradition. Both writers, as some critics have argued, demonstrate a distinct flair for Gothic horror. Yet the full scope of the affinity between Poe’s and Hardy’s Gothic sensibilities lies beyond their shared investment in Gothic trappings. Through a comparative reading of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) and Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), this essay argues that both writers have recourse to the aesthetic principles inherent in Gothic architecture to construct their literary Gothic. The science of geometry provides an aesthetic template for the architectonics of these two literary works. Both Poe’s and Hardy’s characters evince an ontological merging with Gothic architecture. At the same time, a marked difference exists between these two writers’ Gothic aesthetic. Poe’s Gothic vision is highly mechanical and inorganic, whereas Hardy’s work exhibits an interplay between mechanical constructiveness and organic spontaneity. Hardy’s Gothic aesthetic is further complicated by the issue of architectural restoration, a corollary of his close involvement in the Gothic Revival during his architectural career. This essay not only strengthens the literary affinity between these two writers, but also contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversation about the intriguing relationship between Gothic architecture and Gothic literature. Particularly, it sheds new light upon the way in which Hardy’s first career as a Gothic draughtsman shapes his distinct Gothic art-principle.
The Thomas Hardy Journal, 2022
The affinities between Jude the Obscure (1895) and Great Expectations (1861), notwithstanding the... more The affinities between Jude the Obscure (1895) and Great Expectations (1861), notwithstanding the dis-affinities of their authors’ literary genius, has previously been pointed out by critics. Philip Collins, for instance, has discussed at length the similarities in plot, theme and characterisation between these two novels. Michael Hollington, in his Benjaminian reading of Jude the Obscure, has traced the road motif in the novel to the narrative conventions of many eighteenth-and nineteenth-century novels, epitomised by Great Expectations. Norman Page has observed the resemblance between the opening pages of both novels which feature the protagonists’ sensitive impressions of their surroundings. Both novels have often been considered classical examples of the Bildungsroman. This essay argues that apart from these resonances, both novels are invested in the correlative and symbiotic relationship between architecture and desire, and in a larger sense, between architecture and the human mind.
FATHOM, 2022
This essay aims to bring into dialogue the encounters between humans and non-human animals that f... more This essay aims to bring into dialogue the encounters between humans and non-human animals that feature prominently in Hardy’s novels with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming- animal. It demonstrates that the close proximity of Hardy’s characters to non-human animals sometimes initiates the process of becoming-animal, albeit with varying degrees of success. This possibility of affective becoming challenges the notion of human auto-affection and provides us with an unusual vantage point from which to examine Hardy’s subversion of the human/animal dualism. This becoming-animal not only functions as an aesthetic device, creating a destabilising lyricism in Hardy’s text, but also provides a new lens through which to explore Hardy’s political and ethical concerns with reference to what Deleuze and Guattari call “minoritarian groups”. The article argues that the ontological continuity between humans and animals does not necessarily exclude an ethic of care. If Hardy’s fictional portrayal of animals runs the risk of anthropomorphism, then this possibility of becoming-animal in his novels revivifies human animality and builds up an alliance between humans and non-human beings.
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 2019
19th-century scientific breakthroughs and developments exerted huge influence upon Thomas Hardy's... more 19th-century scientific breakthroughs and developments exerted huge influence upon Thomas Hardy's literary work, among which Darwinian discourses as well as issues of heredity and degeneration have attracted considerable critical attention. These scientific discourses can find their literary echoes in Hardy's novels. Hardy's characters are trapped by biological determinism and are therefore deprived of freewill, a devastating element which contributes to Hardy's tragic vision. In Hardy's early novels, Darwinism and other scientific issues are dealt with in a discursive manner, as is the case in A Pair of Blue Eyes; it is only in his late novels, especially in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, that Hardy finally succeeds in incorporating Darwinian and hereditary discourses into his literary and philosophical conception and design. Thus to use a Darwinian term, this paper investigates the evolutionary process in which Hardy grows gradually adept in his artistic attempt to fuse the contemporary scientific discourses with his literary imagination, as well as in using scientific issues to mediate between authorial intention and critical expectation.
conference papers by Junjie QI
The 16th European Society for the Study of English Conference , 2022
The Twenty-Fifth International Thomas Hardy Festival and Conference, 2022
The 24th International Hardy Conference, 2020.
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Papers by Junjie QI
conference papers by Junjie QI