Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist: The Essential Guide to Early Modern Fairy Belief

Ben Jonson’s 1610 city comedy The Alchemist uses the motif of fairy patronage in one of its subplots, effectively ridiculing fairy belief alongside religious factionalism, greed, wrathfulness, and various other vices. Jonson’s use of the changeling or fairy midwife motif and his awareness of the early modern demonization of fairies have already been noted in criticism, as has his indebtedness to fairy cozenage pamphlets circulating in the period. This article investigates the extent of Jonson’s direct inspiration from fairy lore, pointing to an aesthetics of liminality at work throughout the play. The argument outlines Jonson’s creative and informed use of folkloric motifs commonly associated with fairies such as time-warp, fairy taboo, and the Wild Hunt.     

Alice Munro’s Narrative Historicism: “Too Much Happiness”

Alice Munro’s “Too Much Happiness” relates the final years of its subject Sophia Kovalevsky (1850–1891), a nineteenth-century Russian mathematician, writer, and subsequent feminist icon. Munro’s narrative here does not always fit with her earlier fictional practice. By examining Munro’s earlier work, and glancing at a later sequence of narratives with regard to her uses of historical matters, this discussion outlines the generic implications of “Too Much Happiness” and their effect upon our estimation of the remainder of Munro’s fiction.     

The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force: reshaping China’s approach to strategic deterrence

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is in the midst of a sweeping reform programme to significantly transform its organisation, force posture, command and control structures, and internal politics. Among the many important aspects of this effort is the establishment of the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF). Creation of the PLARF solidified China’s missile forces as a critical element of China’s evolving strategic deterrent posture, portends continued significant investment in PLARF modernisation, and points to a more concerted effort to integrate PLARF capabilities into more effective PLA-wide joint operations—all key developments in the fundamental reshaping of China’s approach to strategic deterrence. These developments will affect U.S. strategic and extended deterrence postures, U.S.-China strategic stability, allied conventional force operations, information dominance and security, critical infrastructure, and other key aspects of national security. This study details the organisational, technological, and doctrinal changes afoot for the PLARF, and analyses how—if successful—they affect U.S. and U.S-allied military strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.     

A Decadence Baedeker: D’Annunzio’s The Triumph of Death

This article investigates how Gabriele D’Annunzio’s The Triumph of Death brings together Nietzsche’s ideas and Wagner’s music and interweaves them with the motifs of literary Decadence and the author’s own particular sexual politics. The novel is an experimental text striving to be a Gesemtkunstswerk, an integrated work that incorporates music, painting, poetry, regional folklore, and private thoughts about personal and national power. I discuss the novel’s themes of violent sexuality and the anxiety of powerlessness and explore their implications for the fascist political aesthetics in which D’Annunzio played a pioneering role.     

Criticism of Humanity——A Case Study of A Dog’s Taleby Mark Twain

对人性的讨论自古就有,圣经中的亚当夏娃,教宗额我略一世的七宗罪等早已被人们所知晓;从马克思,恩格斯对人性的阐述,到刑事人类学派创始人龙勃罗梭的《犯罪人论》,都可以看出人们不断地对人性进行着探索。人们试图从中发现人性的本真,善恶,以使人类更为深刻地了解自己。人性的善恶之争从未停止,而本文将以马克·吐温狗的自述为例,来对人的趋利性、攻击性、忘恩负义等恶性进行批判,以使得人们更为深刻地自省,最终能够减轻或摒弃人类恶的本性,以达到自我的提升。     

The Road to the Chaco War: Bolivia’s Modernisation in the 1920s

When Bolivian and Paraguayan leaders entered into war over the contested Chaco Boreal in 1932, they unleashed powerful, violent forces that would dramatically alter history. Understanding the Chaco War as the most pivotal event in Bolivia’s modern history, this article seeks to clarify the modernisation programme that had been underway in Bolivia during the 1920s. Reforms marked the decade and intersected with and accentuated a tense political environment. The political dynamic of the years prior to the outbreak of war showed how fragile the Bolivian system was and how the global economy further eroded the government’s manoeuvrability to avoid war.     

The Preacher’s Agenda: A Dominican versus the Italian Renaissance

Abstract

This article reviews the cultural agenda of the celebrated Dominican preacher Giovanni Dominici (1356–1419) in fifteenth-century Florence. Central issues discussed include Dominici’s educational programme, his cultural propaganda, his interest in the visual arts and his opposition to the study of the classics, as expressed in his public popular preaching. The close examination of his cultural agenda discloses Dominici as the most extreme opponent of humanist studies.