“A New Race of Immortals”: A Posthumanist Reading of “Poe Posthumous; or, the Light-House”

IF 0.2 4区 文学 0 LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM
Xinshuo Zhou, Quan Wang
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article proposes a posthumanist reading of Joyce Carol Oates’s “Poe Posthumous; or, The Light-House,” and argues that posthumanism provides human beings with a new way of living. In the story, the narrator comes to the Light-House at Viña de Mar to participate in a scientific experiment. As an “exemplary specimen of Homo sapiens,” the narrator endeavours to preserve human knowledge, which symbolises his superiority over nonhuman species. However, on becoming further involved in nature, he gradually abandons his anthropocentric thought, and learns to live with other species. The posthumanist thought finds its full expression in the symbiotic coexistence of multiple species and culminates in the narrator’s cross-species marriage to a female Cyclophagus. The juxtaposition of the decentring of anthropocentrism with the ascent of nonhuman agents highlights the posthumanist coexistence of humans and nonhumans.
“不朽的新种族”:《坡死后》的后人文主义解读或者,灯塔。”
本文对乔伊斯·卡罗尔·奥茨的《坡死后》进行了后人文主义解读。或《灯塔》,并认为后人文主义为人类提供了一种新的生活方式。在故事中,叙述者来到Viña de Mar的灯塔参加一个科学实验。作为“智人的典范”,叙述者努力保存人类的知识,这象征着他比非人类物种优越。然而,随着与自然的进一步接触,他逐渐放弃了以人类为中心的思想,学会了与其他物种一起生活。后人类主义思想在多物种的共生共存中得到了充分的表达,并在叙述者与雌性独眼巨兽的跨物种婚姻中达到高潮。人类中心主义的衰落与非人类主体的崛起并置,突显了人类与非人类的后人类主义共存。
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来源期刊
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期刊介绍: The Journal of Literary Studies publishes and globally disseminates original and cutting-edge research informed by Literary and Cultural Theory. The Journal is an independent quarterly publication owned and published by the South African Literary Society in partnership with Unisa Press and Taylor & Francis. It is housed and produced in the division Theory of Literature at the University of South Africa and is accredited and subsidised by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training. The aim of the journal is to publish articles and full-length review essays informed by Literary Theory in the General Literary Theory subject area and mostly covering Formalism, New Criticism, Semiotics, Structuralism, Marxism, Poststructuralism, Psychoanalysis, Gender studies, New Historicism, Ecocriticism, Animal Studies, Reception Theory, Comparative Literature, Narrative Theory, Drama Theory, Poetry Theory, and Biography and Autobiography.
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