The Death and Female Beauty in Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” (1836) and Pu Songling’s “Lotus Fragrance” (1740)
Journal: Arts Studies and Criticism DOI: 10.32629/asc.v5i5.3083
Abstract
Robert Browning and Pu Songling both explore the death of women in literary works from the perspective of the Gothic. The purpose of this essay is to extract the passive and erotic elements contained in the death of women in the two works. It focuses on the textual comparison and systematic textual analysis to demonstrate women in different social contexts who are objectified and viewed as emotional dependents thus triggering passivity. In addition, although the element of eroticism appears several times in the theme of female death in Gothic literature, in Robert’s works, it does not have a direct connection with death, but instead justifies the violence; whereas in Pu’s works, it tends to be more independent, and becomes a reason for the development of the story.
Keywords
comparative literature, gothic, feminism
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[4] Russ, Joanna. 1973. ‘Somebody’s Trying to Kill Me and I Think It’s My Husband: The Modern Gothic’. Journal of Popular Culture 6 (4): 666–91.
[5] Spooner, Catherine. 2019. ‘Unsettling Feminism: The Savagery of Gothic’. In The Gothic and Theory, edited by Jerrold E. Hogle and Robert Miles, 129–46. An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh University Press. .
[6] Grayson, James H. 2018. ‘Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio’. Folklore 129 (2): 218–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2017.1376957.
[7] Punter, David. 2004. The Gothic / David Punter and Glennis Byron: 278-279. Blackwell Guides to Literature. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Pub.
[8] Ross, Catherine. 2002. ‘Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover’. The Explicator 60 (2): 68–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940209597659.
[9] Haggerty, George E. 2006. Queer Gothic / George E: 10,22. Haggerty. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
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[12] Lin, Yingnan. ‘Shu Huai Da Gu Ren’. n.d. Accessed 24 April 2023. http://47.103.64.227/Query.aspx?type=poem&id=743245.
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