Robert Plot (1640–96) was an English antiquary and naturalist, and his publications The Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677) and The Natural History of Staffordshire (1686) were among the first examples of regional natural history in England. They differed from the conventional antiquarian studies in that the author was more interested in the scientific aspects of the past. This study mainly examines The Natural History of Staffordshire, the second natural history by Plot, a book which has not received much critical attention. First of all, this study looks at the background and method of its production. Then, references are made to selected passages which indicate the uniqueness and novelty of Plot’s insights, in order to show how this work might have influenced its contemporary and future readers and authors. Lastly, comparisons with early modern Japanese natural history writings are also made to highlight the unusual, but probably coincidental similarities in the understanding of nature and interpretations of natural phenomena both in the East and the West. This study concludes that Plot’s Staffordshire was a new style of antiquarian inquiry, containing a great deal of scientific information and insights, which need to be more fully examined by scholars from various disciplines.

Eliza Meteyard (1816–79) is a significant but neglected nineteenth-century British woman writer and social reformer. She was supported by well-known contemporary writers, including Charles Darwin, Samuel Smiles (famous for his best selling Self-Help), William Lovett, the Chartist, and William Gladstone who served as the Prime Minister. Meteyard adopted the elegant pseudonym ‘Silverpen’ to advocate social reforms through her writing. The seeming mismatch symbolizes the sharp contrast between her admiration of beauty and the extremely severe subjects she wrote on such as juvenile depravity, crime, prostitution and poverty. By the 1870s, she had established herself not only as the author of The Life of Josiah Wedgwood (1865–66), but also as a writer of social problem narratives, in which beautiful flowers often appear in acute contrast with nauseating scenes of social miseries. This paper focuses on one of such stories, “The Flint and Hart Matronship” (1847), to consider how two weeds mentioned in it, “the dock and nettle,” and a profusion of flowers are presented to advocate workhouse reform. This paper sheds a small light on her stance as a social reformer associated with her views on nature and civilization.

The later novels of Aldous Huxley have not been so highly evaluated by readers and critics owing to their tendency towards mysticism. Such an assessment includes the author’s final work, Island. However, this ecological and utopian novel relies on a variety of literary techniques that contribute to its rich and complex narrative style. This paper attempts to disclose the arts of fiction Huxley employs in order to clarify his ecological standpoint.

A close reading of Island ultimately reveals the novel as Bildungsroman and one which engages stream-of-consciousness techniques in its characterization of the story’s protagonist. Included in such an approach is the author’s use of contradiction ― a common feature of utopian-style narratives ― and contrived in such a way as to link with the novel’s primary theme: ecology. The author’s elaborate characterization of antagonists also functions to criticize a primary western value ― consumerism ― while presenting his ideal figure engaged in an ecological life based on Oriental Buddhism. In so doing, he was able to champion human development over technological development in the search for solutions to environmental issues.

Many critics in the field of literature have discussed the traumatic experiences of George Orwell (1903–1950), focusing on Orwell’s experiences at school or in Colonial Burma when he was engaged as a colonial officer. This essay, in contrast, looks into his colonial texts, namely, “A Hanging” (1931), “Shooting an Elephant” (1936), and his non-fictional essay “The Road to Wigan Pier” (1937), and lastly, one novel, Burmese Days (1934), and attempts to find his unvoiced messages of his own guilt, that is to say, trauma from his works. Finally, this essay argues that his novel successfully lightens the burden of trauma that derived from his abusive acts in Burma and serves as a catharsis for the “immense weight of guilt” he felt. Finally, this essay suggests that Orwell’s Burmese Days can be read as an expatiation of Orwell’s acts and as a neutralizer of his traumatic experience in Burma.

In Washington Irving’s Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists, A Medley (1822), Frank Bracebridge, a fictional squire, tries to protect his and his family’s old-fashioned lifestyle from the overwhelming wave of the industrial revolution. With the voice of Geoffrey Crayon, Irving ironizes their bigoted adherence to the disappearing customs of England’s “good old times.” William Hazlitt criticized this work as literary anachronism, blaming Irving for not seeing what the British were really like and building up his idealized image of them based on the old books he had read in America. Behind this anachronism, however, exists Irving’s critical vision on the parental-filial relationship between the United Kingdom and America, and the inheritance of the (trans) national past. “Dolph Heyliger,” a success story of a young American, placed near the end of Bracebridge Hall, evinces that Dolph’s relationship with his ancestral past is quite the opposite of what the English squire does for restoring the good old times in his fief. Dolph is neither a seeker for nor a guardian of what was gone. His ancestral ghost guides him to an itinerary in which he discovers his ancestral treasure in the end. Not only is this story a huge irony to Bracebridge’s unsuccessful restorationism, but also it works as Irving’s metaphorical vision on how America, a grown-up child that severed itself from the United Kingdom, can reinstall a new parental-filial relationship with this country. This transatlantic vision includes the American author’s aspiration for the role of America as the potential inheritor of British’s literary and cultural tradition. Bracebridge Hall opens a space to situate such a vision, without which Irving would not end his literary pilgrimage in the United Kingdom that he began with The Sketch Book.

The film Princess Kaiulani (2009) depicts the life of Hawaiian Princess Kaiulani. Undeterred by the political and economic turmoil in Hawaii, her uncle King Kala­kaua entertains grandiose fantasies of creating an empire in the Pacific by expanding the sphere of Hawaiian dominance into Polynesia. On an around-the-world tour, the King visits Japan and relates to Emperor Meiji that at one time the Japanese Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito had been engaged to marry Princess Kaiulani, but the plan had fallen apart. Moreover, King Kala­kaua intends to sell a few islands to foreign countries in order to support the domestic economy of his country. Meanwhile, Princess Kaiulani is transformed into a Victorian woman after she is sent to England to receive an education. Comradery and friendship between women were central to Victorian society, and women were encouraged to cultivate feminine virtues of sympathy and altruism in order to become good spouses. Following the death of King Kala­kaua, the Hawaiian monarchy is overthrown. As a fighter, Princess Kaiulani attempts to restore the sovereignty of the throne. During this process, her status as a Victorian woman becomes useful. What does cultural sustainability mean for Hawaii? King Kala­kaua attempts to sell his islands to foreign countries; meanwhile, Princess Kaiulani transforms into a magnificent Victorian woman. Therefore, what cultural heritage will they leave for the next generation? The answer is the ubiquitous Aloha spirit which inspires people to care for their brethren. Despite Princess Kaiulani becoming a Victorian woman educated in England, the sympathy and altruism she displays derive from the spirit of Aloha.