Victorian Literature and Postcolonial Studies

This book surveys the impact of the British Empire on nineteenth-century British literature from a postcolonial perspective. It explains both pro-imperialist themes and attitudes in works by major Victorian authors, and also points of resistance to and criticisms of the Empire such as abolitionism, as well as the first stirrings of nationalism in India and elsewhere.Using nineteenth-century literary works as illustrations, it analyzes several major debates, central to imperial and postcolonial studies, about imperial historiography and Marxism, gender and race, Orientalism, mimicry, and subalternity and representation. And it provides an in-depth examination of works by several major Victorian authors-Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Disraeli, Tennyson, Yeats, Kipling, and Conrad among them - in the imperial context. Key Features: *Links literary texts to debates in postcolonial studies*Discusses works not included in standard literary histories*Provides in-depth discussions and comparisons of major authors: Disraeli and George Eliot; Dickens and Charlotte Brontë; Tennsyon and Yeats*Provides a guide to further reading and a timeline

Author: Patrick Brantlinger
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 02/25/2009
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780748633043

About the Author

Patrick Brantlinger is James Rudy Professor of English and Victorian Studies (Emeritus) at Indiana University. He is the author or editor of 13 books including Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1900 (Cornell University Press, 1988), Dark Vanishings: Nineteenth-Century Discourse about the Extinction of Primitive Races (Cornell University Press, 2003), and The Blackwell Companion to the Victorian Novel (Blackwell Publishers, 2002), edited with William Thesing.