Lecture notes
EWH11 Lecture 16 - Literature and Empire
- Institution
- University Of Oxford
- Book
- Heart of Darkness
Lecture notes regarding literatures of empire between 1750 and 1930 and the interplay between literature and history.
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EWH11 Lecture 11 - Literature and Empire1 of 3
- Children’s literature classics = written in prolific way at height imperialism, not an
accident : Kipling.
- Literature shapes imperial imagination (Imperial Boredom, Auerbach) > occupies
dull hours admin life in outposts of Empire, so shapes perceptions as well as reflect
them. Shape how we understand experience of Empire (Heart of Darkness > core
text of understanding colonial experience + how has been written by historians).
- Indian independence = built on literary creation, through authors writing percep-
tions of country.
- Idea of stereotypes in Saïd > fostered in adventure fiction, outgrowth 18C literature.
- “Empire Writing” > genres deployed by imperialist authors at time, really think
about implications of Saïd > if literature shapes imperial imagination, then what is it
really? What is the approach of the this theory?
- Range of material > Just So Stories, Kim (maverick text, fits and not the Saïdian par-
adigm > not our man in India, = Irish boy, shapeshifter, speaks Indian languages,
reflects Kipling himself, by odd swerve, becomes the bard of Empire despite being
native born).
- Kiplings poems > Boris Johnson recites in Indian pagoda : had to be manhandled
off. Praise song to Burmese girl. Typically Kipling, contravenes imperial divide >
biracial cross cultural relationship spoken of freely > frowned upon so subversive
despite dominant imperial tone, British confidence. Refrain based poetry sustains
imperial spirits.
- Hagard : King Solomon’s Mines (gateway to Conrad Heart of Darkness) > finding
buried treasure heart of darkest Africa, straight adventure novel (HoD ≠). Map =
crucial to narrative, = shaped like female body > imperial imagination = set up in
gendered terms. Find treasure > need kill woman to release > Euro dominance set
up in gendered hierarchy.
- Conrad : canniest of imperial commentators, bc not British (Pole, parents = polish
nationalists, French = second language, works with British merchant navy, works on
moral + psychic implications of Empire. For Conrad, not triumphant perception Em-
pire, involves danger of “going native” > negative profit, not good economic value.
- Empire = textual entreprise > British readers imperial clubs, written reposts of im-
perial administrators, British newspapers, lawmakers consulting Islam texts to cre-
ate legislation. All figures encourage us to see empire in heyday as imagined, main-
tained, propagated through writing : political treatises, diary, annotated maps, mis-
sionary reports, notebooks, popular verse, jingoistic verse, letters home, letters to
settlers > plethora of writing, literary and not that the Empire encouraged + propa-
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