Postcolonial Poetry in English

by Patke, Rajeev S.

• ISBN13: 9780199275649
• ISBN10: 0199275645
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book offers an introductory survey of contemporary poetry in English from all the regions that have developed into modern nations from the former British Empire. It is ideally suited for readers interested in world writing in English, contemporary literature, postcolonial writing, cultural studies, and postmodern culture.

Author Biography

Rajeev S. Patke is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore

Table of Contents

PART I INTRODUCTION
1 Poetry and postcoloniality	3	(26)
1.1 Terms, contexts, and perspectives	3	(11)
1.2 English in Britain: assimilation and resistance	14	(9)
1.3 Local themes, global applications	23	(6)
2 Back to the future	29	(26)
2.1 English as a 'foreign anguish': Nourbese Philip	29	(8)
2.2 'no darkie baby in this house': Jackie Kay	37	(7)
2.3 'the invisible mending of the heart': Ingrid de Kok	44	(11)
PART II THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOCAL TRADITIONS
3 South Asia and Southeast Asia	55	(25)
3.1 Macaulay's minutemen	55	(3)
3.2 The Indian subcontinent	58	(15)
3.3 Southeast Asia	73	(7)
4 The Caribbean	80	(25)
4.1 Colonization and hybridity	80	(9)
4.2 Poetry and place	89	(6)
4.3 Poetry as performance: Caribbean orality	95	(10)
5 Black Africa	105	(25)
5.1 From colony to nation in Africa	105	(6)
5.2 The cost of protest	111	(12)
5.3 The ambivalence of cultural nationalism	123	(7)
6 The settler countries	130	(29)
6.1 Writing region and nation	130	(9)
6.2 Breaking with the past	139	(13)
6.3 Becoming modern	152	(7)
PART III CASE STUDIES: VOICE AND TECHNIQUE
7 Minoritarian sensibilities	159	(21)
7.1 Oceania	160	(2)
7.2 'Indigenes' and settler minorities	162	(10)
7.3 Black Britain and the Caribbean diaspora	172	(8)
8 Techniques of self-representation.	180	(27)
8.1 Modernism and hybridity: black Africa	180	(6)
8.2 Gender and poetry: the Caribbean	186	(9)
8.3 Postmodern practice: South Asia	195	(12)
9 Recurrent motifs: voyage and translation	207	(30)
9.1 The voyage home: Walcott and Brathwaite	207	(16)
9.2 Postcolonial exile: Ee Tiang Hong	223
9.3 Postcolonial translation: A.K. Ramanujan and Agha Shahid Al	220	(17)
10 After the 'post-'	237	(3)
References	240	(15)
Index	255