Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Postcolonial Studies

by Kaul, Suvir

• ISBN13: 9780748634552
• ISBN10: 074863455X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-25
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

This series examines how Postcolonial Studies reconfigures the major periods and areas of literature. The books relate key literary and cultural texts both to their historical and geographical contexts, and to contemporary issues of neo-colonialism and global inequality. Each volume not only provides a comprehensive survey of the existing field of scholarship and debate, but is also an original intervention in its own right.

Author Biography

Suvir Kaul is A.M. Rosenthal Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. viii
Timeline	p. x
Introduction: 'Towards a Postcolonial History of Eighteenth-century English Literature'	p. 1
Postcolonial Studies and Empire Today	p. 1
Nation-formation and Empire in the Eighteenth Century	p. 4
Territory, Trade Routes, War and 'Great Britain'	p. 15
Print and Public Culture	p. 18
Literary Creativity, Literary Criticism, Postcolonial Criticism	p. 22
Plan of the Book	p. 26
'Theatres of Empire'	p. 35
Davenant, the Revival of Performance, and the Thematics of Empire	p. 36
Aphra Behn, Colonial Self-making, and the Uncertain Consolations of Romance	p. 50
Civil Tragedy, Commercial Humanism, and Colonial Consciousness	p. 56
'The Expanding Frontiers of Prose'	p. 61
Yariko and Inkle and the Staging of Polite Culture	p. 64
Crusoe the Merchant-adventurer - and Friday	p. 67
'Imaginative Writing, Intellectual History, and the Horizons of British Literary Culture'	p. 84
The Spectator, Print Culture, and the Circulation of International Value	p. 87
The Languages of National Difference: Becoming Roderick Random	p. 95
Luxury, Commercial Society, Enlightenment Historiography	p. 108
'Perspectives from Elsewhere'	p. 120
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her Turkish Embassy Letters	p. 123
Johnson's Rasselas: Philosophy in an 'Oriental' Key	p. 126
Phillis Wheatley: Literacy, Poetry, and Slavery	p. 133
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw: Writing in Another Voice	p. 143
Conclusion: 'Gazing into the Future'	p. 155
Literary Transport: to India and the South Seas	p. 156
Bibliography	p. 166
Further Reading	p. 181
Index	p. 185
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