British imperial literature, 1870-1940 : writing and the administration of empire / Daniel Bivona.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bivona, Daniel, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

Imperialism in literature.

Colonies in literature.

Great Britain--Colonies--Administration--History--20th century.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Colonies--Administration--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 237 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

British Imperial Fiction, 1870-1940 traces the gradual process by which the colonial bureaucratic subject was constructed in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Daniel Bivona's study offers insightful readings of a number of influential writers who were involved in promoting the ideology of bureaucratic self-sacrifice, the most important of whom are Stanley, Kipling and T. E. Lawrence. He examines how this governing ideology is treated in the novels of Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary and George Orwell. By placing the complexities of individual texts in a much larger historical context, this study makes the original claim that the colonial bureaucrat played an ambiguous but nonetheless central role in both pro-imperial and anti-imperial discourse, his own power relationship with bureaucratic superiors shaping the terms in which the proper relationship between colonizer and colonized was debated.

Contents:

1. Agents and the problem of agency: the context

2. Why Africa needs Europe: from Livingstone to Stanley

3. Kipling's "Law" and the division of bureaucratic labor

4. Cromer, Gordon, Conrad and the problem of imperial character

5. T.E. Lawrence and the erotics of imperial discipline

6. Resurrecting individualism: the interwar novel of imperial manners

Conclusion: work as rule.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-233) and index.

ISBN:

0-511-58515-2

0-511-00473-7