Melodramatic Imperial Writing (eBook)

From the Sepoy Rebellion to Cecil Rhodes

Neil Hultgren (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014
272 Seiten
Ohio University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8214-4483-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Melodrama is often seen as a blunt aesthetic tool tainted by its reliance on improbable situations, moral binaries, and overwhelming emotion, features that made it a likely ingredient of British imperial propaganda during the late nineteenth century. Yet, through its impact on many late-Victorian genres outside of the theater, melodrama developed a complicated relationship with British imperial discourse.Melodramatic Imperial Writing positions melodrama as a vital aspect of works that underscored the contradictions and injustices of British imperialism. Beyond proving useful for authors constructing imperialist fantasies or supporting unjust policies, the melodramatic mode enabled writers to upset narratives of British imperial destiny and racial superiority.Neil Hultgren explores a range of texts, from Dickens's writing about the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion to W. E. Henley's imperialist poetry and Olive Schreiner's experimental fiction, in order to trace a new and complex history of British imperialism and the melodramatic mode in late-Victorian writing.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Melodrama as Plot

One: Imperial Melodrama after the Sepoy Rebellion
Two: Romance; or, Melodrama and the Adventure of History
Part Two: Melodrama as Aestheticized Feeling

Three: Imperialist Poetry, Aestheticism, and Melodrama’s Man of Action
Four: Stevenson’s Melodramatic Anthropology
Part Three: Melodrama as Distant Homeland

Five: Olive Schreiner and the Melodrama of the Karoo
Conclusion: Pirates and Spies
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.3.2014
• Reihe/Serie: Series in Victorian Studies
• Verlagsort: Athens
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Literary Studies
• ISBN-10: 0-8214-4483-2 / 0821444832
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8214-4483-2 / 9780821444832