Modernist Literature and Postcolonial Studies (Postcolonial Literary Studies) - Softcover

Rajeev S. Patke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748639934 ISBN 13: 9780748639939

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Provides a fresh account of modernist writing in a perspective based on the reading strategies developed by postcolonial studies

Neither modernity nor colonalism (and likewise, neither postmodernity nor postcoloniality) can be properly understood without recognition of their intertwined development. This book interprets modernity as an asymmetrically global phenomenon complexly connected to the course of Western imperialism, and demonstrates how the impact of Western modernism produced new developments in writing from all the former colonies of Europe and the US. These developments constitute the afterlife of Western modernism.

The various ways in which the aesthetic ideologies and writing strategies of Western modernism have been adapted, transposed and modified by some of the most innovative writers of the twentieth century is demonstrated in the book through a set of case studies, each of which juxtaposes a canonical modernist text with a postcolonial text that shows how modernist modes metamorphosed in interaction with the turbulent and volatile realities of colonies and new nations struggling to arrive at a modernity of their own in contexts marked by colonial histories. Thus Kafka's allegories are juxtaposed with the use of allegory in writers like Salman Rushdie and J.M.Coetzee; the gendered modernity of Virginia Woolf is juxtaposed with the disturbing and powerful fictions of writers such as Jean Rhys and Katherine Mansfield; the intellectualized and urbanized spirituality of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is re-read in the revisionist contexts created by the brilliant and troubled urban spirituality of writers such as Arun Kolatkar from India and a text such as The Woman Who Had Two Navels, from the Philippines.

Key Features:

• A detailed timeline that chronicles significant events and publications concerning modernist and (post)colonial cultures
• A fresh account of modernity and modernism as global phenomena interconnected
• An overview of modernist ideology in a context alert to the interface between the aesthetic and the political
• Four case studies, which re-read canonical modernist texts or authors in a perspective informed by postcolonial studies
• A new interpretive account of the relation between 'postmodern' and 'postcolonial'
• An annotated reading list to guide further explorations in the fields of modernist and postcolonial culturesinterconnected

About this title

About the Author

Rajeev S. PATKE studied in Pune and Oxford. He has taught at the National University of Singapore, and is currently Director of the Division of Humanities at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

From the Back Cover

Postcolonial Literary Studies Series Editors: David Johnson and Ania Loomba 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 provides a comprehensive survey of the existing field of scholarship and debate, and is also an original intervention in its own right. Each book includes: a time line; an introductory literature survey; discussion of critical, theoretical, historical and political debates; exemplary critical readings of literary texts; and further reading. Modernist Literature and Postcolonial Studies Rajeev S. Patke The book provides a revisionary account of modernist writing informed by insights derived from postcolonial studies. Rajeev S. Patke argues that the history of modernist writing is inextricable from the history of colonialism, and demonstrates that modernist practices from Europe and the United States inspired adaptations and transpositions among writers from the former colonies which constitute an 'afterlife' for literary modernism. The first chapter discusses the relations between 'modern', 'modernity' and 'modernism'. The second chapter describes three debates that bring modernism and colonialism into conversation with one another. The first concerns the tension between realist and modernist narrative practices. The second addresses the fact that modernists such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot were innovative in their aesthetics but reactionary in their politics. The third debate examines the question of how modernist practices relate to race and prejudice, with specific reference to Joseph Conrad and Tayeb Salih. The final chapter comprises three case studies which figure modernist as well as postcolonial writers who adapt modernist practices to their own purposes. The first deals with Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys; the second with the role of allegory in Franz Kafka; and the third with Nick Joaquin and Arun Kolatkar. The book includes a timeline and bibliography.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748639934
• ISBN 13: 9780748639939
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224