Imperial anxieties in English fiction, 1870s to 1930s.
Item
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Title
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Imperial anxieties in English fiction, 1870s to 1930s.
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Identifier
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AAI9521300
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identifier
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9521300
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Creator
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Miller, Derek.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Morris Dickstein
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Date
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1995
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, English | Literature, Modern
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Abstract
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What St. Augustine called imperii cupiditas, the longing for empire, is as likely to be exerted in relations at the imperial center as in those abroad. It might even be possible to say that, in some ways, imperialism starts at home. Apart from incidental quotations from works of fiction set elsewhere, the action of the novels and stories in this study takes place in England.;Although the stance of such fiction is necessarily determined by English, or British, cultural and literary tradition, there is often an awareness--sometimes an unconscious one--of the exactions in play while the oppressor's foot is moving towards the neck of the oppressed. In works by Borrow, Trollope, Eliot, Meredith, Gissing, Hardy, Wells, Kipling, Galsworthy, Conrad, Beerbohm, Forster, Saki, Lawrence, and Waugh, I compare attitudes of men to women with those of Europeans to savages, and look at race relations as reflecting those of class. At a time of crisis in the national identity, the fear of a moral vacuum at home is exacerbated by the likelihood that imperial expansions are intrinsically cyclical, that they tend to destroy what they contain, or what they meet, or both.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
