Making Subject(s)

Literature and the Emergence of National Identity

Allen Carey-Webb author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:27th Feb '15

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This paperback is available in another edition too:

Making Subject(s) cover

Considering a wide range of cultural materials and engaging in a close reading of literary texts, this book draws a compelling comparison between national identity in Europe and the Third World. The author explores historical periods of nation building in Europe (Early Modernism) and the postcolonial world (post-1945 decolonization) to demonstrate that intriguingly similar circumstances of imperial rule, linguistic diversity, and educational systemization facilitated the emergence of national consciousness in both European and non-European countries. By bringing the insights of postcolonial studies to classic canonical dramas of Shakespeare and Lope de Vega, the author describes the impact of New World colonial encounters on Spanish and English national formation and self-conception. This book is the first to investigate the rich intertextuality of El Nuevo Mundo (Spain, 1601) and The Tempest (England, 1611). Turning to Ousmane Sembene and Salman Rushdie-perhaps the two most important postcolonial writers-this study shows how their finest novels write back to the European tradition of Lope and Shakespeare and simultaneously represent the trend of postcolonial literature from assertive anticolonial nationalism to postmodern national critique. Tracing developments in the study of nationalism and literature from Louis Althusser and Benedict Anderson through Frederic Jameson, Homi Bhabha, and Partha Chatterjee, the book's introduction serves as a lucid guide to a central problem in contemporary cultural studies for the general reader or the specialized scholar. Juxtaposing Renaissance etchings, traditional African and Indian sculpture, 19th-century political cartoons, and intriguing works of contemporary art, Making Subject(s) is of unusual interest and visual appeal.

"What distinguishes this study from similar ones is the author's thorough comparison of the topic across genres, historical moments and traditions...He literally breaches the boundaries of canonicity not just by juxtaposing these works and treating them as world literature but also does an admirable job in meticulously analysing the dialogue between them." -- Lifongo Vetinde, Lawrence University, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature

ISBN: 9781138864382

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 317g

257 pages