The Cambridge Companion to British Literature and Empire
The Cambridge Companion to British Literature and Empire
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USDThe volume outlines modern British literature's relation to global empire from the 16th century to the present. Spanning the interactions between Britain, Europe, and the world outside, in Asia, Africa, Australasia, North America, and the Caribbean, it suggests the centrality of colonial-capitalist empire and global exchanges in the development of major genres of literary fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction. Illuminating the vital role of categories such as race, class, gender, religion, commerce, war, slavery, resistance, and decolonization, the twenty-one chapters of the book chart major aspects of British literature and empire. In rigorous yet accessible prose, an international team of experts provides an updated account of earlier and latest scholarship. Suitable for a general readership and academics in the field, the Companion will aid readers in familiarizing with Britain's imperial past and its continuing relevance for the present.
- Provides an updated survey of modern British literature and its relation to empire
- Historical coverage of five hundred years and geographical spread over Asia, Africa, Australasia, and North American continents
- 21 essays written by internationally renowned experts
Product details
October 2025Paperback
9781009554404
350 pages
229 × 152 mm
Not yet published - available from October 2025
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Situating British Literature and Empire Auritro Majumder
- Part I. Early Intimations and Literary Genres:
- 1500–1800:
- 1. Early modern utopia: Capitalism, colonialism, and private property Crystal Bartolovich
- 2. Trade, race, and class in early modern England Ania Loomba
- 3. Peripheral heroics on the renaissance stage Su Fang Ng
- 4. Travel narratives and the early novel Jason Pearl
- 5. Anglophone epics and ruin poetry in eighteenth-century India James Mulholland
- 6. The black Atlantic, slave narratives, and empire Nicole Aljoe
- Part II. Entanglements of prose, poetry, and empire:
- 1800–1900:
- 7. Romantic orientalist poetry and the spectacle of revolution Arif Camoglu
- 8. The historical novel and nineteenth century empire Ian Duncan
- 9. Gothic plots and the nineteenth century Irish novel Christina Morin
- 10. The Victorian industrial novel and the working classes Aviva Briefel
- 11. Victorian liberalism, settler character, and literary form Philip Steer
- 12. The imperial romance: Colonialism in ritual form Sandeep Banerjee
- Part III. Figures, Movements, and Histories:
- 1900–1945:
- 13. Unraveling adventure fictions: modernist compressions and anti-imperial connections Dominic Davies
- 14. Poetic accumulation, modernist verse, and imperial capital Paul Stasi
- 15. Modernist women, technologies of whiteness, and un-doing empire Sonita Sarker
- 16. Joyce and his contemporaries: revivalism, modernism, and Irish anti-imperialism Joe Cleary
- 17. Popular front aesthetics, imperialism, and the people Elinor Taylor
- Part IV. Pathways and Legacies:
- 1945–2020:
- 18. British fiction, decolonization, and the cold war Andrew Hammond
- 19. Beyond the empire: Black Caribbean British writing Lisa Tomlinson
- 20. Re-imagining the first world war in Contemporary British-Arab writing Nadia Atia
- 21. Multiculturalism and Muslim writing after Brexit Amina Yaqin
- Further Reading: Index.
