Publisher Description

Demonstrates the importance of postcolonial approaches to understanding the literature of the period 1787-1833
Arguing that literature of the Romantic period must be understood in the context of British colonial expansion and imperial rule, this text surveys Romantic literature's role in consolidating Britain as the centre of empire. It highlights the ways in which the expanding print market served readers eager to learn about the wider world: Romantic poetry and travel writing, for example, went hand in hand. Elizabeth Bohls shows that while Exoticism and Orientalism help us understand colonial discourses and imperial ideologies, texts not overtly concerned with the exotic, like Wordsworth's and Austen's, also engage the historical problematic of empire.
Key Features
Covers travel writing, slave narratives, political prose as well as novels & poetry
Reads canonical materials (Coleridge, Austen, Scott, Shelley, etc.) in new ways
Wide coverage: the Romantic Geographies chapter treats travel in the Pacific, Canada/North America, the Caribbean, Africa and India, while the Romantic Orientalism chapter treats writings on India

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Postcolonial Literary StudiesSeries Editors: David Johnson and Ania LoombaThis 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.Romantic Literature and Postcolonial StudiesElizabeth A. BohlsDemonstrates the importance of postcolonial approaches to understanding the literature of the period 1787-1833Arguing that literature of the Romantic period must be understood in the context of British colonial expansion and imperial rule, this text surveys Romantic literature's role in consolidating Britain as the centre of empire. It highlights the ways in which the expanding print market served readers eager to learn about the wider world: Romantic poetry and travel writing, for example, went hand in hand. Elizabeth Bohls shows that while Exoticism and Orientalism help us understand colonial discourses and imperial ideologies, texts not overtly concerned with the exotic, like Wordsworth's and Austen's, also engage the historical problematic of empire.Key FeaturesCovers travel writing, slave narratives, political prose as well as novels & poetryReads canonical materials (Coleridge, Austen, Scott, Shelley, etc.) in new waysWide coverage: the Romantic Geographies chapter treats travel in the Pacific, Canada/North America, the Caribbean, Africa and India, while the Romantic Orientalism chapter treats writings on IndiaElizabeth A. Bohls, Associate Professor of English at the University of Oregon, is the author of Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716-1818 and co-editor of the anthology Travel Writing 1700-1830.

Review

...offers highly useful material for students embarking on the study of both Romantic and postcolonial literatures. [Is] also an indispensible part of the library of scholars with a serious intent on understanding the complexities of the empire from which much Romantic literature sprang.--The BARS Review
[A] very worthy, lucid analysis of how colonial and sub-imperialized relationships were configured and represented (or refracted) in various texts of the Romantic era in Britain.--Bruce Harding, Ngai Tahu Research Centre, University of Canterbury "Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 50:4 "
Bohls provides a thorough, accessible, and up-to-date account of this field. Her book will be of enormous value to students and scholars wishing to get a sense of how empire and colonialism have impacted on Romantic period writing as well as bringing more established scholars up to speed in areas of Romantic postcolonial criticism they may not be familiar with.--Peter J. Kitson, University of East Anglia "Romanticism, Vol 22, No3 "

Long Description

Examines the relationship between Romantic writing and the rapidly expanding British Empire Literature played a crucial role in constructing and contesting the modern culture of empire that was fully in place by the start of the Victorian period. Postcolonial criticism's concern with issues of geopolitics, race and gender, subalternity and exoticism shape discussions of works by major authors such as Blake, Coleridge, Percy and Mary Shelley, Austen and Scott, as well as their less familiar contemporaries. Key Features: Explains how key theoretical concerns of postcolonial studies - imaginary geography, Otherness & difference and cultural hybridity - have dramatically changed our understanding of Romantic literature Demonstrates how selected texts, in a range of genres, are illuminated by postcolonial criticism Includes a bibliographical essay along with an up-to-date bibliography of criticism, editions of primary works and selected historical materials

Review Quote

...offers highly useful material for students embarking on the study of both Romantic and postcolonial literatures.

Promotional "Headline"

Examines the relationship between Romantic writing and the rapidly expanding British Empire

Description for Reader

This book examines the relationship between Romantic writing and the rapidly expanding British Empire. Literature played a crucial role in constructing and contesting the modern culture of empire that was fully in place by the start of the Victorian period. Postcolonial criticism's concern with issues of geopolitics, race and gender, subalternity and exoticism shape discussions of works by major authors such as Blake, Coleridge, both Shelleys, Austen and Scott, as well as their less familiar contemporaries. Key Features: Explains how key theoretical concerns of postcolonial studies - its analyses of imaginary geography, the construction of otherness or difference, and cultural hybridity - have dramatically changed our understanding of Romantic literature Provides accessible yet sophisticated in-depth analyses of selected texts, in a range of genres, whose interpretation is illuminated by postcolonial criticism Includes a bibliographical essay along with up-to-date bibliography of criticism, editions of primary works, and selected historical materials

Feature

Key features: Explains how key theoretical concerns of postcolonial studies - imaginary geography, Otherness & difference and cultural hybridity - have dramatically changed our understanding of Romantic literature Demonstrates how selected texts, in a range of genres, are illuminated by postcolonial criticism Includes a bibliographical essay along with an up-to-date bibliography of criticism, editions of primary works and selected historical materials

Description for Sales People

Literature played a crucial role in constructing and contesting the modern culture of empire that was fully in place by the start of the Victorian period. Postcolonial criticism's concern with issues of geopolitics, race and gender, subalternity and exoticism shape discussions of works by major authors such as Blake, Coleridge, Percy and Mary Shelley, Austen and Scott, as well as their less familiar contemporaries. Key features: Explains how key theoretical concerns of postcolonial studies - imaginary geography, Otherness & difference and cultural hybridity - have dramatically changed our understanding of Romantic literature Demonstrates how selected texts, in a range of genres, are illuminated by postcolonial criticism Includes a bibliographical essay along with an up-to-date bibliography of criticism, editions of primary works and selected historical materials

Description for Teachers/Educators

Postcolonial Criticism; Romantic Literature / Romanticism

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