EN 347

The Narratives of Empire

By the time the British Empire had reached its zenith in the late 19th century, the imperial enterprise also exerted a powerful hold on the British literary and cultural imagination. In this course, we will read a diverse range of narratives, mainly from the nineteenth century, from adventure stories to detective fiction, in an attempt to unearth the myths, ideologies and unfolding constructs of Empire. We will look at empire as it is imagined at home and abroad, from the female and male writer’s perspective, as part of the unconscious workings of the literary imagination and as an extension of the critical apparatus of imperial rule. Exclusions: EN300 (taught in Winter 2006)