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EMPIRE AND THE RISE OF THE BRITISH NOVEL

McInelly, Brett Chan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin965224819

Abstract Details

2000, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature.
Empire and the Rise of the British Novel Applying Edward Said's ideas regarding the profound influence of imperialism on Western culture and its artifacts to eighteenth-century Britain, this dissertation critically reassesses the work of Ian Watt and Michael McKeon by examining the extent to which an expanding empire affected the rise and development of the eighteenth-century English novel. Specifically, the novel, largely because of its realism and contemporaneity, played a unique role in Britain's imperial venture, investing the colonial terrain with historical and political significance and becoming a medium through which British colonial authority could be asserted. Aphra Behn's Oroonoko in particular is expressly concerned with asserting English colonial authority in South America, a fact that wields a major influence on the formal structures of that novel. Behn's efforts to authenticate an account of events on an actual plantation colony penetrate the dramatic action of a story that, conventionally, is typical of heroic drama. I further contend that notions of a subjective self as well as a national identity emerged, in large part, out of Britain's colonial experience and particularly through its contact with colonized peoples. As their world enlarged through colonial acquisitions, so did the British people's sense of themselves, and they became an increasingly self-referential society, a process both facilitated by and reflected in the novel's preoccupation with individual character. The narrative scope of Robinson Crusoe, for example, is characterized by a double movement: as Crusoe's world literally enlarges through his travels, the focus of the novel narrows to the daily activities of a single (British) subject. I contend that the novel's capacity to engage the particulars of day-to-day life and its attention to individual character are thus tied to the effects of imperial expansion on British subjectivity. Not insignificantly, the colonized world brings Crusoe into contact with Friday, who reflects back to his "white savior" Crusoe's image of himself. Although the colonized Other is often only an assumed presence in later novels, British narcissism-which receives its fullest treatment in the novel-is, I argue, intricately tied to colonial space and is a sign of British colonial authority.
Martin Wechselblatt (Advisor)
Literature, English
imperialism; empire; British; novel; rise

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • McInelly, B. C. (2000). EMPIRE AND THE RISE OF THE BRITISH NOVEL [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin965224819

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • McInelly, Brett. EMPIRE AND THE RISE OF THE BRITISH NOVEL. 2000. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin965224819.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • McInelly, Brett. "EMPIRE AND THE RISE OF THE BRITISH NOVEL." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2000. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin965224819

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin965224819
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.