Imperial characters: home and periphery in eighteenth-century literature

244 Pages·2010·1.349 MB·English

by  Wallace, Tara Ghoshal

Imperial Characters
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TheBucknellStudiesin Eighteenth-Century
Literature andCulture
GeneralEditor: GregClingham,BucknellUniversity
AdvisoryBoard: PaulK.Alkon,UniversityofSouthernCalifornia
ChloeChard,IndependentScholar
ClementHawes,ThePennsylvaniaStateUniversity
RobertMarkley,UniversityofIllinoisatUrbana-Champaign
JessicaMunns,UniversityofDenver
CedricD.ReverandII,UniversityofWyoming
JanetTodd,UniversityofAberdeen
TheBucknellStudiesinEighteenth-CenturyLiteratureandCultureaimstopublishchalleng-
ing,neweighteenth-centuryscholarship.Ofparticularinterestiscritical,historical,and
interdisciplinaryworkthatisinterestinglyandintelligentlytheorized,andthatbroad-
ensandrefinestheconceptionofthefield.Atthesametime,theseriesremainsopento
all theoretical perspectives and different kinds of scholarship. While the focus of the
series is the literature, history, arts, and culture (including art, architecture, music,
travel,andhistoryofscience,medicine,andlaw)ofthelongeighteenthcenturyinBrit-
ainandEurope,theseriesisalsointerestedinscholarshipthatestablishesrelationships
withothergeographies,literature,andculturesfortheperiod1660–1830.
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TaraGhoshalWallace,ImperialCharacters:Homeand
PeripheryinEighteenth-CenturyLiterature
http://www.bucknell.edu/universitypress/
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Imperial Characters
Home and Periphery
in Eighteenth-Century Literature
Tara Ghoshal Wallace
Lewisburg
BucknellUniversityPress
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(cid:2)2010byRosemontPublishing&PrintingCorp.
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ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstherequirementsoftheAmerican
NationalStandardforPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials
Z39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Wallace,TaraGhoshal,1952–
Imperialcharacters:homeandperipheryineighteenth-centuryliterature/Tara
GhoshalWallace.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-8387-5740-6(alk.paper)
1.Englishliterature—18thcentury—Historyandcriticism. 2.Imperialismin
literature. 3.Nationalcharacteristics,British,inliterature. 4.GreatBritain—
Inliterature. 5.Coloniesinliterature. I.Title
PR448.I52W36 2010
820.9(cid:2)3581—dc22 2009039929
PRINTEDINTHEUNITEDSTATESOFAMERICA
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To Astra,whoembodiesthebestofthetwo empires
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Contents
Preface 9
Acknowledgments 11
Introduction.RoamingtheGlobe:AphraBehn’sOroonokoand
RobertLouis Stevenson’sMasterofBallantrae 17
1. GlobalNationalisms:AlexanderPope’sWindsor-Forestand
JamesThomson’sSeasons 35
2. FamilialIdentifications:DanielDefoe’s ColonelJackand
MollFlandersandTobiasSmollett’sHumphryClinker 66
Entr’acte.Between Empires:Wollstonecraft’sMaria,or
TheWrongsofWoman 105
3. PeripheralVisions:RobertBage’sHermsprongandElizabeth
Hamilton’sLettersofa HindooRajah 114
4. RhetoricalManipulations:WalterScott’sGuyManneringand
TheSurgeon’sDaughter 146
Notes 167
WorksCited 219
Index 240
7
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Preface
S
OMETIME AROUND 1960, A BRAND-NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY OPENED IN
the Alipore district of Calcutta. Its cleanliness, brightness, and silence
provided a welcome respite from the noise and dirt that surrounded
eventhoseofuswholivedinthe‘‘good’’partsoftown,anditbecamea
favorite destination for my family. Having gone through the Enid Bly-
ton books housed in the children’s section of that library, I wandered
overtotheadultshelves,whereIcameuponthenovelsofJaneAusten.
It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that my early exposure to
those illustrated Victorian editions of Austen decided the course of my
professionallife.When,morethanthreedecadeslater,Iwrotemybook
onAusten,itwasalaborofloveaswellasthefulfillmentofachildhood
ambition.Anditwasdecidedlytheproductofapostcolonialeducation.
ThisbooktooarisesfromthoseearlyyearsofreadingAusteninCal-
cutta. Although professional training and practice have produced the
particular version of eighteenth-century studies worked out here, the
project also represents the culmination of a personal narrative that
could be described as postcolonial hybridity, one that has taken me
from Calcutta to Washington D.C., with a formative stopover in To-
ronto—all former possessions of imperial Britain, occupying very dif-
ferent but significantly overlapping positions in a postcolonial world. I
thinkitwouldbefairtosaythatthisbook,morethanmyearlierwork,
articulates a global vision that has always been part of my life. It is a
vision that prevents me from inhabiting resentful or victimized postco-
lonialitywhileitaccommodatesandassimilatespostcolonialcritiquesof
imperial practices. As the daughter of an Oxford-educated ICS officer
who served the British Raj before joining the government of indepen-
dent India, I am inevitably the (privileged) product of a colonial cul-
ture; as the granddaughter of the historian U. N. Ghoshal, author of
many books on ancient Indian culture and government, I am equally
awareofthevalueoftheworldthatcolonial culturesuperseded.
Thomas Babington Macaulay’s 1835 ‘‘Minute’’ on Indian education
hasfrequently beenatarget forpostcolonial scorn. Theidea ofeducat-
ing the colonized to admire and assimilate the language and values of
9
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10 PREFACE
the colonizer is, on the face of it, oppressive. And certainly, the much-
quotedplan‘‘toform...aclassofpersons,Indianinbloodandcolour,
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’’ evinces an
arrogantwilltopoweroffensivetomodernsensibilities.ButMacaulay’s
pragmatic imperialism emerges in part from an earnest belief that the
English language ‘‘abounds with works of imagination not inferior to
the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us .. . with just and lively
representations of human life and human nature.’’ Such chauvinism
may be both narrow-minded and insulting, but in its echo of Austen’s
celebrationofnovels‘‘inwhichthegreatestpowersofthemindaredis-
played, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the
happiestdelineationofitsvarieties,theliveliesteffusionsofwitandhu-
mour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language,’’ Macau-
lay’s ‘‘Minute’’ also articulates a sincere desire to disseminate what he
considersthehighestachievementsintextualproduction.Wewhohave
committedalifetimetoteachingandwritingabouttheseverytextscan-
notentirelydismisshisprideinBritishliterature.
This book on imperial characters and contradictions completes, to
someextent,mylongtrajectoryfromAliporetoacademiclifeinWash-
ington D.C.Init,I hopetodemonstratethat theBritisheducationthat
Macaulayand GovernorGeneralBentnickimposed onIndiansubjects
notonlyproducedcarefulreadersofBritishliterature,butalsoacohort
of global citizens who belie the dichotomy between home and pe-
riphery.
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