Rajeev S. Patke - Böcker

The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series (general editor: Elleke Boehmer) offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English.Postcolonial Poetry in English provides a comprehensive introduction to the development of English poetry in all the regions that were once part of the British Empire. The idea of postcolonial poetry is held together by three factors: the global community constituted by English; the creative possibilities accessible through English; and patterns of literary development common to regions with a history of recent decolonization. In showing how diverse poetic traditions in English evolved from dependency to varying degrees of cultural self-confidence, the book answers two broad questions: how is postcolonial studies relevant to the interpretation of poetry, and how does poetry contribute to our idea of postcolonial writing?The book is divided into three parts: the first works out a method of analysis based on recent publications of outstanding interest; the second narrates the development of poetic traditions in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and the settler colonies of Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand; the third analyses key motifs, such as the struggle for minority self-representation; the cultural politics of gender, modernism, and postmodernity; and the experience of migration and self-exile in contemporary Anglophone societies. Postcolonial Poetry in English provides a succinct and wide-ranging introduction to some of the most exciting poetic writing of the twentieth century. It is ideally suited for readers interested in world writing in English, contemporary literature, postcolonial writing, cultural studies, and postmodern culture.

The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series (general editor: Elleke Boehmer) offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English. Postcolonial Poetry in English provides a comprehensive introduction to the development of English poetry in all the regions that were once part of the British Empire. The idea of postcolonial poetry is held together by three factors: the global community constituted by English; the creative possibilities accessible through English; and patterns of literary development common to regions with a history of recent decolonization. In showing how diverse poetic traditions in English evolved from dependency to varying degrees of cultural self-confidence, the book answers two broad questions: how is postcolonial studies relevant to the interpretation of poetry, and how does poetry contribute to our idea of postcolonial writing?The book is divided into three parts: the first works out a method of analysis based on recent publications of outstanding interest; the second narrates the development of poetic traditions in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and the settler colonies of Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand; the third analyses key motifs, such as the struggle for minority self-representation; the cultural politics of gender, modernism, and postmodernity; and the experience of migration and self-exile in contemporary Anglophone societies.Postcolonial Poetry in English provides a succinct and wide-ranging introduction to some of the most exciting poetic writing of the twentieth century. It is ideally suited for readers interested in world writing in English, contemporary literature, postcolonial writing, cultural studies, and postmodern culture.

The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English traces the development of literature in the region within its historical and cultural contexts. This volume explores creative writing in English across different genres and media, establishing connections from the colonial activity of the early modern period through to contemporary writing across Southeast Asia, focusing especially on the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.In this critical guide, Rajeev S. Patke and Philip Holden:interweave text and context through the history of creative writing in the regionexamine language use and variation, making use of illuminating examples from speech, poetry and fictional prosetrace the impact of historical, political and cultural eventsengage with current debates on national consciousness, globalization, modernity and postmodernismprovide useful features including a glossary, further reading section and chapter summaries. Direct and clearly written, this Concise History guides readers through key topics while presenting a unique, original synthesis of history and practice in Southeast Asian writing in English. It is the ideal starting point for students and all those seeking a better understanding of Southeast Asian literatures and cultures.

The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English traces the development of literature in the region within its historical and cultural contexts. This volume explores creative writing in English across different genres and media, establishing connections from the colonial activity of the early modern period through to contemporary writing across Southeast Asia, focusing especially on the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.In this critical guide, Rajeev S. Patke and Philip Holden:interweave text and context through the history of creative writing in the regionexamine language use and variation, making use of illuminating examples from speech, poetry and fictional prosetrace the impact of historical, political and cultural eventsengage with current debates on national consciousness, globalization, modernity and postmodernismprovide useful features including a glossary, further reading section and chapter summaries. Direct and clearly written, this Concise History guides readers through key topics while presenting a unique, original synthesis of history and practice in Southeast Asian writing in English. It is the ideal starting point for students and all those seeking a better understanding of Southeast Asian literatures and cultures.

Wallace Stevens is a fascinating and enigmatic poet; the vice-president of an insurance company, a corporate lawyer, an expert on the bond market, and, almost incidentally, one of America's greatest poets. Despite the many books written about him, Stevens remains a difficult poet, whose notorious injunction - 'Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully' - seems to haunt all his work, and especially the long poems. This study presents a close reading of Stevens' seven longest poems: 'The Comedian as the letter C', 'Owl's Clover', 'The Man with the Blue Guitar', 'Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction', 'Esthétique du Mal', 'The Auroras of Autumn' and 'An Ordinary Evening in New Haven'. Dr Patke argues for the centrality of the long poem in Stevens' oeuvre, and of Stevens to the poetic and cultural heritage of modern times. Extensive reference is made to the shorter poems, prose and correspondence, and to the possible influences on the poetry. Critical jargon and theorising are kept at a minimum so that the pleasures of Stevens' poetic world can be made accessible to as wide a range of readers as possible.

Provides a fresh account of modernist writing in a perspective based on the reading strategies developed by postcolonial studiesNeither modernity nor colonalism (and likewise, neither postmodernity nor postcoloniality) can be properly understood without recognition of their intertwined development. This book interprets modernity as an asymmetrically global phenomenon complexly connected to the course of Western imperialism, and demonstrates how the impact of Western modernism produced new developments in writing from all the former colonies of Europe and the US. These developments constitute the afterlife of Western modernism. The various ways in which the aesthetic ideologies and writing strategies of Western modernism have been adapted, transposed and modified by some of the most innovative writers of the twentieth century is demonstrated in the book through a set of case studies, each of which juxtaposes a canonical modernist text with a postcolonial text that shows how modernist modes metamorphosed in interaction with the turbulent and volatile realities of colonies and new nations struggling to arrive at a modernity of their own in contexts marked by colonial histories. Thus Kafka's allegories are juxtaposed with the use of allegory in writers like Salman Rushdie and J.M.Coetzee; the gendered modernity of Virginia Woolf is juxtaposed with the disturbing and powerful fictions of writers such as Jean Rhys and Katherine Mansfield; the intellectualized and urbanized spirituality of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is re-read in the revisionist contexts created by the brilliant and troubled urban spirituality of writers such as Arun Kolatkar from India and a text such as The Woman Who Had Two Navels, from the Philippines.Key Features:A detailed timeline that chronicles significant events and publications concerning modernist and (post)colonial culturesA fresh account of modernity and modernism as global phenomena interconnected

Radical, intrepid, compendious, /A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures/, goes far toward restoring 'postcolonialism' to its historical premises by resituating that imperial project in its much changed and still controversial cartographies. It is Marlow's map of the 'heart of darkness' drastically redrawn: what was once the 'vast amount of red,' a 'deuce of a lot of blue,' a 'little green,' those 'smears of orange,' and the 'purple patch,' is here become a dense kaleidoscope that will of necessity rechart the itinerary of students and critical travellers across and around 'continental Europe and its empires.'Barbara Harlow, University of Texas at Austin'The /Companion/ is unique in that it provides a wealth of analysis and information about all European continental powers and their colonies and presents the entire assembly in a wonderful mis-en-scène. It is a 'true' companion that invites trans-cultural readings of trans-cultural literatures.'Walter Mignolo, Duke UniversityThe first reference work to the political, cultural and economic contexts of postcolonial literatures stemming from the empires of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain as well as Latin America and the Philippines Written by recognised scholars the entries cover major events, ideas, movements and figures in postcolonial histories. They cover European overseas exploration, settlement, colonisation and decolonisation and highlight the relevance of colonial histories to the cultural, social, political and literary formations of contemporary postcolonial societies and nations. Each entry provides a succinct account of an event or topic, as well as suggestions for further reading in literary works and histories.By outlining the historical contexts of postcolonial literatures, the Companion provides an important key to understanding complex contemporary debates about race, colonialism and neo-colonialism, politics, economics, culture and

In all cultures and times, the poetic imagination has fed on the natural attributes of islands. An island is either a destination, or a home, or a place of exile and imprisonment, or simply a place to sojourn. It is an ideal vehicle for journeys treated as allegories, or for acts of finding that turn into acts of losing, or the reverse transformation. An island is not a continent; yet it can be an archipelago. An island is both a place in itself and a pretext for imaginings that need a local habitation and a name. It can give relief, and pleasure; or it can frustrate, isolate, and negate. Above all, it both invites and resists - or contains or constrains - the imagination. Poetry and Islands explores how islands become repositories of human longings and desires, a locus for some of our deepest fears and fantasies. It balances historical and geographical reference with a selective approach to poems and poets in English, and in translations into English. The study of particular poems in which islands figure in exemplary ways is balanced by a more detailed discussion of the poets who have played a major role in shaping human responses to islands on a global scale.