Literary Theory Practical and Theoretical Criticism (Critical Lens)

1. Literary TheoryPractical and Theoretical Criticism(Critical Lens) The view from which a piece of literature is analyzed and interpreted, focusing on the assumptions underlying analysis.

2. Postcolonial Literary Theory • Postcolonial Literature – body of literature written by authors with roots in countries once occupied by European nations • Postcolonial Theory – intellectual inquiry exploring and interrogating the situation of colonized people during and after colonization.

3. Characteristics of Postcolonialism • Anti-imperialist in character • Post (prefix) implies opposition and chronological sequence • Denotes period after colony has become independent • Connotes political and moral attitudes opposing colonization

4. Alternative Postcolonial Situations • Situations where a people have been “colonized” • Domestic Colonization • Examples: Africans under slavery in the Americas, Irish under domain of England

5. Cultural Roots of Postcolonial Literature • South Asia • Africa • The Carribbean • Australia • New Zealand • Canada • Ireland

6. Postcolonial Theory • Raises and explores historical, cultural, political, and moral issues surrounding the establishment and disintegration of colonies and the empires they fueled.

7. Leading Postcolonial Theorists • Edward Said (politically active scholar of Palestinian descent teaching the U.S.) • Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Indianliterary critic, theorist teaches at Columbia University) • Homi K. Bhabha (Indian Professor of English and American Literature and Language, and the Director of the Humanities Center, at Harvard University)

8. Causes and Effects • Stereotypes of dominated culture contributes to establishment and domination through colonization • Gender and Class complicate understanding of impact of colonization • Silencing of women • Subjugation of “lower classes”

9. Terms • Agency – the ability to choose and speak independently • Hybridity – how colonized peoples coopted and transformed various elements of the colonizing culture adapting it into their new (hybrid) culture • Diaspora – the dispersion of peoples from their homelands

10. Leading Postcolonial Writers • Edward Ricardo Braithwaite (Guyana) To Sir with Love • Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) Things Fall Apart • Aime Cesaire (the Caribbean) Poet and Playwright • Frantz Fanon (the Caribbean and North Africa) Black Skin, White Masks

11. Influences • Writer’s angle of vision depends on factors: • gender • class • cultural roots • location of writer – margin or center