DR. SHASHWATI B MITRA
Lecturer, Amity University, Lucknow Campus
One of the fundamental questions of literary theory is
"what is literature?" – although many contemporary
theorists and literary scholars believe either that "literature"
cannot be defined or that it can refer to any use of language. Specific theories are distinguished
not only by their methods and conclusions, but even by how they define a "text". For some scholars of
literature, "texts" comprises little more than "books belonging
to the Western
literary canon."
But the principles and methods of literary theory have been applied to
non-fiction, popular
fiction, film, historical documents, law, advertising, etc., in the
related field of cultural
studies. By this
measure, literary theory can be thought of as the general theory of
interpretation.
Literary theory in a strict sense is the
systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for
analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century
often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict
sense—considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social
prophecy, and other interdisciplinary themes which are of relevance to the way
humans interpret meaning.
Post-colonial studies
apply the insights of hermeneutics(1) and left-wing
political theory to the literature of countries emerging from colonialism.
Equally pertinent is the literature of the colonizing power — the unspoken and
sometimes superior attitudes of European writers towards the culture of
countries they control or once controlled.
Everyone has their own
view of themselves and their surroundings, a view into which is mixed a good
deal of unexamined prejudice, self-worth and popular mythology. And doubtless
the language in which we write or talk supports and perpetuates those views.
Post-colonial studies go further than simply documenting the unavoidable,
however: they use the strategies of hermeneutics, Bakhtin(2), Derrida(3), Foucault(4) and others to discern
and often denounce such harmful prejudices. Post-colonial studies overlap the
concerns of feminism(5) and political correctness, and are couched in
the language of radical theory, dense with reference and specialized
terminology.
Post-colonial studies use
a concept called Otherness , a somewhat flexible concept, deriving from
Freudian psychiatry, which argues that human beings inevitably define
themselves against what they are not: the 'other'. Inevitably, given that
resistance to a colonial past helps define new writers, the unwanted colonial
attitudes reappear, even if as despised negatives. In short, there is no
privileged viewpoint, nothing that is free from earlier prejudice or subsequent
reaction. We work within a horizon of understanding, which itself
shifts as we think more deeply, and the age itself moves on.
Postcolonial theory
provides a framework that destabilizes dominant discourses in the West,
challenges “inherent assumptions”, and critiques the “material and discursive
legacies of colonialism”. In order to challenge these assumptions and legacies
of colonialism, postcolonial studies needs to be grounded, which entails
working with tangible identities, connections, and processes.
Postcolonialism deals with
cultural identity in colonized societies: the dilemmas of developing a national
identity after colonial rule; the ways in which writers articulate and celebrate
that identity, the ways in which the knowledge of the colonized (subordinated)
people has been generated and used to serve the colonizer's interests; and the
ways in which the colonizer's literature has justified colonialism via images
of the colonised as a perpetually inferior people, society and culture.
Postcolonial Theory - as epistemology, ethics, and politics -
addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the
challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonised
people's knowledge was used against them in service of the coloniser's
interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific
relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and
finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests. At the same time,
postcolonial theory encourages thought about the colonised's creative
resistance to the coloniser and how that resistance complicates and gives
texture to European imperial colonial projects, which utilised a range of
strategies, including anti-conquest
narratives, to
legitimise their dominance.
Postcolonial writers object to the colonised's depiction as
hollow "mimics" of Europeans or as passive recipients of power.
Consequent to Foucauldian argument, postcolonial scholars,
studies collective, argue that anti-colonial resistance accompanies every
deployment of power.
Notable
theorists include Edward Said , Homi Bhabha
, Frantz Fanon , Gayatri Spivak, Chinua Achebe , Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie,
Jamaica Kincaid, and Buchi Emecheta.
Key Terms associated with this theory:
Alterity - "lack of identification with some part of one's
personality or one's community, differentness, otherness"
Diaspora to refer to any
people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic
homelands, being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing
developments in their dispersal and culture.
Eurocentrism - "the practice, conscious or otherwise, of
placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and
values at the expense of those of other cultures. It is an instance of
ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment with
current and past real power structures in the world"
Hybridity - "an important concept in post-colonial theory,
referring to the integration (or, mingling) of cultural signs and practices
from the colonizing and the colonized cultures. The assimilation and adaptation
of cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of cultures, can be seen as
positive, enriching, and dynamic, as well as oppressive".
Imperialism - "the policy of extending the
control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or
maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial control or through
indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy of other
countries. The term is used by some to describe the policy of a country in
maintaining colonies and dominance over distant lands, regardless of whether
the country calls itself an empire".
REFERENCES:
1. Introduction to Postcolonial Studies.
Deepika Bahri. Oct. 2002. http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Intro.html. Introduction, listing important
writers.
2. Notes & Comments The New
Criterion. Nov. 1999. http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/18/
nov99/notes.htm
nov99/notes.htm
3. English Studies and Colonialism.
Philip Holden. Jun. 2003. http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/first_tier_modules/index.html#literary.
Columbia University Press
ISBN:13:9780231112734
5.
Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A
Reader, Padmini Mongia,
A Hodder Arnold Publication (first
published 1996)
ISBN 0340652888 (ISBN13:
9780340652886)
6.
Introduction
to Modern Literary Theory. Kristi Siegel. Jan. 2003. http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm.
End-notes:
1. Hermeneutics began as the science of
interpreting ancient documents, making a consistent picture when the parts
themselves drew their meaning from the document as a whole, but has become
important to Postmodernism and literature in general.
2. Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin
was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician[1]
and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy
of language.
3. Jacques Derrida was a French
philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical
theory known as deconstruction, his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern
philosophy.
4. Michel Foucault, born Paul-Michel Foucault, was a
French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas. He held a chair at the
prestigious Collège
de France with the
title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University
at Buffalo and the University of California, Berkeley.
