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fiction, film, historical documents, law, advertising, etc., in the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 hermeneutics1 and left-wing political
theory to the literature of countries emerging from colonialism. Equally
pertinent is the literatures 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, Bakhtin2, Derrida3, Foucault4 and others to discern and
often denounce such harmful prejudices. Post-colonial studies overlap the
concerns of feminism5 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 & values at the expense of those of other cultures. It is an
instance of ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment
with current & 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 .Nov1999http://www.newcriterion.com/
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)
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, 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.
5 Feminism is a collection
of movements aimed at
defining, establishing, defending equal
political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.
