1. On Empire HUM 2212: British and American Literature I Fall 2012 Dr. Perdigao October 19-23, 2012

2. The Expanse of Empire Great Britain as center of global empire (1637) At the end of the nineteenth century, nearly ¼ of earth’s land surface was part of the British Empire; more than four hundred million people governed from Great Britain (1636) Heterogeneous entity Victoria—empress of India in 1877, gaining rule in 1857 after Indian Mutiny and wresting control from private entity, the East India Company Loss of American colonies, gains of other provinces “new imperialism” between 1870-1900 (1637) Joseph Chamberlain’s The True Conception of Empire (1897): 3 stages (1162-1663) Empire building lasting until World War I (1914-1918) Competition for new territories: “the scramble for Africa” (1637) Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902)

3. Kipling’s India, Kipling’s England Responsibility of governing nation: England to India Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli dubbed it the “Jewel in the Crown” (1851) Rudyard Kipling’s stories as representation of that world, familiarity and interest in English audience (1851); Kipling as “poet of British imperialism” (1852) Kipling born in India (1865), sent to Great Britain at 6 to begin education; returned to India at age 17 Moved to Vermont in 1892, back to England in 1896 Virginia Woolf’s statement “I could never make up my mind whether Kipling had moulded his characters accurately in the image of Anglo-Indian society or whether were were moulding our characters accurately in the image of a Kipling story” (1851) Influence of Robert Browning and Pre-Raphaelites on Kipling Kipling as chair of the Imperial War Graves Commission, choosing the words to be inscribe on monuments and memorials (1853)

4. Duty and Burden Ideas about dominance—“culturally and morally superior civilization” benefitting lesser one (1637) As Britain’s “destiny” Social Darwinism Ethnic chauvinism Kipling’s sense of the “white man’s burden” (1638) Postcolonialism in contemporary culture British identity emerges “the conflicted relations and characteristic differences between people from the various parts of the British Isles (politically dominant England and long- conquered Wales, Scotland, and Ireland) appeared less significant when set against the much more obvious inequities of power and greater cultural, racial, a religious, and linguistic differences across the globe” (1638)

5. Nationalism and Rhetoric Nationalism, patriotic fervor Growth in size of reading public—extension of elementary education in Britain led to widespread literacy—flag-waving newspapers, periodicals, and books (1639) Making a “cohesive whole” Ideas about colonies versus mainland Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “one imperial whole” as idea of union but felt divisions (1639) Gayatri Spivak’s statement about imperialism underlying all works written during this period because it was England’s “social mission,” a “crucial part of the cultural representation of England to the English” (1639)