Title British Colonial realism in Africa : inalienable objects, contested domains / Deborah Shapple Spillman

Published New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

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Description 1 online resource Series Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture. Contents List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction: Reading Colonial Realism -- Taking Objects for Origins: Victorian Ethnography and Heart of Darkness -- The Uncanny Object Lessons of Mary Kingsley and Edward Blyden -- Realism and Realia in Colonial Southern Africa -- Artful Tales and Indigenous Arts in The Story of an African Farm -- Coda -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index Summary How are objects central to the formation of individuals, their communities, and their liberties? What role do objects play as they move between societies and their different systems of value as commodities, as charms, as gifts, as trophies, or as curses? Nineteenth-century British authors attempting to transport narrative realism to the colonies confronted such questions directly and indirectly as they struggled to represent competing forms of material investment that characterized colonial and postcolonial life in Africa. Reading works by authors from Joseph Conrad and Mary Kingsley to Anna Howarth and Olive Schreiner against nineteenth-century African essays, folklore, visual arts, and recorded testimonies, this new study considers how conflicts over the material world impacted literary realism in colonial Africa. These conflicts highlight tensions between Victorian and African perceptions of objects and practices of exchange, while directing our attention toward alternate histories and stories yet to be told Subject English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Realism in literature. Colonies in literature. British -- Africa -- Intellectual life Commonwealth literature (English) -- History and criticism Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 -- English. SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural. LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. LITERARY CRITICISM -- African. Literature. British -- Intellectual life Colonies in literature Commonwealth literature (English) English literature Literature Realism in literature SUBJECT Africa -- In literature Subject Africa Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780230378018 0230378013

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