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Global Victorians - Coggle Diagram
Global Victorians
Reclamation/Brown Romanticism
Chander Brown Romanticism
Brown Romantics sought out to understand the basics of romantic poetry, specifically all the rules and standards set by white English poets, in order to bring themselves into prominence and therefore be able to set the tone. In essence, they are “mobilizing Romanticism against Romanticism.”
White Romantics were associated inherently with taste, and therefore set the laws for what taste was.
Brown Romantics therefore were trying to be considered “co-legislators” or people who also could create this standards because they understood them.
Native informants - Brown Romantics were considered this meaning they had to both
Toru Dutt's Poetry
Dutt uses Brown Romanticism by evoking aspects of classic Romantic poetry like image of nature but twisting them to be aligned with her ethnicity. For example using the image of the lotus flower and the Casuarina Tree.
A Visit to Europe, T.N. Mujharji
Reverse of European orientalist beliefs of Asia as Mukharji observes the way that the British behave.
He makes fun of the British’s willingness to believe anything he says about his “culture” based off of stereotypes they have created about South Asia
Sultana’s Dream
Hossain writes satire of an ideal land named LadyLand
Brown Romanticism connection through Hossain as a Bengali activist and writer
Ladyland represents Hossain’s imaginations of what white women believe utopia would be based off of New Woman ideals.
“'Your Calcutta could become a nicer garden than this if only your countrymen wanted to make it so.’” - White womanhood as a form of imperialism by pressing New Woman ideals onto racialized/colonized women.
Comic Acts of (Be)Longing
Poon argues that Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands is a way for Seacole to align herself with Britishness through the use of humor and levity.
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
Seacole writes about her journey as a nurse during the Crimean War.
She frequently describes her close relationship with white British people including the soldiers she nursed and Florence Nightingale.
She is writing, which allows her to tell her own story. However she is limited because she is writing this book in order to make money to make up for money lost spent on supplies during the war.
She therefore has a target audience of white British people and therefore cannot fully criticize their treatment of her.
Ryan Fong: “The Stories Outside the African Farm: Indigeneity, Orality, and Unsettling the Victorian”
Khoisan narratives in Story of an African Farm completely erased.
Erasure of Indigenous narratives are common.
Alternatives include prioritizing Indigenous knowledge production including showing the importance of oral story telling.
Fukuzawa: Autoexoticism
Autoexoticism as described by Fukuzawa in this context is the way that Japan uses stories, specifically these ghost stories, as a way to exoticize themselves and other themselves from the English.
Tower of London
Japanese protagonist/as well as author/encounters English ghosts in the Tower of London
Natural world/primitive landscapes
The Story of an African Farm
Lyndall and Em as opposites from New Woman to traditional forms of femininity.
Lyndall’s relationship with Gregory and the way that her choosing a form of womanhood that is more masculine, inherently means that he needs to be feminized through depictions of him in women’s clothing
Waldo struggles with religion and his faith.
This book in general focusing on the settler story in South Africa. Reinforces the idea of a primitive landscape before settler colonialism.
Schreiner deals with her own personal struggles through this novel and through the characters of Waldo and Lyndall.
On the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition
Briefel gives background on the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. Specifically focusing on the way that artisans were brought over as exhibits for the English to observe and watch
A Walk round the colonies
Pall Mall review of the exhibition. Discusses the nature/landscapes in the exhibition as well as the exhibit of real people doing work.
“If the visitor is wise he will stand here for a few minutes, letting the total effect of the scene gradually permeate him and filter through the medium of his charmed senses, till it finally takes shape of the belief that he is at last in the “Gorgeous East” and that it is too bewildering and fascinating a place for anything beyond lotus-eating.”
Demonstrates how the stereotypes of “primitivity” were for the English to enjoy.
My Diary in India, In the Year 1858-9
Russell traveled to India after the Indian Mutiny reporting back to the London Times
Russell was often defending India from English perspectives and legitimizing their cause. Yet, his reports still read as orientalizing.
Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition by the Queen
Tennyson writes this poem as the national poet in order to welcome this exhibition.
The calls for “one voice” is shown as a way to attempt to unify the colonized and the colonizers. One analysis is to believe that it is meant to make it seem like India is consenting.
The Man Who Would Be King
Kipling writes about two English men who go on an expedition to India. While on the trip they become seen as kings. However those native to the land are depicted as practicing in “ancient rituals” to the point where one of the men becomes seen as a god.
Their plans were also ruined because one of the men choose to marry a Kafir/native woman. Women of color are then also posed as a threat to imperial expansion in this story.
Hearn ghost stories
Hearn’s works are translations of oral Japanese stories that Hearn sent his wife out to collect and translate for him.
He often tells ghost stories, which were the ones that were told to his wife.
Imperial Might/Nation-state legitimacy
Casual Racism in Victorian Literature
Victorian Literature is often racist nonchalantly because it is normalized in this context.
Tea Biscuits and Empire: The Long con of Britishness
British identity after the fall of the British Empire and control over their former territories and colonies fell to pop culture and creating this idea of “Britishness” as a way to alleviate colonial guilt but also maintain a sense of presence after losing their power.
Britain’s Legacy of Slavery and the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery in Britain
Britain played a key role in the slave trade but abolished having slaves while keeping slavery as a system in its colonies. This allows for everyday British citizens to ignore the horrors of slavery.
The Slave Ship and readings “The Fallacies of Hope: Contesting Narratives of Abolition in Turner’s The Slave Ship”
Turner’s painting of the Slave Ship is considered a beautiful painting about the horrors of slavery.
Brace reading of it addresses the Zong Massacre and how the drowning bodies in Turner’s painting and the redemptive readings of it are harmful because it takes away the way that Turner himself is connected to slavery.
War of No Pity
Pinoy Rebellion/Uprising.
The uprising was demeaned/belittled as not relevant as it should be.
The uprising actually affected many British people’s outlooks on empire and shifted it from ignorance to acknowledgement that those colonized are not willing and consenting.
Empire
Hensley describes the way that empire is discussed and the imperial project. Critics dictate that it was about control and domination while supporters say there were benefits to the “Global South”
Kipling
Recessional
Kipling calls to God in this poem as a way to help as the British Empire in his eyes is crumbling.
The White Man’s Burden
Kipling’s poem describes the ways that imperialism and colonialism needs to happen for the empire in the context of helping their colonies/potential colonies because they are unable to help themselves.
If
Kipling lists what demands are needed for men in order to maintain their empire.
He is therefore creating and writing down what masculinity should be
He is also then aligning the power of the empire with what men need to be. Therefore men maintaining their masculinity is inherently tied to whether or not the empire lasts.
Gender/Masculinity/Queerness
The Beetle
Masculinity is tied inherently to the empire.
The weakness of the men in the novel allows for this foreign being to invade their bodies. Metaphor for fear of revenge from colonized subjects.
Ties queerness to weakness for men.
New Woman also a threat to the empire.
Internal threats (New Woman, queerness, etc.) translate into external threats (colonized subjects revolting).
The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point
Barrett Browning writes this poem from the perspective of a black enslaved women. She uses monologue as a way to dramatize this experience and induce empathy as part of the abolition movement.
The Margins of the Dramatic Monologue and Race and the Dramatic Monologue
Relating to Barrett Browning’s poem and how the use of dramatic monologue by a white woman about a black enslaved woman is a form of minstrelsy. Blurs the line between reality and puts white women in control of black female narratives.
Victorian Writings on the New Woman
The New Woman was the specific wave of feminism in the Victorian era where women were seeking economic freedom and equality with men. They were redefining womanhood and trying to enter the public sphere when women were previously relegated to the private/domestic sphere.
Politics of Recovery
The focus on women in imperialist projects is defined here both in the white English woman’s role and the way that imperialism will benefit colonized/Indian women.
Burdett Eugenics
Burdett argues that the New Woman belief system was based off of eugenicist beliefs. Specifically that they were trying to become equal to men and also hold off on marriage in order to make sure they are with a “good” man that will not pollute English bloodlines.