Macropolitics of Nineteenth-Century Literature

Macropolitics defines a rapidly emerging focus for cultural enquiry. In contrast to Foucault's micropolitics, it emphasizes that political transformations at the level of the state have great importance for many developments in 19th-century writing. Responding to the global decolonization of the last five decades, the authors explore the relations between politics and culture that defined the era of colonization. Their introduction of the crucial macropolitical concept of imperialism gives new significance to the well-established comparative topics of nationalism and exoticism, by integrating them as parts of one process. The dozen chapters range over the whole 19th century, from Napoleon, through Britain's hegemony, to the age of generalized imperialism. The geographical range embraces England, Spain, France, and the USA, along with Scotland, Ireland, Mexico, the Caribbean, India and parts of northern and southern Afica. The contributors illuminate Wordsworth, Shelley, Dickens, Melville, Flaubert, Conrad and Charlotte Bronte, along with explorers' reports, Bible translations popular theatre and folklore. New historical materials and interpretative perspectives alter our understanding of established masterpieces and provoke fresh thought concerning the larger zones of political and cultural activities within which masterpieces emerge.