In the course of the nineteenth century France built up a colonial empire second only to Britain's. The literary tradition in which it dealt with its colonial 'Other' is frequently understood in terms of Edward Said's description of Orientalism as both a Western projection and a 'will to govern' over the Orient. There is, however, a body of works that eludes such a simple categorisation, offering glimpses of colonial resistance, of a critique of imperialist hegemony, or of a blurring of the boundaries between the Self and the Other. Some of the ways in which the imperialist enterprise is...
In the course of the nineteenth century France built up a colonial empire second only to Britain's. The literary tradition in which it dealt with its ...
Nineteenth-century French realism focuses on metropolitan France, with Paris as its undisputed heart. Through Jennifer Yee's close reading of the great novelists of the French realist and naturalist canon--Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant--The Colonial Comedy reveals that the colonies play a role at a distance even in the most apparently metropolitan texts. In what Edward Said called "geographical notations" of race and imperialism, the presence of the colonies off-stage is apparent as imported objects, colonial merchandise, and individuals whose colonial experience is...
Nineteenth-century French realism focuses on metropolitan France, with Paris as its undisputed heart. Through Jennifer Yee's close reading of the grea...
