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Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature
The three essays constituting this volume were originally published as individual pamphlets by the Field Day Theatre Company, in Derry, Northern Ireland. Each deals with the question of nationalism and the role of cultural production as a force in understanding and analyzing the aftermath of colonization. The authors’ diverse perspectives are demonstrated by the essays’ respective titles: Eagleton, Nationalism: Irony and Commitment; Jameson, Modernism and Imperialism; and Said, Yeats and Decolonization. The essays have implication beyond their immediate topics, bearing upon questions of feminism, decolonization, and modernism to illuminate problems that belong to other groups and regions.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Terry Eagleton
160 books1,281 followersWidely regarded as England's most influential living literary critic & theorist, Dr. Terry Eagleton currently serves as Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster and as Visiting Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Thomas Warton Prof. of English Literature at the University of Oxford ('92-01) & John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester 'til '08. He returned to the University of Notre Dame in the Autumn '09 semester as Distinguished Visitor in the English Department.
He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.
He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 8, 2021
Edward Said remains one of my favourite authors, and so when I saw this collection containing an essay by him I snapped it up without hesitation. Unfortunately, it turns out that Said’s essay in this book also appears as a chapter in “Culture and Imperialism” and so I had actually already read it. Nonetheless, the other works in here made for excellent reading.
This collection of essay offers an intellectually potent analysis of colonialism and nationalism in the context of Ireland. Though front and centre, Ireland is however more the mode of analysis and so the conclusion drawn here will be of interest to anyone looking to understand the artistic and literary expression of colonial and post-colonial nationalism. I should say, however, that this is a challenging read and best suit for those who are looking to really engage with these themes at the highest level - if you are looking for light reading, look elsewhere! If you are looking for an interesting and complex discussion on the relationships that exist (and persist) between people and communities, then this is the book for you.
This collection of essay offers an intellectually potent analysis of colonialism and nationalism in the context of Ireland. Though front and centre, Ireland is however more the mode of analysis and so the conclusion drawn here will be of interest to anyone looking to understand the artistic and literary expression of colonial and post-colonial nationalism. I should say, however, that this is a challenging read and best suit for those who are looking to really engage with these themes at the highest level - if you are looking for light reading, look elsewhere! If you are looking for an interesting and complex discussion on the relationships that exist (and persist) between people and communities, then this is the book for you.
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December 3, 2024niespecjalnie potrzebna książka
July 18, 2025
Gonna have to read again to understand everything better (as I feel with every new book), but what a lineup for such a brief pamphlet!
February 18, 2023
great ideas that I'll use in my research but a very very challenging read.
December 17, 2024
Said's piece is very interesting and I think for people who find the Irish/Palestine solidarity issue puzzling, a good glimpse into an idea that has a long history.
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April 16, 2025Kurde jestem za cienka w portkach na takie zaawansowane przekminy. Łatwo gubiłam wątek i praktycznie jedynym gwarantem śledzenia wywodu było czytanie sobie na głos 🥴
May 23, 2024
Chyba jestem trochę za głupia na te eseje, ale jednocześnie cieszę się, że po nie sięgnęłam.
February 24, 2011
a quote from the end of eagleton's essay, perhaps explaining the appeal of a book on ireland written by non irish great lit crits:
What any oppressed group has most vitally in common
is just the shared fact of their oppression. Their
collective identity is in this sense importantly negative, defined
less by shared positive characteristics than by a common
antagonism to some political order. That negative collective
identity, however, is bound over a period of time to
generate a positive particular culture, without which political
emancipation is probably impossible. Nobody can live in
perpetual deferment of their sense of selfhood, or free
themselves from bondage without a strongly affirmative
consciousness of who they are. Without such self-consciousness,
one would not even know what one lacked; and
a subject that thinks itself complete feels no need to revolt.
In this sense, the "negativity" of an oppressed people—its
sense of itself as dislocated and depleted—already implies a
more positive style of being. The true triumph of alienation
would be not to know that one was alienated at all. But since
any such positive identity evolves within oppressive conditions,
partly as compensatory for them, it can never be an
unambiguous political gain, and will always be to some extent
collusive with its antagonists. The paradox or aporia of
any transformative politics is that it demands, to be successful,
a "centered," resolute, self-confident agent, but would
not be necessary in the first place if such self-confidence
were genuinely possible. Radical change is thus rendered
highly vulnerable by what makes it necessary in the first
place. The ideal revolutionary subject has broken with an
imposed political identity into a kind of nameless, subversive
negativity, yet has a sense of his or her own autonomous
powers and capacities that far outstrips the hazy,
indeterminate awareness of ourselves as agents that we derive
from routine social life. This is not the kind of conundrum
that any discourse of dialectical mediation will readily
clarify.
Where human subjects politically begin, in all their sensuous
specificity, is with certain needs and desires. Yet need
and desire are also what render us nonidentical with ourselves,
opening us up to some broader social dimension;
and what is posed within this dimension is the question of
what general conditions would be necessary for our particular
needs and desires to be fulfilled. Mediated through the
general in this way, particular demands cease to be selfidentical
and return to themselves transformed by a discourse
of the other. The feminist, nationalist, or trade
unionist might now come to recognize that in the long run
none of their desires is realizable without the fulfillment of
the others'. Where the antidialecticians are right is that such
a recognition cannot be lived as simple, seamless unity. Indeed,
the fact that the Hegelian totality cannot be lived was
Kierkegaard's recurrent complaint against it. It is only ambiguously,
precariously, that any of us can experience at
once the necessary absolutism of a particular demand—to
be freed, for example, from an immediate, intolerable
oppression—and the more general truth that no one such
demand, however just and urgent, can finally exhaust or
preprogram a political future in which the content will have
gone beyond the phrase. As Kierkegaard might have said, it
is a matter of trying to live that dialectic passionately, ironically,
in all of its elusive impossibility, rather than merely
providing an elegant theoretical formulation of it.
What any oppressed group has most vitally in common
is just the shared fact of their oppression. Their
collective identity is in this sense importantly negative, defined
less by shared positive characteristics than by a common
antagonism to some political order. That negative collective
identity, however, is bound over a period of time to
generate a positive particular culture, without which political
emancipation is probably impossible. Nobody can live in
perpetual deferment of their sense of selfhood, or free
themselves from bondage without a strongly affirmative
consciousness of who they are. Without such self-consciousness,
one would not even know what one lacked; and
a subject that thinks itself complete feels no need to revolt.
In this sense, the "negativity" of an oppressed people—its
sense of itself as dislocated and depleted—already implies a
more positive style of being. The true triumph of alienation
would be not to know that one was alienated at all. But since
any such positive identity evolves within oppressive conditions,
partly as compensatory for them, it can never be an
unambiguous political gain, and will always be to some extent
collusive with its antagonists. The paradox or aporia of
any transformative politics is that it demands, to be successful,
a "centered," resolute, self-confident agent, but would
not be necessary in the first place if such self-confidence
were genuinely possible. Radical change is thus rendered
highly vulnerable by what makes it necessary in the first
place. The ideal revolutionary subject has broken with an
imposed political identity into a kind of nameless, subversive
negativity, yet has a sense of his or her own autonomous
powers and capacities that far outstrips the hazy,
indeterminate awareness of ourselves as agents that we derive
from routine social life. This is not the kind of conundrum
that any discourse of dialectical mediation will readily
clarify.
Where human subjects politically begin, in all their sensuous
specificity, is with certain needs and desires. Yet need
and desire are also what render us nonidentical with ourselves,
opening us up to some broader social dimension;
and what is posed within this dimension is the question of
what general conditions would be necessary for our particular
needs and desires to be fulfilled. Mediated through the
general in this way, particular demands cease to be selfidentical
and return to themselves transformed by a discourse
of the other. The feminist, nationalist, or trade
unionist might now come to recognize that in the long run
none of their desires is realizable without the fulfillment of
the others'. Where the antidialecticians are right is that such
a recognition cannot be lived as simple, seamless unity. Indeed,
the fact that the Hegelian totality cannot be lived was
Kierkegaard's recurrent complaint against it. It is only ambiguously,
precariously, that any of us can experience at
once the necessary absolutism of a particular demand—to
be freed, for example, from an immediate, intolerable
oppression—and the more general truth that no one such
demand, however just and urgent, can finally exhaust or
preprogram a political future in which the content will have
gone beyond the phrase. As Kierkegaard might have said, it
is a matter of trying to live that dialectic passionately, ironically,
in all of its elusive impossibility, rather than merely
providing an elegant theoretical formulation of it.
August 19, 2013
So far, I am reading this book for homework, and I wish I had a little help. Usually I don't read books like these, but at times, its difficult for me to keep up.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews