Melodramatic Imperial Writing: From the Sepoy Rebellion to Cecil Rhodes (Series in Victorian Studies)

Neil Hultgren has produced a persuasive and accessible text focusing on two significant leitmotifs. First, he widens our understanding of the range of melodramatic writing, both temporally and spatially, by arguing for its broader literary and historical significance. Second, he focuses on melodramas relationship with British imperial writing of the late nineteenth century in a bid to resurrect it from its reputation as merely a conveyor of violent and jingoistic propaganda. Emphasizing three common themes in the melodramatic modeand by moving beyond the early stage to include novels, short stories, and poems, he makes a persuasive case for its diversity and significance. Modern Language Review Melodrama is often seen as a blunt aesthetic tool tainted by its reliance on improbable situations, moral binaries, and overwhelming emotion, features that made it a likely ingredient of British imperial propaganda during the late nineteenth century. Yet, through its impact on many late-Victorian genres outside of the theater, melodrama developed a complicated relationship with British imperial discourse. Melodramatic Imperial Writing positions melodrama as a vital aspect of works that underscored the contradictions and injustices of British imperialism. Beyond proving useful for authors constructing imperialist fantasies or supporting unjust policies, the melodramatic mode enabled writers to upset narratives of British imperial destiny and racial superiority. Neil Hultgren explores a range of texts, from Dickenss writing about the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion to W. E. Henleys imperialist poetry and Olive Schreiners experimental fiction, in order to trace a new and complex history of British imperialism and the melodramatic mode in late-Victorian writing. Melodrama, as an aesthetic, has long been criticized for its reliance on improbable situations and overwhelming emotion. These very aspects, however, made it a useful and appealing literary mode for British imperial propagandists in the late nineteenth century. Though stage melodrama may have been declining in prominence, the melodramatic style influenced many late-Victorian genres outside of the theater-for example, imperialist ballads, detective novels, travel narratives, and romances-and developed a complicated relationship with British imperial discourse. Melodramatic Imperial Writing: From the Sepoy Rebellion to Cecil Rhodes locates melodrama within a new and considerably more complicated history of British imperialism: beyond its use in constructing imperialist fantasies or supporting unjust policies, the melodramatic style also enabled writers to upset narratives of British imperial destiny or racial superiority. This book examines works by both canonical and lesser-known authors writing after the Sepoy Rebellion, including Wilkie Collins, Marie Corelli, Charles Dickens, H. Rider Haggard, W. E. Henley, Rudyard Kipling, Olive Schreiner, and Robert Louis Stevenson, and encompasses representations of British imperialism from India, to South Africa and the South Seas-- Introduction: At Last! and Too Late! -- Part 1. Melodrama as plot --- Imperial melodrama after the Sepoy Rebellion -- Romance; or melodrama and the adventure of history -- Part 2. Melodrama as aestheticized feeling -- Imperialist poetry, aestheticism, and melodrama's man of action -- Stevenson's melodramatic anthropology -- Part 3. Melodrama as distant homeland -- Olive Schreiner and the melodrama of the Karoo -- Conclusion: Pirates and spies. Neil Hultgren. Includes bibliographical references and index. "Melodrama, as an aesthetic, has long been criticized for its reliance on improbable situations and overwhelming emotion. These very aspects, however, made it a useful and appealing literary mode for British imperial propagandists in the late nineteenth century. Though stage melodrama may have been declining in prominence, the melodramatic style influenced many late-Victorian genres outside of the theater-for example, imperialist ballads, detective novels, travel narratives, and romances-and developed a complicated relationship with British imperial discourse. Melodramatic Imperial Writing: From the Sepoy Rebellion to Cecil Rhodes locates melodrama within a new and considerably more complicated history of British imperialism: beyond its use in constructing imperialist fantasies or supporting unjust policies, the melodramatic style also enabled writers to upset narratives of British imperial destiny or racial superiority. This book examines works by both canonical and lesser-known authors writing after the Sepoy Rebellion, including Wilkie Collins, Marie Corelli, Charles Dickens, H. Rider Haggard, W.E. Henley, Rudyard Kipling, Olive Schreiner, and Robert Louis Stevenson, and encompasses representations of British imperialism from India, to South Africa and the South Seas"-- Provided by publisher