Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Wallace, Miriam

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

In the long tradition of epic, nation and empire have continually been reconceived from Virgil to Dante to Spenser and to Milton. The process of imagining and reimagining nation and empire is built into the foundation of the genre. This epic imagination is informed by the teleology of city-building. Starting with Homer, the trajectory of this literature has been unendingly informed. James Joyce and Derek Walcott reframe this long-standing literary tradition by speaking from a colonized position. The dual constitution of high and low voices in their works produce a new hybrid voice that challenges the epic’s history. These writers place themselves within a genre that traditionally excludes the colonized and glorifies the colonizer. Through this appropriation of genre, James Joyce and Derek Walcott write what may be conceived of as “postcolonial epic.” This modification of epic uproots the genre and allows for a rethinking of the role of epic in the history of literature. The integration of colonized voices into the genre of epic creates the conditions for reformulation of the generic conventions of epic. The tools which have long enabled the exaltation of nation become tools that enable an exploration of postcolonial trauma.

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