The Non-literate Other: Readings of Illiteracy in Twentieth-century Novels in EnglishRodopi, 2007 - 506 Seiten Public debates on the benefits and dangers of mass literacy prompted nineteenth-century British authors to write about illiteracy. Since the early twentieth century writers outside Europe have paid increasing attention to the subject as a measure both of cultural dependence and independence. So far literary studies has taken little notice of this. The Non-Literate Other: Readings of Illiteracy in Twentieth-Century Novels in English offers explanations for this lack of interest in illiteracy amongst scholars of literature, and attempts to remedy this neglect by posing the question of how writers use their literacy to write about a condition radically unlike their own. Answers to this question are given in the analysis of nineteen works featuring illiterates yet never before studied for doing so. The book explores the scriptlessness of Neanderthals in William Golding, of barbarians in Angela Carter, David Malouf, and J.M. Coetzee, of African natives in Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe, of Maoris in Patricia Grace and Chippewas in Louise Erdrich, of fugitive or former slaves and their descendants in Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, and Ernest Gaines, of Untouchables in Mulk Raj Anand and Salman Rushdie, and of migrants in Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa, and Amy Tan. In so doing it conveys a clear sense of the complexity and variability of the phenomenon of non-literacy as well as its fictional resourcefulness. |
Im Buch
Ergebnisse 1-5 von 67
Seite 3
... social reality. In this reality, the illiterate is no outsider but assumes a safe position within the confines of a strongly diversified culture. The structural relevance Shakespeare strategically assigns his unlearned character ...
... social reality. In this reality, the illiterate is no outsider but assumes a safe position within the confines of a strongly diversified culture. The structural relevance Shakespeare strategically assigns his unlearned character ...
Seite 7
... social fabric portrayed by the literary text remained a common strategy in English literature well into the nineteenth century. But the sympathetic treatment of an Other inhabiting a cultural space outside or beyond literate ...
... social fabric portrayed by the literary text remained a common strategy in English literature well into the nineteenth century. But the sympathetic treatment of an Other inhabiting a cultural space outside or beyond literate ...
Seite 9
... social activities in which literacy is assumed”. The standards of definition have been fluctuating considerably ever since. Between six and eight years of schooling tend to be regarded as the minimum criterion for functional literacy by ...
... social activities in which literacy is assumed”. The standards of definition have been fluctuating considerably ever since. Between six and eight years of schooling tend to be regarded as the minimum criterion for functional literacy by ...
Seite 11
... social functions the script is used for, and the invention of new, more specialized genres of writing”. Literature not only contributes significantly to the growth of readerships,19 but also responds to the varying social functions of ...
... social functions the script is used for, and the invention of new, more specialized genres of writing”. Literature not only contributes significantly to the growth of readerships,19 but also responds to the varying social functions of ...
Seite 15
... social problem at the beginning of the nineteenth century and prompted contemporary British writers to engage in heated debates concerning the implementation of compulsory schooling for nearly a hundred years after that. These debates ...
... social problem at the beginning of the nineteenth century and prompted contemporary British writers to engage in heated debates concerning the implementation of compulsory schooling for nearly a hundred years after that. These debates ...
Inhalt
17 | |
57 | |
THE NONLITERATE WITHOUT UNLETTERED CALIBANS IN DISTANT EUROPE | 101 |
THE NONLITERATE IN SIGHT THE UNLETTERED NATIVE IN CONTACT NARRATIVES | 163 |
THE NONLITERATE WITHIN ESTABLISHED FORMS OF NONLITERACY IN LITERATE CULTURES | 259 |
THE ILLITERATE RETURNED ILLITERACY IN MIGRANT LITERATURE | 383 |
CLOSING REMARKS | 437 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 447 |
INDEX | 489 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
The Non-Literate Other: Readings of Illiteracy in Twentieth-Century Novels ... Helga Ramsey-Kurz Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2007 |
The Non-literate Other: Readings of Illiteracy in Twentieth-century Novels ... Helga Ramsey-Kurz Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2007 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Achebe African African-American alienation alphabet American Aphrodite assert awareness Bakha Barbarians Beloved Bouras Carter century characters Chinese Chinua Achebe civilization Coetzee colonial Conrad contemporary Critical David Malouf Denver discourse English Erdrich European Fiction Gillian Golding’s Grace Heart of Darkness Heroes and Villains human Ibid Igbo illiteracy illiterate Indian Inheritors J.M. Coetzee Jefferson Kingston Kogawa language learning Lesson Before Dying letters linguistic literacy literate culture literature London Louise Erdrich Love Medicine Malouf Maori Marianne Marlow Maxine Hong Kingston metafiction Midnight’s Children Morrison mother Mulk Raj Anand Naomi narrative narrator native Neanderthal never non-literate novel Obasan one’s orality Ovid Padma people’s postcolonial Potiki protagonist read and write reader role Rushdie’s Saleem Salman Rushdie Scobie script scriptlessness sense Sethe Sethe’s silence slave social society story Studies subaltern Things Fall traditional translation twentieth-century understanding Untouchable Western Woman Warrior words Wright written
Beliebte Passagen
Seite 3 - Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment ? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man...
Seite 84 - From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence.
Seite 197 - He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul — the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed.
Seite 4 - Save base authority from others' books. • These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights, Than those that walk, and wot not what they are.
Seite 83 - Kurtz discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to the very last. It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart.
Seite 4 - Be not afeard ; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments 145 Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked, 1 50 I cried to dream again.
Seite 74 - The shape of the letters on my father's gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, " Also Oeorgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.
Seite 172 - I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past — with all its imperfections — was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God's behalf delivered them.
Seite 74 - Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine, — who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in that universal struggle, — I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers pockets,...