Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-979321-1
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 304 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 614 g

As a very young man, one of the most celebrated English authors of the eighteenth century translated a tome about Ethiopia. This experience permanently marked Samuel Johnson, leaving traces of the African discourse he encountered in that text in his drama Irene; several of his short stories; and his most famous fiction, Rasselas. In this book, Wendy Laura Belcher provides a much needed perspective in comparative literature and postcolonial studies
on the power of the discourse of the other to infuse European texts. Belcher illuminates how the Western literary canon is globally produced by developing the powerful metaphor of spirit possession to posit some texts in the European canon as energumens, texts that are spoken through. Her model of discursive possession
offers a new way of theorizing transcultural intertextuality, in particular how Europe's others have co-constituted European representations. Through close readings of primary and secondary sources in English, French, Portuguese, and Ge'ez, Belcher challenges conventional wisdom on Johnson's work, from the inspiration for the name Rasselas and the nature of Johnson's religious beliefs to what makes Rasselas so strange.

Zielgruppe

Readers of ELH, Comparative Literature, Calalloo, Eighteenth-Century Studies, PMLA, World Literature Today, The New Rambler; scholars of postcolonial studies, eighteenth-century literature.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Belcher

Belcher, Wendy Laura

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Postkoloniale Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Three Thousand Years of Habesha History and Discourse
Chapter 2: Samuel Johnson's Discursive Possession and The Voyage to Abyssinia
Chapter 3: Johnson's Reading, Beliefs, and Translation of The Voyage to Abyssinia
Chapter 4: Habesha Discourse in The Voyage To Abyssinia
Chapter 5: Habesha Discourse and Johnson's Drama Irene
Chapter 6: Habesha Discourse and Johnson's Oriental Tales
Chapter 7: Habesha Discourse in Johnson's Sources for Rasselas
Chapter 8: Habesha Discourse and Johnson's Rasselas
Conclusion

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Wendy Laura Belcher is Assistant Professor of African literature at Princeton University in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies. She is a winner of the Washington State Governors Writers Award and PEN Society Martha Albrand finalist for first book of nonfiction.