Myths of the Nation
National Identity and Literary Representations
Rumina Sethi
Price: £61.00 (hardback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-818339-6
Publication date: 10 June 1999
232 pages, 216x138 mm
A sample of this book is available in PDF format
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| Reviews |
| - 'As both a single-author study and an analysis of the dilemmas and aspirations of twentieth-century India, Sethi's book makes compelling reading' - Years Work in English Studies
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| Description | | - Traces the manifestation of nationalism in the Indian freedom struggle
- Describes the materialization of contemporary identities in the writing of fiction
- Addresses the role of literature in constructing cultural myths and models
- Reasses the key literary figures and their role in the production of a nationalist ideology
| Myths of the Nation
focuses on the construction of forms of historical consciousness in narratives, or schools of narrative. The study seeks to underscore what goes behind the writing of `true' and `authentic' histories by treating historical fiction as the literary dimension of nationalist ideology. It traces nationalism from its abstract underpinnings to its concrete manifestation in
historical fiction which underwrites the Indian freedom struggle. The construction of identity through mythicized conceptions of India is examined in detail through Raja Rao's first novel, Kanthapura
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The key concept governing the subject is that of representation. Since the `fictional reality' of the nation is a much debated issue, the study examines how history slides into fiction. The
author shows how orientalist, nationalist, Marxist, subalternists, and poststructuralists, have all, in their own celebratory ways, used the disenfranchised sub-proletariat in their works. What she finds useful in poststructuralist practices, however, is that subaltern identities are imbued with heterogeneity, thus splitting open an authoritarian and reactionary nationalism, and a continuing
neo-colonialism.
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Readership: Indologists, as well as postgraduate and third-year undergraduate students os Asian Studies, Commonwealth Literature, and Postcolonial Theory.
| Contents |
Introduction: Narratives of Nationalism and the Politics of the Orient
Part One
1.
The Nativization of English
2.
The Ideology of Gandhi: A Mass Fantasy
Part Two
3.
Peasant Uprisings and Fictional Strategies
4.
Contesting Identities: Involvement and Resistance of Women
Part Three
5.
The Future of a Vision
6.
Fixity and Resistance
Bibliography
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
Rumina Sethi, British Academy Research Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford
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