Approaches

Question 1

The relationship between ‘English’ literature, Englishness, England and empire

Answer 1

Explains how contemporary debates and decolonisation bring English literature to a crisis.

Question 2

What does English literature even refer to? (in light of debates relating to decolonisation)

Answer 2

A linguistic term only - e.g refers to literature written in English only.
An identity marker about English and British.

Question 3

English and Empire

Answer 3

Does English literature mean the English ‘canon’ or should we develop a more open and pluralised understanding of what English literature is?
How have English literary texts (colonial and post-colonial) reflected and interrogated histories of empire and enslavement?

Question 4

English literature ‘canon’ examples

Answer 4

Shakespeare
Milton
Wordsworth

Question 5

Who or what governs meaning?

Answer 5

The author
The historical context
The text itself
The critic
The reader

Question 6

How is meaning generated?

Answer 6

A question of methods and practices
Of what we do

Question 7

Literary-critical movements/approaches

Answer 7

Authorial intentionalism
Biographical criticism
New criticism
Historical criticism

Question 8

Authorial intentionalism

Answer 8

Refers to an author’s intent as it is encoded in their work

Question 9

Biographical criticism

Answer 9

The life history of the author has an affect on the writing

Question 10

New criticism

Answer 10

The concentration on the language, imagery, and emotional or intellectual tensions in literary works

Question 11

Historical criticism

Answer 11

The historical context can determine the meaning of the work

Question 12

Other examples of movements/trends

Answer 12

New historicism
Post structuralism
Post criticism

Question 13

Plurality of approaches

Answer 13

Literary criticism is a history of debate.
Most literary criticism is a hybrid of things.

Question 14

What is Englishness? (ideas)

Answer 14

A political identity?
A cultural identity?
A structure of feeling?
A chimera? (meaning an illusion)

Question 15

How is Englishness inscribed in ‘English literature’?

Answer 15

An imperial legacy.
A neutral marker of the anglophone (meaning group of English-speaking nations that share historical and cultural ties with England).

Question 16

Identities

Answer 16

To identify with/to be identified as.
Latin identitas - quality or creation of being the same.
Identity as a play of sameness and difference.
Identity as pertaining to innermost truths.

Question 17

Latin identitas meaning…

Answer 17

Groups of ‘identical’ or ‘same’ people.
Logical impossibility of exact sameness.

Question 18

Identity as pertaining to innermost truths

Answer 18

‘My identity’ as asserted and deeply felt (even if constantly re/negotiated) but also shared with others.
Identity implies social legibility.

Question 19

Are identities?

Answer 19

Essential
Constructed
Performed

Question 20

Is English identity?

Answer 20

Essential (something real to English people).
Constructed (a cultural product/myth/set of ideologies).
Self-identical (can somebody be English in a world without non-English people?)
Defined in relation (even in opposition to other identities)

Question 21

Is identity?

Answer 21

Singular and monolithic?
Complex and multifaceted?
How does the concept of intersectionality help us understand the complexity of identity?
How might things like ethnicity, class, race, gender, sexuality meet to produce specific configurations of identity in individuals or communities?

Question 22

What is Englishness? (cultural)

Answer 22

A national community.
A cultural identity.
Relating to a ‘structure of feeling?’ - something difficult to pin down.

Question 23

Englishness as peculiarly problematic

Answer 23

A chimera.
An emptiness or void.
If we can grasp the style of at least one version of Englishness, what is its ‘content’?

Question 24

Some critics have argued that Englishness is so problematic because of empire

Answer 24

Exclusionary Englishness and whiteness (the semiotics of the flag).
Amnesiac Englishness ((wilful) ignorance of history).
Belated Englishness (entirely identified with the expired/dying imperial project).

Question 25

What’s English about English literature?

Answer 25

Just a convenience?
Why not anglophone literature?
Is English literature a residue of empire?
Can English literature, in certain guises, continue to transmit imperialist values?

Question 26

Englishness as ‘affect’

Answer 26

As ‘bearing’ or disposition or temper.
An ‘affective’ style.
We speak of people that way, but what about books/films/music?

Question 27

Englishness as ‘effect’

Answer 27

Something accomplished caused, or produced, a result, consequence.
A pleasing combination of colour, form etc in design and the visual arts.
Produced by gesture, movement, voice, clothing etc.
Ad a performance of identity.