Modernism and the Post-Colonial

Book excerpt: This book considers the shifts in aesthetic representation over the period 1885-1930 that coincide both with the rise of literary Modernism and imperialism's high point. Peter Childs argues that modernist literary writing should be read in terms of its response and relationship to events overseas and that it should be seen as moving towards an emergent post-colonialism instead of struggling with a residual colonial past. Each of the core chapters focuses on one key writer and discuss a range of others, including: Conrad, Lawrence, Kipling, Eliot, Woolf, Joyce, Conan Doyle and Haggard.