The empire of settler literary empire: Philip Steer, ‘The historians, the literary critics, and the Victorian settler empire’, Literature Compass, 2018 | settler colonial studies blog

The empire of settler literary empire: Philip Steer, ‘The historians, the literary critics, and the Victorian settler empire’, Literature Compass, 2018

18Apr18

Abstract: Victorian literary criticism is yet to fully engage with the new historiography of the 19th‐century settler empire. That body of work has focused attention on a vast transnational network of population, capital, and information exchange, and attending to the centrality of shared ideas of British identity has revealed a uniquely close relationship between cultural and economic forms of imperialism. Significant methodological challenges confront any attempt to seriously consider the literary bonds between Britain and its settler colonies, including issues of form, scale, aesthetics, and politics. However, continued failure to grapple with that difficult critical task risks perpetuating a form of silent approval that so often surrounded the culture of the settler empire in the Victorian era.

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