The canon of empire: Britain, Spain, and modernism

The Canon of Empire: Britain, Spain, and Modernism explores the exclusion of Spanish literature from the modernist canon. Critical texts fundamental to the formation of the modernist canon make little mention of Spain; through a discussion of the relationship between T.S. Eliot and Jose Ortega y Gasset, I argue that this oversight has created an incomplete understanding of Modernism. Contributing to this incomplete understanding is the scholarly model of Spanish literature, which divides the first half of the twentieth century into several literary "generations." After asserting that doing away with this model is essential to incorporating Spain into the modernist canon, I turn my attention to the way that the loss of empire influenced Spanish authors. Similarities in Spanish and British texts reveal deep-rooted anxieties about the stability of the British empire.;Chapter One, "Descent into Chaos and the Restoration of Order: The Images of Empire in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and Ramon del Valle-inclan's Tirano Banderas," discusses overt threats to imperial hierarchy in each text. Valle-Inclan grapples with the loss of empire by depicting atrocities in the colonies. Conversely, Forster reflects Britain's ability to maintain its empire.;Chapter Two, "Romancing the Empire: Imperialism, Masculinity, and Narrative in Ford Madox Ford and Blanca de los Rios," examines de los Rios Las hijas de Don Juan and Ford's The Good Soldier, arguing that notions of masculinity and empire are linked, as both are based on conquest. Both authors undermine masculine stereotypes, calling into question the stability of empire.;Chapter Three, "Virginia Woolf and Rosa Chacel: Genre, Gender, Empire, and the Modernist Novel," explores critiques of generic categories in Woolf's Orlando and Chacel's Estacio n. Ida y vuelta. In destabilizing these categories, they highlight the problems that arise when one nation assumes its inherent right to dominate other, "lesser" nations.;Chapter Four, "Yeats and Lorca: Reclaiming the Past, Reshaping a Nation" focuses on each poet's attempt to offer an alternative to the imperial model. Both authors respond to their respective nation's position as imperial subject and former colonizer by infusing their works with figures currently excluded from discussions about nationhood.