And the Birds Began to Sing: Religion and Literature in Post-colonial CulturesJamie S. Scott Taking as its starting-point the ambiguous heritage left by the British Empire to its former colonies, dominions and possessions, And the Birds Began to Sing marks a new departure in the interdisciplinary study of religion and literature. Gathered under the rubric Christianity and Colonialism, essays on Brian Moore. Timothy Findley, Margaret Atwood and Marian Engel, Thomas King, Les A. Murray, David Malouf, Mudrooroo and Philip McLaren, R.A.K. Mason, Maurice Gee, Keri Hulme, Epeli Hau'ofa, J.M. Coetzee, Christopher Okigbo, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola and Ngugi wa Thiong'o explore literary portrayals of the effects of British Christianity upon settler and native cultures in Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, and the Africas. These essays share a sense of the dominant presence of Christianity as an inherited system of religious thought and practice to be adapted to changing post-colonial conditions or to be resisted as the lingering ideology of colonial times. In the second section of the collection, Empire and World Religions, essays on Paule Marshall and George Lamming, Jean Rhys, Olive Senior and Caribbean poetry, V.S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya, and Bharati Mukherjee interrogate literature exploring relations between the scions of British imperialism and religious traditions other than Christianity. Expressly concerned with literary embodiments of belief-systems in post-colonial cultures (particularly West African religions in the Caribbean and Hinduism on the Indian subcontinent), these essays also share a sense of Christianity as the pervasive presence of an ideological rhetoric among the economic, social and political dimensions of imperialism. In a polemical Afterword, the editor argues that modes of reading religion and literature in post-colonial cultures are characterised by a theodical preoccupation with a praxis of equity. |
From inside the book
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Page v
... Atwood and Marian Engel WILLIAM CLOSSON JAMES ........ It is , indeed , " one good story , that one " * Thomas King's Parodic Treatment of Genesis PRISCILLA L. WALTON ............ AUSTRALIA " Religions are poems " * Spirituality in Les ...
... Atwood and Marian Engel WILLIAM CLOSSON JAMES ........ It is , indeed , " one good story , that one " * Thomas King's Parodic Treatment of Genesis PRISCILLA L. WALTON ............ AUSTRALIA " Religions are poems " * Spirituality in Les ...
Page 33
... Atwood and Marian Engel WILLIAM CLOSSON JAMES HE OBVIOUS THEMATIC LINKS between Margaret Atwood's Surfacing Tand and Marian Engel's Bear have been remarked upon casually though explicitly by Northrop Frye , George Woodcock , and others ...
... Atwood and Marian Engel WILLIAM CLOSSON JAMES HE OBVIOUS THEMATIC LINKS between Margaret Atwood's Surfacing Tand and Marian Engel's Bear have been remarked upon casually though explicitly by Northrop Frye , George Woodcock , and others ...
Page 34
... Atwood and Engel have accomplished is to show this inade- quacy , this absence of any ritual form , for the ... Atwood's nameless narrator and Engel's Lou integrate themselves with the natural world , the initiation also involving a ...
... Atwood and Engel have accomplished is to show this inade- quacy , this absence of any ritual form , for the ... Atwood's nameless narrator and Engel's Lou integrate themselves with the natural world , the initiation also involving a ...
Page 36
... Atwood's Surfacing does , to include other activities as well . Even taking into account the secrecy surrounding woman's mysteries , the fact is that they have not been hallowed in story and legend to the same extent as have men's . One ...
... Atwood's Surfacing does , to include other activities as well . Even taking into account the secrecy surrounding woman's mysteries , the fact is that they have not been hallowed in story and legend to the same extent as have men's . One ...
Page 37
... ( Atwood 1987a : 155 ) . The next major stage of the initiation , in chapters 21-27 , is her separation from her three companions , the subsequent seclusion on the island , and the almost literal re - enactment of a Native American vision ...
... ( Atwood 1987a : 155 ) . The next major stage of the initiation , in chapters 21-27 , is her separation from her three companions , the subsequent seclusion on the island , and the almost literal re - enactment of a Native American vision ...
Contents
19 | |
33 | |
Thomas Kings Parodic Treatment of Genesis | 47 |
Religions are poems | 59 |
David Maloufs Remembering Babylon | 69 |
Custodians of a British prison camp | 77 |
The Religious Experience in R A K Masons Poetry | 91 |
PostColonialisms Awful Disease | 103 |
If there is one God fine there will be others | 159 |
The Dark Fearful Bush | 171 |
The PostColonial Crisis of Representation | 181 |
Empire and World Religions | 191 |
I often wonder who I am | 209 |
INDIA | 242 |
S Naipauls Spiritual Journey | 253 |
Religion and the Writings of Anita Desai | 265 |
ReConstructing Religion Culture and Family | 115 |
Epeli Hauofas Tales of the Tikongs | 125 |
Locating the Sacred | 141 |
Seed wrapped in wonders | 151 |
A Praxis of Equity | 303 |
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS | 315 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Achebe African Ah-damn Antoinette Atwood Australian becomes belief biblical British Canadian Caribbean ceremony character Christ Christian Coetzee colonial and imperial context critical culture darkness death discourse divine emphasis English Erzulie essay European experience father Feast of Lupercal fiction Findley Findley's Genesis Ghede girl gods Hau'ofa Hindu human ideology Igbo Indo-Anglian island Jane Jane Eyre Judith Hearne King Lies of Silence literary lives London Malouf Maori marginalised Markandaya Mason missionary Moore Mudrooroo Mukherjee Murray myth Naipaul narrative narrator Native American nature Ngugi novel Obeah Ojibwa Okigbo Olorun poem poet poetry political post-colonial postmodern priest protagonist Protestant puritanism reader religion and literature religious Remembering Babylon Rhys ritual Robert role Roman Catholic says secular sense sexual social society spiritual story symbol Tikongs Timothy Findley Toronto traditional transformation vision Voodoo West Indian Western Wide Sargasso Sea woman writing York Yoruba Zealand