Commonwealth Literature

1. A Presentation by:
Zia Ur Rahman
Doctoral Candidate in English Literature,
University of Malakand.

2. Contents
Origin of the term ‘Commonwealth’
What is the Commonwealth?
Some Main Objectives of Commonwealth
Commonwealth Literature: Definition and Explanation
Brief Historical Survey of Commonwealth Literature
Some Common Features of Commonwealth Literature
List of Major Writers
Major Themes
When got Established?
Shortcomings and Reasons of Losing Popularity
Role of Commonwealth Literature in the Emergence of
Postcolonial Literature/Conclusion

3.  The term was first used by Oliver Cromwell
after establishing the republican government.
 In 1648, Parliamentarian forces under the command
of Oliver Cromwell prevailed. In 1649, Charles I was
executed and a republican government called the
Commonwealth, ruled by Parliament, replaced the
monarchy. The Commonwealth pursued economic
and imperial policies that linked its colonies more
closely to England.

4.  According to the Britanica:
 Commonwealth, also called Commonwealth of
Nations, formerly (1931–49) British Commonwealth
of Nations, a free association of sovereign states
comprising the United Kingdom and a number of its
former dependencies who have chosen to maintain
ties of friendship and practical cooperation and who
acknowledge the British monarch as symbolic head
of their association.

5.  When the countries attained independence from
British imperial rule, they continued to recognize the
British monarch as a symbolic authority, though this
authority had no real powers over them.
 ‘Commonwealth’ was used as a term to signify
the equality among nations (as opposed to
‘colonial’, which indicated a power relation
between European and the Asian or African
country). So, the term literally meant "common
well being".

6.  The Commonwealth was established fo the
following main aims objectives:
 to provide a framework of common values.
 facilitating co-operation between its member states
in the field of democracy, human rights, rule of law,
free trade and peace.

7.  The idea of Commonwealth was given in the Imperial
Conference of 1926 which declared that such states
were to be regarded as:
 “autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in
status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of
their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common
allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of
the British Commonwealth of Nations.”
 The Statute of Westminster (1931) implemented this
declaration and the initial grouping comprised of
Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.
 However the association was expanded and
restructured in 1947.
 For instance, when India and Pakistan were granted
independence in 1947, they became members of the
Commonwealth.

8.  As a term in literary studies, Commonwealth
Literature is generally believed to refer to the
literary products of:
 Commonwealth countries where English is a native
language, such as:
 Australia, New Zealand and Canada etc.
 Written in those countries where English is used as a
second language or even as a foreign language.For
example,
 Commonwealth countries of Africa (kenya, Nigeria,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe etc), India, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, West Indies etc

9.  According to Kumar:
 ‘Commonwealth literature’ as a term began to be
used during the 1950s to describe writings from
Africa, Asia, and South America. The term also
included, alongside writers from formerly colonized
nations (such as Chinua Achebe from Nigeria and
R.K. Narayan from India) and writers from white
settler communities (such as Australia). The term
signalled a former political context: colonies that had
been members of the ‘British Commonwealth’.

10.  those literatures that came to be collectively studied as
literatures of the Commonwealth were beginning to be
considered within their own national contexts from the
late 1940s onwards.
 However, the concept of ‘Commonwealth Literature’
as a separate disciplinary area within English studies
began in the early 1960s in both the United States and
England.
 In the United States it was formulated as the study of literatures
written in a ‘world’ language in Joseph Jones’Terranglia:The Case for
English as a World Literature (1965), and as Commonwealth literature
in A.L.McLeod’s The Commonwealth Pen (1961).
 In England the first international Commonwealth Literature
Conference was held in Leeds in 1964 and the Association for
Commonwealth Literature and
Language Studies formed.

11.  The Journal of Commonwealth Literature began in 1965
and the third major journal devoted exclusively to
theory and criticism of commonwealth literatures
(Kunapipi) was published in 1979 (the journal
subsequently became a leading journal in establishing
the shift to the use of the term post-colonial literatures).
 The term got more popularized in 1976 when the
Australian novelist Patrick White was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature.
 Contemporary post-colonial studies represent the
intersection
of Commonwealth literary studies and what is usually
now referred to as ‘colonial discourse theory’.
 Why Commonwealth Literature lost its popularity and immersed
in Postcolonial Studies, will be discussed later in this presentation.

12.  After Decolonization, Commonwealth Literature took
its place alongside English, American, French, Spanish,
Russian or German literature.
 Commonwealth Literature is a body of fictional works
grouped together because of the underlying cultural
history and certain recurrent patterns.
 As commonwealth comes from a wide variety of
regions, they win fame in the Anglo-American world
because of their exotic setting and character.
 the English language - whether as an inherited or an
acquired language has been employed as the medium
of creative expression in diverse cultural contexts,
thereby achieving a texture and resonance not usually
found in the purely Anglo-Saxon idiom and usage.

13.  R.K.Narine (India)
 George Lamming (Barbados)
 Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand)
 Patrick White (Australia)
 V.S.Naipaul (Trindad)
 Ben Okri (Nigeria)
 Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
 Timothy Mu (Hon Kong)
 Jean Rhys (Dominica)
 Sam Salvin (Indian Canadian)

14.  Many works of Commonwealth literature from
the third world countries are distinguished by:
 the examination of physical and psychological
displacement brought about as a result of slavery
voluntary or forced migration and colonialism.
 themes of national and cultural identity/hybridity
 Writers of the settler colonies like Canada,
Australia and New Zealand have tended to
examine issues dealing with:
 the problematic nature of their relationship to
Britain as the “mother country.”

15.  Following led to the decline of its popularity:
 It neither included the literature of fomer colonized
America neither the metropolitan Britain.
 It did not take into account the cross cultural
influences and cross cultural affiliations of the
authors fro ex-colonies.
 It did not take into account the non-English
literature of commonwealth nations.
 It involved a nostalgic glorification of the legacies of
colonialism.
 In its true sense,it was neither national not
international.

16.  These shortcomings led to various types of
criticisms from authors and theorists such as
Norman Jeffares, Salman Rushdie, Walsh,
Sherley Chew etc. (Details quoted in Beginnig
Theory by John McLeod).

17.  As a result of the shortcomings and subsequent
criticisms, a body of literature developed out of
out of Commonwealth Literature which is
known a Postcolonial Literature.Many theorists
recognized and named it including:
 Edward Said, Homi Babbha, Helen Tiffin, CLR
James, Stuard Hall and Anna Rutherford.

18.  Both Commonwealth Literature and Colonial
Discourse Analysis contributed to the
emergence of Postcolonial Literature as a
separate entity and discipline.
 That is why knowledge of Commonwealth
Literature provides a framework and
foundation for understanding the emergence of
Postcolonial Studies in the 1980s and 90s.