British Literature and Imperialism

Book Reviews, Volume 32:1, 1988 in tone" [721]), or scorn ("Too True to Be Good is not a good play" [754]). Thus in many ways these volumes are uneven, their editors and contributors reflecting various temperaments, tolerances, and talents. But such diversity also reflects their materials and Shaw himself, who once observed to an aspiring actress, "When I was a young thing, I, too, was quite distressed because my work was not perfect. ... I was clearly not living up to the precept 'Be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect'. Nowadays I perceive that even HE is not perfect." The volumes' primary shortcoming, their lack of a subject index, is a flaw which may cause many to wish that the general editor had given a few extra thoughts to perfection early in the process. Still, he held this unruly project together and most who turn to these pages selectively are likely to find them individually valuable, while those who peruse them all will gain telling insights not only into Shaw's biography, qualities, and merits but also into the nature of his fame, the tastes and values of the world about him, and the capriciousness of criticism itself. In part or as a whole, the volumes belie any notion that they are only pedantic compilations, respectable enough but fit to join dustcatchers on library shelves. Vibrant life is in them waiting to be tapped, thanks to the energy and persistence-thanks even to the differences -of their editors. Charles A. Berst _______________________________University of California, Los Angeles BRITISH LITERATURE AND IMPERIALISM Patrick Brantlinger. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. $29.95 Rule of Darkness is divided into three sections-Dawn, Noon, and Dusk-with Noon, dealing mostly with mid-century, appropriately being the heart of the matter. Only the last two chapters-Dusk-fall chronologically into the period that concerns this journal, with a discussion of quite a few novels in "Imperial Gothic: Atavism and the Occult in the British Adventure Novel, 1880-1914" and the last chapter, an epilogue on Heart of Darkness. Yet in a sense, the entire study acts as a readjustment of how the end of the century is viewed. No one would deny that there were strong imperialist concerns then, at the end of the century, the "age of imperialism" and the scramble for Africa, when France and Germany attempted to catch up with Britain. The more original contribution here is the attention paid to the litera75 Book Reviews, Volume 32:1, 1988 ture of the century before the 1800s. Brantlinger makes, in what might be called an imperialist gesture of his own, the sweeping claim that the literature he is considering created the "imperial ideology [that] was quite simply the chief enabling factor that made the political support for and expansion of the Empire possible" (x). He has placed his "cultural history" in a Foucaultian context, the role of the power of discourse. This is a perfectly possible and legitimate point of view, but there is no need to make such an absolute claim for it. There is no doubt that ideology was one very important factor behind the acquisition of the empire, but there were many other factors as well-politics, economics, chance, power vacuums-all of which can quite legitimately be investigated. Indeed, Brantlinger never proves his contention-if it ever could be proved-but rather devotes his study to an insightful and original treatment of significant fictive texts that no doubt helped shape how the British thought about the Empire-forming part of a composite and highly complex picture. Particularly striking about his analysis is the use of both major and minor texts, quite overwhelming in their range, quantity and quality. The discussion is sophisticated and complex except, or so it seems to me, in the rather routine going through of works connected with the Indian Mutiny. Even there he rescues various intriguing works, including one of the few novels that attempted to be somewhat more favorable to the point of view of the oppressed: Philip Meadows Taylor's Seeta (1872). The study begins with a consideration of the naval...