Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Review
Author(s): Hans H. Rudnick
Review by: Hans H. Rudnick
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 70, No. 1, South African Literature in Transition (Winter,
1996), pp. 245-246
Published by: University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40152033
Accessed: 31-07-2015 05:28 UTC

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PERSPECTIVES ON WORLD LITERATURE

Encyclopediaof Post-ColonialLiteraturesin English. 2 vols. Eu-

valuableand standardreference resourcefor at least the

next decade in the field of post-colonialliterarystudies.

WilliamRiggan
Universityof Oklahoma

gene Benson, L. W. Conolly, eds. New York/London.

Routledge.1994. Hi+ 1,874 pages. $199.95/150. ISBN0415-05199-1(set).

At last, a comprehensive,reliable, and up-to-date

compendium of what are variouslycalled the "new
literatures,""emergentliteratures,"or, more generally,
"Commonwealthliterature"has been made availableto
the many readers,writers,scholars,and critics active in
and attentiveto this burgeoningfield. Eugene Benson of
Guelph Universityand L. W. Conollyof Trent University
(both in Canada)haveassembledmore than 1,600 entries
from 564 contributorsaround the world.The majorityof
the entriesare critical,biobibliographicpieces on individual writers,from GeminoAbad and KhwajaAhmad to R.
Zulueta de Costa and Fay Zwicky,but longer contributions encompassgenres (drama,historicalwriting,memoirs), major literary and linguistic topics (humor and
satire,literarymagazines,translation), and allied artsand
media (broadcasting,culturaljournalism, folklore, film
and literature).
The designationpost-colonial
is used here "in the sense
in which Bill Ashcroft,GarethGriffith,and Helen Tiffin

Linda Hutcheon. Irony's Edge: The Theoryand Politics of

Irony.New York. Routledge. 1994 ( 1995). ix + 248

pages,ill. $55 ($16.95paper). ISBN0-415-05453-2

With frequent use of the confessionalphrase "for

me" to earn the reader'ssympathyfor her "theorizing"of irony,often speakingwith the words(meticulously
researched and credited) of other irony scholars, phenomenologicallygiving examples from several cultures,
and using nearly conversationallanguage with some invented nominativeplural forms (e.g., German:Motiven),
LindaHutcheon admirablyenjoys,in this age of deferrals,
negations, and indirections,demonstratingthe unheard,
unseen, and unsaid of twentieth-centuryirony. She has
left writingon postmodernismbehind and is resumingresearchin the area of tropes,which adds to her 1985 study
on parody,althoughwe are dealingwith ironynot only as
a figure of speech but also as "awayof seeing the world."
Consequently,"theorizing"meansinvestigatingirony'ssouse it in TheEmpireWritesBack: Theoryand Practicein Postciopoliticalas well as formaldimensions.
'.
.
.
to
cover
all
the
ColonialLiteratures
culture
af(1989):
Well aware of the personal aspect of hermeneutics
fected by the imperialprocessfrom the moment of colothis remarkablestudy, Hutcheon identifies
throughout
nizationto the presentday.'"Entriestitled "Post-Colonial
herself as simultaneouslybeing an "ItalianCanadian,a
Theorists"and "Criticism(Overview)"are also quite helpful in clarifyingthe termand its scope. Specifically,writers teacher, a lapsed Catholic,white, female, middle-class,a
and works representingthe following countries and regions are included in the encyclopedia: Australia,
Bangladesh,Canada,the Caribbean,East Africa,Gibraltar,Hong Kong,India,Malaysia,Malta,New Zealand,Pakistan, the Philippines,Singapore,Sri Lanka,St. Helena,
SouthAfrica,South CentralAfrica,the South Pacific,and
WestAfrica.
The volume's board of research consultants and its
panel of national and regional editors are studded with
such outstanding scholar-criticsand writers as Edward
Baugh, Alamgir Hashmi, C. D. Narasimhaiah,Kirpal
Singh, and RowlandSmith, and the contributorsinclude
among their considerablenumber such notables as Margaret Atwood, Frank Birbalsingh,Carlo Coppola, Cyril
Dabydeen,the late RobertsonDavies,and YasmineGooneratne.Their inevitablevariancesin style and approach
have been quietly smoothed over by the editors without
leveling the contributionsinto cookie-cutterconformity,
thankfully.
Morebibliographicdetailwould have been desirablein
the individual-authorentries, with the place of publication and the name of the publisheridentified along with
the yearof issuanceof books discussedor named,but that
is one of the veryfew cavilsa reader/user of the encyclopedia might interpose.The EPCLEis certainto be an in-

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246

WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

spousebut not a parent,an inept but enthusiasticpianist,

an avid cyclist,an opera lover."On the basis of this context and self-definition,she cautiouslyproceeds with the
investigationof the mode of discoursethat is weightedin
favorof the unsaid.Althoughfocusing on the "transideological"nature of irony, Hutcheon emphasizesthat irony
is necessarilya social act involvingironist and audience,
intention and interpretation.Irony "happens"by inferring meaning with an intended attitude towardthe said
and the unsaidinvolvingboth informationand evaluation
criticalof whatis explicitlystated.
Among the most illuminatingexamplesare ironies resulting from the author'sknowledgeand comparisonof
Laurence Olivier's 1944 film of HenryV and Kenneth
Branagh's1989 movieversionof the same Shakespearean
play. Convincingly,Hutcheon shows how irony happens
betweenboth film versions(more than fortyyearsapart),
causing hermeneutics commenting on each other and
therebycreatingnew ironic meaning by finding the unsaid echoing the said and vice versa. Probablythe most
sensitive of her observationsof irony are prompted by
AnselmKiefer'slarge-scaledepictionsof Germanthemes
which respondwith profoundirony through double evaluationsto precedingculturalutterances.Kiefer'sart is declaredby manyGermancriticsto be "protofascist,"
since it
opens up shared contexts that are frequently misinterpreted because of the complex ironies evoked,while it is
said tharjewish collectors in the United States acquire
Kiefer'sartjust becauseof his profoundironies and affectivelychargedspacewithits e.g. Wagnerianechoes.
Comingto Hutcheon'sown exerciseof ironizingWagner's "Germanness"
mainly on the basis of Herbert Wernicke's 1991 political productionof DerRing derNibelungen cycle at Brusselsand Chereau's"leftist"and Kupfer's
"green"Ringsat Bayreuth,it seems easyand perhapspoliticallycorrectto developone's argumentsfrom a patronizing and morallysuperior attitude,while some Asian nations are already blatantlyattributing"NDC"status to
what they consider the "newlydecayingcountries"of the
West. Hutcheon's resulting Wagner ironies appear
cliched and too one-sidedlypersonal,reflectinga ludicly
flippant intentionalitynot suiting an author concerned
witha relativelygravesubject.
To Hutcheon'srescue,however,comes BeauvaisLyons,
aliasBeauvaisHokes,whosefictionalcivilizations,presented in deceivinglyreal-seemingarcheologicalconventions,
dramatizethe interconnectionbetween context and ironic marker,howevercontrived.Chereau'sat-first-rejected
Wagner interpretationis ultimatelysanctified by being
broadcastvia TV, "the ironized symbolof how we [come
to] know"even Wagner.Such inversionfor the sake of
disturbing the audience Brechtian-stylechallenges (deconstructs)naiveassumptionsof realityand forces the observer to look out for the markersof irony. When, as
Hutcheon tells us, such ironymarkersare missing,as in a
recent intendedly anti-imperialexhibition at the Royal
Toronto Museum, misunderstandingcan lead to unexpected anticolonial demonstrationsexpressing the politics of differenceand "trashingthe monolithicand homogeneous in the name of diversity, multiplicity, and
heterogeneity."The result offers itself: there are many
possibleconstructionsof ironic meaning.Markersof evaluation mustbe present;indirectionsalone do not suffice.
Realitymustnow be negotiatedthroughdialogue.

This fascinating,learned, and in all respectscuriously

edifying study leaves us with the open and disturbingly
postmodernquestion:"Isthere a safe 'age of irony?'"

Hans H. Rudnick
SouthernIllinois University,Carbondale

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theoryand Criticism.

MichaelGroden,MartinKreiswirth,eds. Baltimore.Johns
Hopkins UniversityPress. 1994. xiii + 775 pages. $65.
ISBN0-8018-4560-2.

It is reassuringthat in a period of such theoreticaldivision an essentiallyEnlightenmentproject can be

mounted. No matter that the Johns Hopkins University
Presschooses to call it a "guide,"or more than a companion, less than an encyclopedia. Its 226 entries from
Abramsto Zola,its topicalcross-index,its index of names,
its impressivelineup of contributors(Allison to Zitner),
its sixty-poundGlatfelderoffset pages, and its sponsoring
institutionall signifyAuthority.The Guidemeans to orgaentries, often
nize, and sets up long BritannicorsXyle
subdividedinto essaysby differenthands,to encompassits
topics. While it shows expected attentivenessto contemporarytheory,entrieson the likes of Plato,Dante,Jonson,
Johnson, Taine, Pater,Eliot, majorperiods, and national
schools and a narrativehistoricalapproachto most subjects will provide a deep enough context for most users.
The nationalor regionalentriestoo demonstratea multiculturalrange:African,Arabic,LatinAmerican,Chinese,
Indian,andJapanesetheoryand criticismentries,among
others.
The range of TheJohnsHopkinsGuideseems reasonably
comprehensive,especiallyin the trickyarea of individual
criticsor theorists,many of whom are still alive. Readers
mayfind more to disputein the comparativedepth of entries. One can imagine new incitements to generational
disputes in the faculty lounge from the discoverythat
some critical-theoreticaldiscoursesof recent vintage get
as many or more column inches than "Philology,""New
Criticism,"or "Reader-Response
Theory and Criticism"
and"ReceptionTheory"combined.Disputantsneed to remember,though, that the older fields will tend to have a
greaternumber of significantfigurescoveredby separate
essays.
- will read 750
No one- certainly not this reviewer
8x10 pages of referencestraightthrough.One wayto assess such a workis to let it guide one througha particular
field, to see what kind of interconnected account
emerges. I tracked entries having to do with narrative,
movinghistoricallyfrom Aristotleto Flaubert,fromJames
to Narratology.I was pleased to find cross-referencesin
some of the genre entriesthatwould have led me to most
of the fourteen headings,even if I hadn't constructedmy
own chronologicallist from the appendix outline. Altogether, the essayswere quite impressive.While I might
not have dweltso much on some topics or dweltmore on
others, I found a completenessof coverageof expected
topics, opinion on those topics, and references to the
majorsecondarysourcesof those opinions.
There was only one exception, unfortunatelya period
essay that a student might use as a startingplace. The
essaycharacterizeda particularcenturyalmostexclusively

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