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Colonialism Revisited: Reading in Selected Poems of the Nineteenth Century

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UNIVERSITY OF BAGHDAD
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, IBN RESHD
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Colonialism Revisited:
Reading in Selected Poems of the Nineteenth Century

BY

MUTHANNA MOHAMMED SULTAN (Ph.D.)

2018
 1

Abstract

This paper will try to discover and discuss the colonial contents of some of the
nineteenth-century British poets. At that time, the colonial ideology and impetus
were increasingly elevated and demanded as the British Empire notably
expanded and significantly flourished. Colonialism was among the main aspects
in the British political and social life. Literary figures and scholars dealt with
this newly-born phenomenon differently; some welcomed and adhered it, while
others showed some doubts and suspicion. There was no unified thread about
the colonial project the Europeans held. Did exist there a kind of consensus? Or
was there a sense of ambivalence about it? This paper is going to address these
issues and attempt to reach at some plausible answers and results. To do this, the
paper will analyze a group of poems by William Blake, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Rudyard Kipling.

1. Introduction

By the mid of the nineteenth century, colonialism was in its heyday. On both
sides of the Atlantic, expansions, progresses, and hopes were at work. People
were pushed willy-nilly into the projects and ideologies of colonial ideals; or
into the "civilized mission" as had been called by the some. These ideals
competed with the zeitgeist to be highly imperialist and exploitative. And many
European countries participated in carrying out their own versions of
colonialism; the United States of America also took part in this global practice.
These practices included plunder, genocide, negotiation, confiscation (Loomba
11). But the British Empire could be seen as a colonial power with special
interests and ideologies. It had various engagements in different places across
the world. It had its presence in Asia, Africa, and America. The British were
exercising imperialism and at the same time colonialism. To put it in Edward
Said's words, "'imperialism means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a
dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory; 'colonialism', which is
almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on
distant territory'" (1993, 8). Yet literary and educated circles and figures dealt
with colonialism differently. Or to put it in a direct way, the colonial project was
received by various responses and different voices:

In Britain, at least, and arguably elsewhere too, by the end of the

nineteenth century, a domestic programme for the function of
Empire could be clearly discerned, as Victorian society faced
increasing internal dissension and division. . . Empire became the
 2

principal ideological unifier across class and other social divisions

in Britian. (Ashcroft, 1998, 48)

Thus, some believed in the civilized mission, that the metropolis claimed.
Indeed, the metropolis "is a term used binaristically in colonial discourse to refer
to the 'centre' in relation to a colonial periphery" (138). This mission targeted the
"Other." And it is worth noting in this context that "an other (the colonized)
existed as a primary means of defining the colonizer and of creating a sense of
unity" (49). Others encouraged imperialism; while some were ambivalent about
it. Here this paper tries to probe how some prominent English poets of the
nineteenth-century dealt with it.

2. William Blake

The poetry Blake wrote immersed in the daily life of Londoners. Amidst his
most famous, yet controversial and unique poems is “The Tyger.” The figure the
poem promotes and introduces exhibits novel and strange characteristics of a
matchless power that emerges rapidly. “The Tyger” then may be read and
interpreted as an inaugurating poem that sheds light on the factors (social
settings) and parameters (Industrial Revolution) that lead to colonialism.
William Black tries to view the recent modern (colonial) man as a kind of a
“Tyger” and expresses his astonishment at him: “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright /
In the forests of the night,” (1-2). This Blakian “Tyger” stimulates what the
twentieth-century man would be like. Moreover, it is this horrible “Tyger”
figure does not only make the poet wonder: “Did he who made the Lamb make
thee?” (20), but lead the poet write this revelation with a great deal of mystery
and suspense:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? (Abrams, 1794) 1

From the very beginning, the poem is highly symbolic. The society is portrayed
as “forests” and we know that is image is loaded with a plenty of information
and reality. Forest or wood is a dangerous place where fear, suspicion, and threat
are found. Forests "are traditionally dark, labyrinthine, and filled with dangerous
beasts" (Ferber 78). While the setting is a "night" which rises other ambiguity
1
All the subsequent references on poems are taken from this book.
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and fear. These images then connote to something evil and mysterious. But the
shape of a “tyger” is a token for cruelty and ferocity; it seems to embody "some
morally ambiguous force or potency in the universe, an aggressive, self-assertive
energy" and also it refers to the other (Lawrence 14). It is should be mentioned
here that the tiger is not mentioned in the Bible or in Greek poetry (c.f. Ferber,
217). Hence, Blake highlights the unusual qualities of this animal: “And when
thy heart began to beat, / What dread hand & what dread feat?” (11-12).

As the poem progresses, readers start to discover some hints and

information that draw the attention to the truth that this “tyger” is the offspring
and the direct consequence of the social factors and cultural ideologies current in
that time. That is, this "tyger" emulates the zeitgeist. This is apparent in the
following lines:

What the hummer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

The vocabulary of the above stanza refers to a semantic domain that is specific
of a factory or industry in general. The words: “hummer, chain, furnace, anvil”
are terminological of factories, being used by a blacksmith and those who work
with iron and metal industry. The thread Blake tries hard to distribute and
disseminate connotes to the Industrial Revolution as a new socio-cultural
parameter that creates and establishes its subsequent force, colonialism.
Another hint the diction supplies is that the Industrial Revolution affects and
influences not only land and nature, but increasingly sky and atmosphere:

When the stars threw down their spears

And water'd heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Here what happens on earth causes some impacts on the sky. It can be argued
that factories and many industries produce smog and polluted substances that
damage man and nature alike. This paper argues that the Blake’s “Tyger” stands
for a colonial figure who occupies, slaughters, and confiscates both land and air.
 4

Another poem which deals with colonial aftermaths is "The Little Black
Boy." The poem offers a maternal dialog between a mother and a child. This
dialog concentrates on how the child and his mother are treated by a colonial
society basically as other. Hence, the poem regards the boy and the mother as
the colonized and the absent white boy the colonizer. Therefore to amend this,
the poem attempts to dwarf the aftermaths of colonial contextualization of white
and black races. Here the "black boy" emerges under the impact of colonial
ideologies and practices. The poet on the other hand sets forth to deal with this
issue and come up with a compromise that guarantees dignity and free life for
the black (victim) boy. But as it will be analyzed and brought to light, Blake
does not condemn or even refute the colonial behavior and thought. He is
ambivalent and to some extent neutral about colonialism; he is against societal
discrimination, but leaves the colonial project without direct, apparent criticism.
This notion is sustained by the poet's technique of letting the black boy speak
and disclose his anguish, and at the same time silencing the (colonial) white boy
who remains entirely quiet through the poem's course.

The first stanza contains the main issue of the poem. It serves as an
introduction about the poem. It introduces a boy who is the first speaker in the
poem. The “black” boy feels and believes he is victimized by his own color. The
sentence “And I am black, but O! my soul is white” reveals the boy’s anguish
and agitation concerning the color of his skin. And by employing the technique
of contrast, the poet holds a comparison between the clashing colors of his skin
and his soul. The poet goes even further in mentioning the “English” boy who is
white. He ends the first stanza by emphasizing the issue of blackness of the
speaking boy. The other four stanzas are devoted to solve the boy’s plight. The
solution comes from the boy’s mother, who is regarded as the second voice in
the poem. The second stanza provides the setting where the conversation
between the black boy and the mother takes place. Time is the noon and the
place is under a tree. The setting is romantic and how the mother interacts with
her son is romantic as well. While her pointing to the “east” symbolizes a couple
of romantic elements, namely the east embodies light, sun, nature, beauty, and
God.

The third stanza elaborates what God does, gives, and provides for life on
earth. God’s grace reaches almost all things and creatures: “flowers, trees,
beasts, men.” This stanza then probes into how life runs quite normal and
bestows tranquility. The mother in so doing, lets her boy reflect on her son’s
problem and the options that stand in front of him in solving it and get rid of it
 5

eventually. Thus, the mother tries to convince her child and at the same time
responds to his issue and dilemma. The fourth stanza continues to illustrate life
and men’s purpose on earth. “That we may learn to bear the beams of love” is
the line that reveals the aim and the objective behind men’s living; “love” is the
ultimate learning goal that man should gain and hold while “these black bodies”
are just like a “cloud.” Here this comparison points at how short and temporal is
the blackness. In other words, the black color the boy has doesn’t last forever,
rather it shall disappear. It is the fifth stanza that ends the mother’s speech. But
in this stanza, we hear a new voice; the mother cites God’s some words. The
words tackle the issue of how God is going to receive all men irrespective of
their color and shapes. Mankind is going to be united and gathered in the
“golden tent” of God. This image is both romantic and religious for it brings
imaginative, beautiful, nice, and subjective qualities incarnated in the place and
words of God. The last two stanzas typify the black boy’s response to his
mother’s advice or solution. The two stanzas contain the boy’s resolution to take
seriously his mother’s thread. The poem attempts to reduce the tension caused
by colonial practices.

This same indirect condemnation runs also in "London." The poet turns
the metropolis of the colonial project into no man's land of suffering and
victimization. In other words, the poem does not celebrate the flourishing
circumstances of the Londoners', but it shows how people, have an ill situations
and life:

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

Blake makes the life of citizens a nightmare where anguish is seen "In every cry
of every Man, / In every Infants cry of fear"(5-6). The poet is contextualizing the
ordinary, young man with that subjects who go abroad to carry out the colonial
project the British government adopts. Thus, the poet looks at the community as
a body of people whose life and destiny, present and future are led and
controlled by some (political and imperialistic) decisions they cannot either alter
or bear. He goes even further in referring to the Church as it takes part in all of
what is occurring:
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How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls

Blake tries to illustrate in these poems how people's lives and circumstances
change according to what happens in the political life. He also does his best in
revealing and portraying the status quo of his colonial society.

3.Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner reports a peculiar experience and some wrong
acts; it also tries to make out of this experience an anecdote with a deep moral
lesson. Yet, the poem may be read by employing the colonial theory. Thus,
characterization indicates to some salient point: The "Mariner" embodies a
colonizer, the "Albatross" a colonized or the other, and the "guest," who
interacts with the Mariner represents a third part, an audience who only receives
the news and does not take any part in it. The guest then enables the poet to let
the experience reach the other world. Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner holds some colonial tropes. These tropes are: The voyage, slaughtering,
victimization, and remorse. These four elements mirror vividly colonizing
practices. The poet put the Mariner in direct connection with the "Albatross." To
begin with, "England is an island and the sea washes its literature as much as its
shores" (Wilson 13). For this island to perform a colonial act, the sea is the main
means to do so; the British navy has this "glorious" mission. In Coleridge's
poem, the voyage refers to this. The Mariner sails to his destination:

'The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top. (21-24)

The Mariner begins his voyage. Gradually the ship becomes a symbol of a
powerful machine capable of sailing and reaching new lands. Therefore, the ship
symbolizes that British colonial advanced power. Moreover, by choosing the
symbolism of a colonial navy power, Coleridge alludes to the thread that British
 7

colonialism knows no limits and acknowledges no borders; it goes over seas and
oceans, as it really does as India and the New World are the clearest examples.

The voyage leads to other colonizing practices. It seems that the voyage
opens the door wide to more colonial acts. The first one of these comes too
early. The poem introduces another figure, the Albatross. The poem at first
connects the bird with religious and holy metaphors:

At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As if had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God's name. (63-66)

The arrival of the bird initiates the first connection between colonizer and
colonized. At first, this connection is friendly and fruitful. But out of nothing,
the Mariner commits an evil deed; he kills the bird. The Albatross "has come to
mean a burden of guilt or sin" (Ferber 9). The Mariner does this out of a sudden
and with cold blood:

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus—

Why look'st thou so'—With my crossbow

I shot the ALBATROSS. (79-82)

The Mariner's act reflects a culture of brutality, military, and abuse. The killing
here reminds readers of the killing of buffalos by the Europeans during their
early stages in colonizing the United States. Or to put it in other words, the
slaughtering of the Albatross expresses an aggressive, unjustifiable, and evil
deed. It also insinuates a fact that the deed is done against nature and common
sense; it may be a great sin (Ferber 27). Thus, this act reminds readers about the
atrocities the colonizers do and commit against the colonized in Asia, Africa,
and other parts of the world. As the colonized are without protection so is the
Albatross.

Indeed, this practice of genocide has a direct aftermath: Victimization.

Here victimization has a dual effect. The bird is affected by it and the Mariner as
well:
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Day after dad, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink,

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink. ( 115-122)

Indeed, victimization in the poem resembles any other victimization committed

by colonial exercises. These practices affect man and land; they lead to the
suffering and lack of everything. This act alludes to the use of overpower and
wrong actions the colonizer does.

The last part of the Rime deals with that acute remorse the colonizer
tellingly exhibits. Or to put it in other words, this is about "guilt and terror" (155
Companion). This part renders the Mariner a version of a soldier who takes
orders and carries them out; he seems to have nothing to do with the atrocious
act that he has done:

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide seat!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I. (232-239)

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The poem ends with this remorse and pain the Mariner has. It can be argued that
Coleridge writes an indirect account on the consequences of the colonial
exercises his country does. Furthermore, the poet silences the colonized and at
the same time gives a full power to the colonizer. The poem then contains a bold
warning about colonialism.

4. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson was highly engaged with the happenings of domestic life. Gradually
he was forced and obliged to encounter the colonial project his country held.
Among early poems that began to view colonial enterprise was “England And
America In 1782.” The poem links England and America and tends to celebrate
the American independence in such a way that views America as a previous
colony of British Empire. Tennyson writes that “O thou that sendest out the man
/ To rule by land and sea / Strong mother of a lion-line” (1-3). Tennyson
celebrates the conquer of America by the British: “Be proud of those strong sons
of thine / Who wrenched their rights from thee!” (4-5).

“England And America In 1782” regards the independence of the United

States as a deed that the British people teach and guide. Indirectly, then the poet
views the newly independent country as a former British colony that belongs to
it consequently. In this way, the poem connects the metropolis with the colony
and does not consider the act of independence a rift in the relationship between
the two. Reading the following stanza illuminates this notion clearly:

What wonder if in noble heat

Those men thine arms withstood,

Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught,

And in thy spirit with thee fought—

Who sprang from English blood!

Tennyson ends the poem in a prophet-like voice:

What harmonies of law

The growing world assume,

Thy work is thine—the single note

From that deep chord which Hampden smote

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Will vibrate to the doom. (16-20)

The poet finalizes his comment by joyfully welcoming the separation of the
colony; and in this way he regards this act as an advanced colonial work.

But in Ulysses Tennyson sets out to stress and promote the basic vision of
a colonial (adventurous) hero. Ulysses then may be regarded as a colonial poem
that encourages Victorians to take Ulysses as a hero to be not only imitated but
celebrated and honored. The poem harmonizes announcement of the
adventurous hero with the colonial spirit which presents itself overtly during the
time of the poem. Yet, this is done piecemeal for the poem develops this theme
gradually. Tennyson renders the Greek figure a prototype that the English
people should imitate and follow. The poet therefore introduces a new colonial
hero who wants to conquer both land and sky. This colonial character is a
necessary need for the zeitgeist requires it. The poet employs the ambitious
deeds of this figure as qualities that the new and present age demands. That is
why the poem starts from the personal and local levels to impersonal and
international ones: Ulysses is portrayed as a husband and then as a leader; he has
a dual responsibility, one towards himself and the other towards his country.

Tennyson borrows from Greek history the tale of Ulysses; that warrior
who has seen ups and downs. The poet lets Ulysses reveal everything within his
thinking and feelings. He manages to do so by employing the technique of
dramatic monologue in which the persona is alone and speaks and reveals
everything to a silent audience; he gives many details about his physical and
spiritual sides. And we notice that as if we enter into the persona’s identity.
Indeed, while entering into this identity, we observe many paradoxes. Although
he is old, still has hope for adventure, although his path is filled with dangers
and hardships, he is resolute to do his task. The paradoxes are between his aged
body and the young soul. As if he wants to say that time does not alter his
approach towards life and living. Therefore, he raises a colonial slogan:

Some work of noble note may yet be done. (52)

Here we imagine that Ulysses is holding a banner and marching into life, filled
with resolution and will to colonize the world. No doubt then this poem presents
an exemplar in the figure of Ulysses. Indeed, this figure reminds readers about
Faustus in which here we have a Faustian Ulysses (Houghton 297). Therefore,
this slogan alludes to the colonial ideals present during the Victorian period.
This colonial hero and his followers are going to do their best for "Tis not too
late to seek a newer world" (57). They are united by the same motive and force:
 11

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (68-70)

The dynamic forms of the verbs used are meant to reflect the active and
powerful actions Ulysses does and is going to do in the course of life. The poet
refers implicitly to troop through the words "friends" and this means that
Ulysses is going to carry out his colonial project with his troops, a highly
military allusion that reminds readers about colonialism. Ulysses presents life as
an adventure where man has to conquer the world, a colonial thread. Ulysses
sets to conquer lands beyond measure and to spend his life doing this. What
Ulysses and his troops do is really colonial.

4. Rudyard Kipling

Experienced the life of a colonizer, observed the daily details of the colonized,
and immersed deeply in the national code of honor and patriot of British
colonialism, Kipling offers himself as a meditator, commentary, someone who
stands between two different worlds. Being as such, he must have been in the
middle and at the heart of the British colonial project, if is not a contributor. He
seems to deal and view it as a current project that should thrive and continue.
And the clearest example in this regard is Jim. It tells the story of a boy who
travels to India. The novel is filled with colonial ideologies and voices. Jim acts
as a spy for the British authorities and uses his color and tongue to pentrate
Indian communities the novel is a record by a colonial writer about a colonized
land.

Turning to poetry, one can note that Kipling's poems vary from narrative
to meditative poems that try to give elaborate descriptions, social and cultural,
ideological and political about the lives of those who carry out the colonial
project and at the same time of those who receive the colonial project. Kipling's
related poems may be a diary, an account of how the situation of a figure is and
seems to be in India of late nineteenth century. Among his most famous poems
stands "The White Man's Burden." It celebrates the confiscation of Philippine by
the United States of America. As the title denotes, conquering countries and
exploiting their resources and turning their people into slaves are the
responsibilities, "burden" of the white. Hence, the title does not only hold
colonial aspects and practices, but refer to racial ones as well. Moreover, the title
serves as a refrain that all seventh stanzas begin with. While each one begins
 12

with an imperative sentence that encourages the "white man" to carry out the
colonial project that he is apt to:

Take up the White Man's burden--

Send forth the best ye breed--

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild--

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child. (1-8)

Kipling views the colonial practices the troops do as serving the "captives'
need," that is, their mission is to civilize the colonized. Therefore the "White
Man' here denotes racial distinctions. This man represents "an idea, a person, a
style of being, seems to have served many Britishers while they were abroad"
(Said, 1978, 226). On the other hand, the poet treats the other as primitive,
underdeveloped, and uncivilized. He depicts them as being " Half-devil and
half-child."

But the poem also has some religious content for it deals with Philippines
as a pagan race. This point sustains the claim that colonialism has within its
ideology and heritage a religious tone that cannot be overlooked or dismissed.
Therefore, Kipling insinuates what American troops do comes under the banner
of establishing peace upon the "heathen":

Take up the White Man's burden--

The savage wars of peace--

Fill full the mouth of Famine

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

The end for others sought,

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Watch sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hopes to nought. (17-24)

The poem goes on in this rhythm and intensity to praise the colonizers'
deeds and condemn the colonized for their state and conditions. It glorifies the
colonial project the U.S. does. Indeed, the poet loads the diction with some
connotative words that are meant to euphemize the imperialistic and exploitative
nature of colonialism. Addressing the troops, Kipling tells them that "Ye dare
not stoop to less— / Nor call too loud on Freedom" (33-55). He really believes
that the troops bring and protect "Freedom" but this is a big contrast for they
occupy and kill the natives. Moreover, the poet even believes that the colonized
is going to admire them: "By all ye leave or do / The silent, sullen peoples /
Shall weigh your gods and you" (11). The poet continues in this manner and
finalizes the poem by referring to the great present and promising future of the
soldiers' work and duty:

. . . to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers!

The poem attempts to alter the colonial atrocities and put the picture upside
down by giving poetic threads, images, and metaphor that find their listeners
only on the colonizers side. No doubt then the poem's phase: "the white man's
burden" becomes a "watchword of imperialism" (Buckley 903). Moreover, the
poet is alluding to the fact that the poem asserts which is that "being a White
Man, in short, was a very concrete manner of being-in-the-world, a way of
taking hold of reality, language, and thought. It made a specific style possible"
(Said 1978, 227).

Another poem which highlights the colonial codes and inspirations is

"Recall." In this poem, the poet tries to convey a patriotic voice; he wants to
draw the soldiers' attention to their motherland in a way that gives them a full
responsibility not only conquer more land for the motherland but also protect the
motherland proper and return to it:

I am the land of their fathers,

In me the virtue stays.

 14

I will bring back my children,

After certain days. (1-4)

And when they leave for other duties, they come back to this land but they do
this after a considerable period, so they become "strangers" to the land: "They
shall return as strangers. / They shall remain as sons" (7-8). They and the land
are in a good relation; they establish a tie that cannot be broken or weaken,
neither with time nor with (geographical) separation. This bondage to the land is
a colonial code Kipling stresses over and over. So important is this that the poet
ends the poem with repeating the same notion of the eternal union between the
soldiers and the land: "Till I fill their hearts with knowledge, / While I fill their
eyes with tears" (19-20).

Kipling seems to have a strong belief in colonial project. No doubt then

Kipling is called the poet of British imperialism (Abrams 1714). As has been
noted, some adherers of this project add religious content to the project. They
intend to color the project with some acceptable and even holy religious
meanings. Maybe they have seen themselves as Crusaders who conquer both
body and soul. In his "Recessional," Kipling speaks about Queen Victoria and
makes her the heir of God and Church. Of course the symbolic of the queen is
obvious: The head of the empire, the head of the colonial power. The poet
begins the poem with a religious token:

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget! (1-6)

The poet elaborates the thought that God guides and protects England. God is
always with the country and its people. He reveals that " The Captains and the
Kings depart: / Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice" (8-9). Then the poet
confesses even when they commit a bad deed, God shall correct them:

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

 15

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget! (19-24)

The poet wants to say that his county is protected by God's grace and "mercy."
That is why he ends with poem by indirectly telling the queen that God is with
them and their country: "Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!"

5. Conclusion

Colonialism is felt and viewed during the nineteenth century as a new

ideological force. It begins to alter many various codes and ideals on social,
cultural, and political levels. Indeed, colonialism is the direct heir of the
Industrial Revolution and its spirit: imperialism. Many British literary figures
deal with it as a "normal" and common, but others show some ambivalent
feelings about it. William Blake and S.T. Coleridge belong to the second
faction; they express their uneasy and doubtful threads about the colonial
project. But Tennyson and Kipling exhibit the opposite direction: They welcome
and support the colonial project. Nevertheless, the tension and uneasiness
between the two factions remain an issue and this seems to prevail to the present
time.
 16

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1986.

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-
Colonial Studies. London: Routledge, 1998. Print.

---. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures.
London: Routledge, 1989. Print.

Buckley, Jerome Hamilton and George Benjamin Woods ed. Poetry of the
Victorian Period. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1965. Print.

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