Från John Donne till Derek Walcott

Abstract

In this essay Raoul J. Granqvist (Umeå University) discusses the expansion and problematization of English studies and the English literary canon with readings from Donne, Shakespeare and Walcott. He contends that the awarding of the Nobel Prizes to Soyinka and Walcott, respectively, must be studied against the empowering reactions of the once-colonies to speak their words, sing their songs; that decolonization has also had an impact on fragmentizing the literary canon itself. Donne's "Mistress Going to Bed", for instance, with its vivid but colonial allusions to a woman's body is a case in point that postcolonial theory has helped unlocking. Granqvist defines his profession, thus enlarged, as containing "a postnational, pacificistic credo". It is a challenge and a utopia, he concludes.

Keywords

• postcolonial theory
• postkolonial teori
• decolonization
• dekolonisation
• Donne
• Shakespeare