The Imperial Quest and Modern Memory from Conrad to Greene (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory) Book

"The Imperial Quest and Modern Memory" explores relationships between narrative and imperium in the context of Western Modernism by examining the Quest as a vexed trope in "Heart of Darkness", "Passage to India", "The Sheltering Sky" and the "Quiet American". The book takes stock of twentieth century theory regarding the Quest and considers the dominant expression and the imperial organization of this trope in Western culture and iconography from the Dark Ages to the Age of Empire. It highlights the ways in which this trope both lingers and changes in the context of Western Modernism and gauges its permutations in modern discourse. Claiming that the modern novel simultaneously reinscribes and subverts Western and imperial manifestations of the Quest, this expansive study emphasizes intriguing intersections between past and present, culture and archetype, norm and narrative, memory and contemporaneity.Read More