| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 289 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Introduction. Imoinda, marriage, slavery -- Part one. Imoinda's original shades : African women in British antislavery literature. Altering Oroonoko and Imoinda in mid-eighteenth century British drama ; Amelioration, African women, and the soft, strategic voice of paternal tyranny in 'The grateful negro' ; "Between the saints and the rebels" : Imoinda and the resurrection of the Black African heroine -- Part two. Imoinda's shade extends : abolition and interracial marriage in England. Creoles, closure, and Cubba's comedy of pain : abolition and the politics of homecoming in eighteenth-century British farce ; "'What!' cried the delighted mulatto, 'are we going to prosecu massa?'" : 'Adeline Mowbray''s distinguished complexion of abolition ; "An unportioned girl of my complexion can ... be a dangerous object" : abolition and the mulatto heiress in England -- Afterword |
| Summary |
"Imoinda's Shade examines the ways in which British writers utilize the most popular African female figure in eighteenth-century fiction and drama to foreground the African woman's concerns and interests as well as those of a British nation grappling with the problems of slavery and abolition. Imoinda, the fictional phenomenon initially conceived by Aphra Behn and subsequently popularized by Thomas Southerne, has an influence that extends well beyond the Oroonoko novella and drama that established her as a formidable presence during the late Restoration period. This influence is palpably discerned in the characterizations of African women drawn up in novels and dramas written by late-eighteenth-century British writers. Through its examinations of the textual instances from 1759-1808 when Imoinda and her involvement in the Oroonoko marriage plot are being transformed and embellished for politicized ends, Imoinda's Shade demonstrates how this period's fictional African women were deliberately constructed by progressive eighteenth-century writers to popularize issues of rape, gynecological rebellion, and miscegenation. Moreover, it shows how these specific African female concerns influence British antislavery, abolitionist, and post-slavery discourse in heretofore unheralded, unusual, and sometimes radical ways"--Publisher's description |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-280) and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Imoinda (Fictitious character)
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Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689. Oroonoko.
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| SUBJECT |
Oroonoko (Behn, Aphra) fast |
| Subject |
English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism
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Interracial marriage in literature -- History -- 18th century
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Women, Black, in literature -- History -- 18th century
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Race in literature -- History -- 18th century
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Antislavery movements in literature -- History -- 18th century
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Marriage in literature.
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Women, Black, in literature.
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Race in literature.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
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Antislavery movements in literature
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English literature
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Interracial marriage in literature
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Marriage in literature
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Race in literature
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Women, Black, in literature
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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History
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Literary criticism
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Literary criticism.
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Critiques littéraires.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780814270509 |
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0814270506 |
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0814292860 |
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9780814292860 |
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