Westall, Claire Louise (2007) What should we know of cricket who only England know? : cricket and its heroes in English and Caribbean literature. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

As the game of England and empire, cricket is a significant colonial and postcolonial
cultural practice which has proven as important to anti colonial modes of resistance,
opposition and independence as its image of Englishness was to the hegemonizing
project of British imperialism. Although the game has an immense literature of its own,
little critical attention has been paid to its place in the field of literary studies.
Consequently, taking its title and starting point from the interwoven questioning of
Rudyard Kipling and C. L. R. James, this thesis explores cricket's repeated presence in
English and Caribbean literature as a symbol of interconnected national and imperial
identities under constant renegotiation, concentrating specifically on the construction
and problematization of the male cricket hero - real and/or fictional - from Tom Brown
to Brian Lara. Organized around the territorial metaphor of the crease, Part One,
`English Literature at the Imperial Crease 1850s-1950s', offers two chapters which
examine the place of cricket in the creation, imperial contextualization and post war
decline of the English cricketing gentleman as a hero of the nation. Part Two,
`Caribbean Heroes at the Literary Crease after 1950', engages with cricket's relation to
the masculine quest for independence in Trinidadian literature as well as a range of
poetic representations of the Caribbean's substantial investment in cricket heroes.
Finally, Part Three, `The Straight White Line', re-evokes the crease as line and territory
to read the trans-gendered British Caribbean cricketing body of Neil Jordan's The
Crying Game (1992). The thesis argues that while cricket has been a valuable vehicle
for the postcolonial expression of freedom in the Caribbean and elsewhere it has also
remained tied to an over investment in individual male heroes which continues to pose
substantial problems to projects of collective emancipation.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Cricket in literature, Caribbean literature -- Colonial influence, Caribbean Area -- Colonization, Cricket stories, Jordan, Neil, 1951- Crying game
Official Date:	June 2007
Dates:	Date Event June 2007 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Sponsors:	Arts & Humanities Research Council (Great Britain) (AHRC) ; University of Warwick ; University of Warwick. Dept. of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Extent:	v, 303 leaves
Language:	eng

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