Summary
Victorian critic whose 1870 inaugural lecture as Slade Professor at Oxford Edward Said quotes at length as a solemn invocation to England’s imperial destiny, connecting his political ideas about British world domination to his aesthetic and moral philosophy (Culture and Imperialism, PDF p.130-131 / printed p.103-104).
Details
- Said sets the elaboration of Carlyle’s and Ruskin’s aesthetic theories beside the authority their ideas bestowed on the subjugation of distant peoples, as a serious split in critical consciousness (PDF p.39 / printed p.12).
- In the earlier, shorter citation, Ruskin in his 1870 inaugural lecture speaks of England’s pure race and tells his audience to turn England into a country again, “a royal throne of kings; a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace”, mobilising Shakespeare’s preferential feeling for England for imperial, aggressively colonial service (PDF p.106 / printed p.79).
- Ruskin regarded the lecture passage Said quotes at length as, in the Cook and Wedderburn edition’s footnote, “the most pregnant and essential” of all his teaching (PDF p.129 / printed p.102).
- In the passage, England is to accept the highest destiny ever set before a nation, must “Reign or Die”, and “she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able”, formed of her most energetic and worthiest men, whose first aim is to advance the power of England by land and sea (PDF p.130-131 / printed p.103-104).
- Most discussions of Ruskin avoid this passage, Said argues; because England is to be “king” of the globe, its art and culture depend, in Ruskin’s view, on an enforced imperialism (PDF p.131 / printed p.104).