"We weren’t taught Shakespeare or Milton in order to understand our own situation—they were taught as the jewels in Queen Victoria’s crown. The point of the colonial enterprise was that it had all these people to control. Our education was about imprinting on us the greatness of England, the idea that the people who could produce these works were of a superior kind of people...I came to understand that I should separate Shakespeare and all of the rest from Disraeli and Horatio Nelson—that the British Empire is one thing and literature another. I’ll take everything except Kipling. Wordsworth would have been very upset to know that his wonderful poems were being used as a weapon of empire."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Jamaica Kincaid Interview with The Paris Review (2022)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colonialism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Colonialism
53 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Colonialism →
Related Quotes
"Recent American research has shown that as early as 1880, the British Empire was producing an economic return lower t…"
"Only systematic domination and exploitation of some humans by others is considered colonialism. In contrast, non-huma…"
"The colonial regime owes its legitimacy to force and at no time does it ever endeavor to cover up this nature of things."
"Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn their flag and their police fo…"
"[W]e believe in the British Empire because it stands for liberty; because it has given us all that we have; because i…"
"Christopher Columbus landed first in the New World at the island of San Salvador, and after praising God enquired urg…"
"The famous dictum which states that all men are equal will find its illustration in the colonies only when the coloni…"
"Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural sta…"
"When the native hears a speech about Western culture he pulls out his knife—or at least he makes sure it is within re…"
"When I was growing up I didn’t hear the word ‘colonisation’ very much but I was always aware, I think, of its cold an…"