Description: In recent decades, much of the most vital literature written in English has come from the former colonies of Great Britain. But while postcolonial novelists have been widely celebrated, the achievements of postcolonial poets have been strangely neglected. In The Hybrid Muse, Jahan Ramazani argues that postcolonial poets have also dramatically expanded the atlas of literature in English, infusing modern and contemporary poetry with indigenous metaphors, rhythms, and creoles. A rich and vibrant poetry, he contends, has issued from the hybridization of the English muse with the long resident muses of Africa, India, and the Caribbean.
Engaging an array of critical topics, from the aesthetics of irony and metaphor to the politics of nationalism and anthropology, Ramazani reconceptualizes issues central to our understanding of both postcolonial literatures and twentieth-century poetry. The first book of its kind, The Hybrid Muse will help internationalize the study of poetry and, in turn, strengthen the place of poetry in postcolonial studies.Brief description: Jahan Ramazani is University Professor and the Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of five books, among them, A Transnational Poetics and Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres, also published by the University of Chicago Press.