2006/06/28 by Astrid Erll · 36 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Philippine History and Culture #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Narrative #Intertextuality #Colonialism #History #Mutiny #Meaning (existential) #Literature #Mode (computer interface) #Plot (graphics) #Field (mathematics) #Power (physics) #Aesthetics #Linguistics #Sociology #Epistemology #Art #Philosophy #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1080/13825570600753485
published in European Journal of English Studies 10(2), 163-185 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2006/06/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In the course of a ‘memorial history’ (that is, the history of how events or persons are recalled by social communities) it is to a great degree the mode of remembering which effects changes in the shape and meaning of the past. Modes of remembering are modes of re-presenting the past. The aim of this essay is to explore the way in which literary forms generate specific modes of remembering. I will look at features such as narrative voice, focalisation, metaphors, intertextuality, and plot structures of the literary (re-)writing of the ‘Indian Mutiny’ (1857) which has been taking place over a time span of almost 150 years, in order to provide some insights into one of literature's potential functions, its power to re-vision the past, in imperial and post-colonial cultures of memory. A broader aim of the essay is to show in exemplary fashion how the field of post-colonial studies can usefully apply concepts of cultural memory.