Closed and Open Attitudes to Globalised English: Notes on Issues

Abstract

Literary criticism & scholarship is situated within the larger historical context of the hegemonic power of colonial languages & the persistence of its implicit acceptance on the part of modern literary critics in addressing literary texts written in World Englishes, ie, E-literatures as defined by Thumboo (2002). The serious study of E-literatures demands an appreciation of their uniqueness, both with respect to each other & as literatures rooted in a bilingual & bicultural (or multilingual & multicultural) literary environment. Whereas masterworks of English literature written in the Anglo-Saxon countries are interpreted by scholars in terms of the historical, cultural, & moral preconditions & assumptions specific to those countries, appreciation of literature in a World English emanating from a postcolonial nation requires knowledge of its particular historical, cultural, & moral background; commonalities among E-literatures must not lead scholars to lump them together. J. Hitchcock.