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Literature vocabulary · Criticism and Analysis

Postcolonial criticism

Meaning in literature, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In literature, postcolonial criticism means: Criticism examining how colonial power and its legacies shape literature and representation.

In Turkish: sömürgecilik sonrası eleştiri, postkolonyal eleştiri

How it is used

Use to study representation, language and unequal power in colonial and later writing.

Example sentences

  1. Postcolonial criticism asks why the islanders never speak in their own voices in this travel account.

    The question examines whose perspective controls the representation.

  2. Her postcolonial criticism essay traces how the novel reworks the language of an older imperial story.

    Reusing earlier language can become a way to challenge its assumptions.

Common collocations

  • apply postcolonial criticism
  • postcolonial criticism and representation
  • literary theoryThe study of the ideas and methods used to read and interpret literature, such as structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism and postcolonial theory.
  • intertextualityThe way texts shape and depend on other texts, through quotation, allusion, parody, imitation or rewriting, so that meaning comes partly from these connections.

More terms: Criticism and Analysis

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