Introduction

Summary

I find myself with the anxiety-inducing task of opening this book with a conundrum due largely, but not exclusively, to the title I have settled on. The literary objects of study within this book certainly led me to it, but defining the terms contained in the title without the crutch of these texts poses significant challenges. Firstly, any attempt to cognitively pin down the contours of imperialism is painstakingly like trying to grasp an oily yet viscous liquid. Although I will endeavor to do so here in the introduction, the totality of this project will hopefully provide a more complete answer. Nonetheless, and perhaps as a disclaimer, discussing imperial power often leads to the fallacy of designating its limits. Western imperialism, as I shall consider, has very much constructed its own world, in the Heideggerian sense, and therefore, establishing its limits – where or when it exists – is an exercise in futility. If I can think of a phrase that unites the texts I will explore in relation to imperial power it would be something to the effect of: ‘Empire is here and now, let's tackle it.’ The texts, though, do in fact offer nuanced insights into how imperial power has arrived at its present moment, all the while imagining ways out of it. The broadly encompassing nature of imperial power, however, renders any study of it incomplete.

For the sake of semantic and conceptual clarity, it is important to distinguish the existence of western imperial power from European national imperial projects. As I shall discuss, imperial power resides in and reproduces a particular field of meaning to which national imperial projects have contributed. The literary texts to be studied here share both experiences of imperial power and of a particular national imperial endeavor – Portuguese colonialism. Like other national empires, Portuguese expansion brought with it its own textual fabric, overlapping with and contributing to broader imperial power and the construction of the West. To be clear about a contentious topic to be discussed further on in this introduction, no specificity or particularity concerning Portuguese expansion and Portugal's more than 500-year imperial story disrupts imperial power, but rather reproduces it.