Commonwealth Literature is a British Council construct, not a genuinely ferocious force

Evidence

Now, ‘Commonwealth Literature’ is a construct pretty much of the British Council and.is limited largely to its clients, who themselves construe it as a meeting-ground for discrete ‘national’ traditions; the ‘ferocity’ Said imputes to it is at best imaginary, and it is at the very least astonishing that Said posits this cultural hangover of the British Empire as a credible alternative to ‘the nationalist basis’ This civilizing mission is said ro reside, further, in the very global pre- eminence of the English language itself: ‘What gtves the actuality of Commonwealth literature irs special force is that, of all languages today, English is, properly speaking, the world language. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 891

Categorization

• XREF: Materially grounds the critique: named provenance of the category (British Council) counters the discourse-first aestheticization of it later in the chapter. — connects to: Postcolonial ‘Commonwealth Literature’ was a British Council construction addressing material pressures — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 325

Broader Connections

• Postcolonial ‘Commonwealth Literature’ was a British Council construction addressing material pressures #corroborates (0.96) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 325