'Ruling and Empire' and Brian Friel's "Translations"

Hi all,

This post focuses on Philippa Levine's chapter, 'Ruling and Empire'. About halfway into the chapter, having discussed how violence was a 'key feature of ruling a colony' (Levine 113), Levine goes on to say:

'Yet there was far more to the success of the Empire than the gun and the sword, or even the navy frigate. The age of empire was also an age of collecting and classifying, an age in which the very boundaries of knowledge seemed almost limitless, and the Empire played a substantial role in the intellectual confidence that bolstered these typically Western views ... For many colonists the lands and the peoples of the Empire were also specimens to be listed, categorized and labeled' (Levine 113-4).

When I read this passage, a play I had read and watched over the Summer jumped out at me- Brian Friel's "Translations" (I just got back from Ireland where I read two courses, Irish Lit and Theatre, over Summer School). First performed in 1980, the play is set in 1833, in a Gaelic-speaking town of Ireland. It examines the effect of the 19th century British Ordnance Survey of Ireland, which meant the mapping and re-naming of the whole of Ireland- towns, roads, and landmarks- from Gaelic to English.

The passage above reminded me of the play because:

1. The forced shift from Gaelic to English is portrayed in Friel's play as being equally (or arguably, even more) successful in ruling/expanding an empire than 'the gun and the sword, or even the navy frigate' (Levine 113), and
2. Friel's play enacts the reality of 19th century British imperialism, where 'for many colonists the lands and the peoples of the Empire were also specimens to be listed, categorized and labeled' (Levine 113-4).

*edit*

The play is interesting to consider in light of Levine's chapter as it discusses a form of non-physical violence imposed upon Ireland. In his book, Decolonizing the Mind, Ngugi Wa Thiong'O states:

'Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world [...] Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world.'

If we take this to be true, the forced imposition of the English language over Irish is indeed a violence done to Ireland. This means the eventual 'carr[ying over of English] culture', and therefore English 'values', into Ireland- a quiet and insidious technique that enables the empire to expand and survive.

*end of edit*

 

The play is reminiscent of a lot more of the reading material in various other ways, and if anyone's interested (or thinks they can tackle even more reading), Friel's play, along with other major Irish plays written during the formation of Ireland's National Theatre Movement, can be found in Harrington's Modern Irish Drama.

Thanks, and let me know if you have any thoughts!

- Kelly Tay