The World's Desire - Imperial Gothic

Imperial Gothic

The age of British imperialism extends from about 1870 to 1914. Bounding one end of the period is the Franco- Prussian War, the conclusion of which, in 1873, gave French and German manufacturing interests the opportunity to launch an attack on Britain’s commercial monopoly. In this way a new era of national- soon to be imperial- rivalry among nations began. The meshing of ideas and attitudes in Haggard reflects in miniature the conjunction of ideas and attitudes of the imperial age. Although it is impossible to present a perfect picture of imperialism and its mirror image in Haggard’s writings, some awareness of how imperialism drew together the sundry elements of class conflict, domestic policy, party politics, and all manner of socio- economic phenomena within the sphere of foreign policy is crucial to understanding Haggard’s fiction in the imperial context. One imperial idea demonstrated clearly in The World’s Desire is the imperial hero. Many romance heroes of the late nineteenth century have no explicit links to Empire. Odysseus is one such hero. He is a great man with a propensity for leadership, but with no ties to the Empire he defends other than an oath to do so. In addition to severing ties to Empire, aside from Helen, Odysseus separates himself from his past by deeming himself “the Wanderer” and preferring to be separated in association from his previous victories.