Imperial Nationalist Gospels In The Oeuvre Of The Algerianist Louis Bertrand And The Anglo-indian Rudyard Kipling

Résumé: The present thesis reconsidered the ideology of imperialism as espoused by the Algerianist Louis Bertrand and the Anglo-Indian Rudyard Kipling putting it in a new frame. It sought to highlight the nationalist and defensive tenets overlooked in the writers’ texts arguing that in their case imperialism is an extreme form of nationalism. Therefore, the study explored the underpinnings of “Imperial Nationalism” in the authors’ writings to show that the latter were deeply influenced by the French and the British national and international anxieties which aroused their nationalist sentiments and gave shape to their imperial literary creation used to enhance their nations’ imperial agendas.The analysis was performed on two main axes. First, it examined the implied fears and the anxieties the authors had about their imperial and national integrity.Then, it tried to demonstrate the solutions they proffered to cope with the uncertainty of their empires.Second, it displayed their views about the consolidation of the imperial nationalist situation through the use literature as a mythmaking and myth-disseminating device. To do so, the analysis drew on the premises of the New historicist and Postcolonial Literary theories believing that the works of the twowriters could not be read away from their contexts. A comprehensive view of their ideologies required the examination of the writings of each of them as interrelated and complementary circles in a long chain and as the culmination of various socio-political conditions and imperial situation.

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