Taming the Sublime in Darkest Africa: Stanley’s How I Found Livingstone and Burton’s Lake Regions of Central Africa

Abstract

Explores how African natives and landscapes are written in the register of the sublime and how different types of rhetorical appropriation are used to tame apparently dangerous threats to British colonial rule. Explains how Stanley and Burton, writing about African as a menacing and perilous space that they ultimately manage to navigate safely, are able to assert control over their environment and use the sublime to establish an aesthetic sanction for values and prejudices underwriting imperialism, exploration, and British cultural hegemony.