The Collective Voice

Modern Literature and the Politics of Speech

While collective speech can seem a disparate set of practices—from prayers to protest chants, and from football songs to oaths of allegiance and national anthems—Matthew Taunton argues that we can think of these together. Speaking in unison is often considered to be in decline in an individualistic modernity, and associated with earlier, more ritualistic, and even 'primitive' states of being. In this incisive new book, Taunton draws on a fascinating archive of literary texts from Britain, Continental Europe, North America, Africa and the Caribbean, to demonstrate the ongoing importance of the collective voice in building group solidarity, with a variety of political meanings. Analyzing texts and performances by writers including Katharine Burdekin, T.S. Eliot, Jane Harrison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jack Lindsay, Jacques Roumain, Ousmane Sembène, and Wole Soyinka, the book maps the relationship of different forms of collective vocalization to political power, with chapters that observe the collective voice in positions of refusal, protest, and hegemony. Combining historical contextualization, detailed formal analysis, and social and political theory, Taunton argues that a critical account of the functions of the collective voice is essential to understanding the contemporary rise of far-right, nationalist, and fascist politics, and shows how radical and left-wing writers have tapped the more egalitarian potentials of collective speech.

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