ABSTRACT
In "The Jerboa" technical mastery is evident in the formal precision and dexterity of the poem itself but it produces something small, discreet, adaptable and economical. Technical mastery as a form of literary labour is an investment in a form of representation that 'honours' the other without exploiting or appropriating it. The desire to capture the animal in its natural habitat, to document the mysteries of the non-human world is clearly evident in the pages of The Illustrated London News but it extends to a fascination with the otherness of non-Western cultures. The fantasy of non-colonized things is also evident in the pages of The Illustrated London News through its representation of the opposition between Western modernity and its 'primitive' others. What becomes evident when reading The News between 1930 and 1934 is the ways in which imperialist discourses intersect with the fetishization of new technologies.
