The Strange Surprizing Sources Of Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe has been an international best-seller for three hundred years. This edition of the novel with its introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes provides a uniquely scholarly presentation of the novel. There has been no other edition like it.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, RWTH Aachen University, language: English, abstract: With the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719 the novel became established as a significant literary genre. In this connection Daniel Defoe set new standards for a long period. With his The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe he laid the foundations of the contemporary Robinsonade. “With its common hero, pseudo-authentic style, and focus on ideological problems of materialism and individualism, it has been widely seen as the first modern realist novel” 1, the critic David Fausett writes. But in the history of interpretation there are dissensions about Defoe’s role in the development of the novel. His style although it revolutionised the English novel, first was a topic for extensive discussions. From Maximillian E. Novak we get to know that “many of Defoe`s critics have regarded his fiction as a kind of accident arising from his desperate need to support his family and to keep off his creditors.“2 In the Rise of the Novel Ian Watt goes so far as to say that Defoe “is perhaps a unique example of a great writer who was very little interested in literature, and says nothing of interest about it as literature.“3 In contrast Hammond underlines the novel’s “lasting significance” that “surely lies in its consummate blending of divergent literary traditions and its fruitfulness as a source of myth.“4 Furthermore he concludes that “a story that has achieved the status of a fable must possess considerably literary and imaginative qualities and respond to some deep need in the human psyche.“5 Because there must be something in Defoe’s style and narrative technique that justifies the novel’s position in literature some critics have already tried to find an explanation for Defoe’s role in the rise of the novel. [...] 1 Fausett, David. 1994. The Strange Surprizing Sources of ’Robinson Crusoe’. Amsterdam: Rodopi, p. 25. 2 Novak, Maximillian E. “Defoe`s Theory of Fiction.“ In: Heidenreich, Regina und Helmut, eds. 1982. Daniel Defoe: Schriften zum Erzählwerk. (Wege der Forschung. Vol. 339). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, p. 182. 3 Watt, Ian. 1957. The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley, p. 70. 4 Hammond, John R. 1993. A Defoe Companion. MD: Barnes & Noble, p. 67. 5 ibid., p. 67.

For a century, the history of the novel has been written in terms of nations and territories: the English novel, the French novel, the American novel. But what if novels were viewed in terms of the seas that unite these different lands? Examining works across two centuries, The Novel and the Sea recounts the novel's rise, told from the perspective of the ship's deck and the allure of the oceans in the modern cultural imagination. Margaret Cohen moors the novel to overseas exploration and work at sea, framing its emergence as a transatlantic history, steeped in the adventures and risks of the maritime frontier. Cohen explores how Robinson Crusoe competed with the best-selling nautical literature of the time by dramatizing remarkable conditions, from the wonders of unknown lands to storms, shipwrecks, and pirates. She considers James Fenimore Cooper's refashioning of the adventure novel in postcolonial America, and a change in literary poetics toward new frontiers and to the maritime labor and technology of the nineteenth century. Cohen shows how Jules Verne reworked adventures at sea into science fiction; how Melville, Hugo, and Conrad navigated the foggy waters of language and thought; and how detective and spy fiction built on sea fiction's problem-solving devices. She also discusses the transformation of the ocean from a theater of skilled work to an environment of pristine nature and the sublime. A significant literary history, The Novel and the Sea challenges readers to rethink their land-locked assumptions about the novel.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

'It happen'd one Day about Noon going towards my Boat, I was exceeding surpriz'd with the Print of a Man's naked Foot on the Shore, which was very plain to be seen in the Sand: I stood like one Thunder-struck ...' Robinson Crusoe (1719) is one of the most famous adventure stories ever written. The account of a sailor shipwrecked on a desert island for twenty-eight years, it is also a tale of mythic proportions, an allegory, and a spiritual autobiography.L