Voyages in Print
English Narratives of Travel to America 1576–1624
Seiten
2007
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-0-521-03650-4 (ISBN)
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-0-521-03650-4 (ISBN)
American colonial voyage narratives evolved almost from the outset as a genre concerned with recuperating failure - as noble, strategic, even as a form of success. Reception of these texts since the Victorian era has often accepted their claims of heroism; this study argues for a more complicated, less glorious history.
The decades leading up to England's first permanent American colony saw not only territorial and commercial expansion but also the emergence of a vast and heterogeneous literature. In the multiple relations of writing to discovery over these decades, these texts played a role more powerful than that of simple recording. They needed to establish certain realities against a background of scepticism - the possibility of discovery, the lands discovered, the intentions and experiences of the discoverers - and they also had to find ways of theorizing their enterprise. Yet conceiving of the American enterprise positively or even survivably proved surprisingly difficult; the voyage narratives evolved almost from the outset as a genre concerned with recuperating failure - as noble, strategic, even as a form of success. Reception of these texts from the Victorian era on has often accepted their claims of heroism and mastery; through a careful re-reading, Mary Fuller argues for a more complicated, less glorious history.
The decades leading up to England's first permanent American colony saw not only territorial and commercial expansion but also the emergence of a vast and heterogeneous literature. In the multiple relations of writing to discovery over these decades, these texts played a role more powerful than that of simple recording. They needed to establish certain realities against a background of scepticism - the possibility of discovery, the lands discovered, the intentions and experiences of the discoverers - and they also had to find ways of theorizing their enterprise. Yet conceiving of the American enterprise positively or even survivably proved surprisingly difficult; the voyage narratives evolved almost from the outset as a genre concerned with recuperating failure - as noble, strategic, even as a form of success. Reception of these texts from the Victorian era on has often accepted their claims of heroism and mastery; through a careful re-reading, Mary Fuller argues for a more complicated, less glorious history.
List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Early ventures: writing under the Gilbert and Ralegh patents; 2. Ralegh's discoveries: the two voyages to Guiana; 3. Mastering words: the Jamestown colonists and John Smith; 4. The 'great prose epic': Hakluyt's Voyages; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
Erscheint lt. Verlag | 31.5.2007 |
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Reihe/Serie | Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture |
Zusatzinfo | 21 Halftones, unspecified |
Verlagsort | Cambridge |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 153 x 228 mm |
Gewicht | 350 g |
Themenwelt | Reiseführer ► Nord- / Mittelamerika ► USA |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
ISBN-10 | 0-521-03650-X / 052103650X |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-521-03650-4 / 9780521036504 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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