Toward a Blue Cultural Studies: The Sea, Maritime Culture, and Early Modern English Literature (original) (raw)

This article explores the cultural meanings of the maritime world in early modern English literature. Placing English literary culture in the context of the massive ocean-bound expansion of European culture that began in the 15th century, it suggests that the sea's ancient meanings shifted in the early modern period as geographic experience and knowledge increased. The article examines some recent developments in maritime studies, sometimes called a 'new thalassology' (from the Greek thalassos, the sea); distinguishes these trends from now-traditional New Historicist and Atlantic studies; and suggests how these methods can contribute to a 'blue cultural studies'. The new maritime humanities speaks to a series of modern discourses, including globalization, postcolonialism, environmentalism, ecocriticism, and the history of science and technology. The article provides two examples of how these maritime discourses can change our interpretations of early modern English literature, first by examining a canonical poem-Milton's 'Lycidas'-and second through reconsidering a historical context, the 'Bermuda pamphlets' on which Shakespeare seems to have drawn in The Tempest. O what an endlesse worke haue I in hand, To count the seas abundant progeny, Whose fruitfull seede farre passeth those in land, And also those which wonne in th'azure sky. The Faerie Queene (4.12.1) The new millennium is bringing humanities scholarship back to the sea. Renewed interest in the oceans informs interdisciplinary programs like HMAP (History of Marine Animal Populations) and Duke University's 'Oceans Connect' initiative. It influences new thinking in the ecological sciences, public policy, and even international law. In the humanities, the leading edge of these discourses emerges out of the thriving and influential discipline of 'Atlantic history', but other types of history have also been turning to the sea, including economic history, imperial history, the history of ideas, the history of science, and historical geography. These discourses seek out the maritime in order to reconsider standard discursive models. Looking closely at the sea, rather than just the land, challenges established habits of thought. This article examines some new developments in maritime studies, including the so-called 'New Thalassology'; distinguishes these trends from now-traditional New Historicist and 'Atlantic' scholarship; and suggests how these new methods can contribute to what I call a 'blue cultural studies'. 1 This new maritime perspective does not view the oceans simply as bodies to be crossed, but as subjects in themselves. Reconsidering the ocean as ocean can open up new analytical frames for scholars of early modern English literature, including a newly dynamic (and disorderly) sense of ecological relationships and a different way of articulating multicultural connections in the early modern global world. After summarizing these trends, I will briefly