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

Abstract

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

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References (116)

  1. The struggle between terrestrial order and marine chaos has been a recurring trope in the West; early modern writers drew on a series of ancient Near Eastern myths in which gods of the earth (including Yahweh) created dry land by defeating gods of the sea. On the Chaoskampf between land and sea, see Connery, 'There was no more sea'.
  2. On the early modern ocean as a legal space, see Muldoon, 'Who Owns the Sea?' 6 This conception of the sea would remain influential long after the Renaissance; Hegel's Philosophy of History (1837) treated the sea in exactly these terms, as 'the idea of the indefinite, the unlimited, and the infinite … the sea invites man to conquest, and to piratical plunder, but also to honest gain and to commerce' (see Connery, 'Ideolo- gies of Land and Sea' 182).
  3. Plato, Laws (4).
  4. See The Sea-Voyage Narrative, esp. 18-20.
  5. 9 See Levinson, for a history of the surprisingly powerful impact of container shipping on the modern economy. 10 On the history of Western culture and beachgoing, see Corbain, The Lure of the Sea, and Urbain, On the Beach. Corbain suggests that the seaside was not 'discovered' by Europeans until the mid-18th century, but his rich reading of classical and early modern culture suggests otherwise.
  6. As I will discuss, maritime material is appearing in various discourses, including environmental history (see Bolster, 'Opportunities in Marine Environmental History', and Grove, Green Imperialism), histories of globalization (see Finamore, Maritime History as World History), histories of science (see Rozwadowski, Fathoming the Ocean, Roz- wadowski and van Keuren, The Machine in Neptune's Garden, and Deacon, Scientists and the Sea), and literary history (see Klein and Mackenthun, Sea-Changes). The social history of maritime culture also appears in works such as Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen and Young Men and the Sea.
  7. See 'Introduction: Oceans of History' 717. Further citations in the text.
  8. Atlantic history has a vast bibliography. For a recent survey edited by two major figures in the field, see Greene and Morgan, Atlantic History. Among many other works, see also Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement; Elliot, Empires of the Atlantic World; Armitage and Braddock, The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800; and Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours.
  9. On the current status of Atlantic history, see, among others, Games, 'Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities'.
  10. See Gilroy, The Black Atlantic; Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Villains of All Nations and The Slave Ship; Rediker and Lindbaugh, The Many-Headed Hydra.
  11. See Cohen, 'Was there an Amerindian Atlantic?' 17 For further speculations about oceanic history, see Lambert, Martins, and Ogborn, 'Currents, Visions, and Voyages'.
  12. See, for example, Peck, Maritime Fiction, and Rood, The Sea! The Sea! Traditional studies and anthologies still appear, with scholars like Bert Bender and Robert Foulke building on older anthologies and bibliographies by Frank Knight, Benjamin Labaree, Patricia Ann Carlson, Haskell Springer, and others.
  13. Margaret Cohen has published an early stage of her work on the maritime novel as 'Traveling Genres'. See also Roach, Cities of the Dead, and Baucom, Spectres of the Atlantic.
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  17. While acknowledging the contributions of New Historicist treatments of transoceanic travel, from Greenblatt's Marvelous Possessions to Fuller's Voyages in Print, I would like to distinguish the trend that I identify in this article from mainstream New Historicism. As Greenblatt's subtitle ('The Wonder of the New World') indicates, his work focuses on what happened when Europeans found their brave New World. Blue Cultural Studies is concerned with what happens on the way there, at sea.
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