Hermeneutic Castaways: Problems in Reading Robinson Crusoe (original) (raw)

300 Jahre "Robinson Crusoe"

2019 marked the tercentenary of the publication of one of the most popular works in the history of the English novel, one that has been reproduced, translated, parodied more than anyotheroverthe past three centuries. When TheLife and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York,Mariner appeared on the 25 April 1719,f ew of its first readers could have anticipated the sensation that it would become. By the time of its authorʼsdeath in 1731, twelve years after the novel'sfirst appearance,the story of the castawaymarooned on his inhospitable island had become so familiar to British and overseas readers that it had spawned ar emarkable number of imitators.I nt hats amey ear,Johann Gottfried Schnabel, in the prefacet oa ne arly imitation, Die Insel Felsenburg,c oined the term 'Robinsonade' to describe the phenomenon. Thereafter Robinsonades would continue to be remediated and translated in vast numbers, in chapbooks, illustrated children'se ditions, religious tracts, lantern shows, pantomimes, and later in films and cartoons. J.M. Coetzee, who achievedsuccess with his own rewriting of the classic tale with the novel Foe,u sed his Nobel Prize speech of 2003 to meditate on the strangew ayst hat Defoeʼsb ook had been appropriated over the generations. Coetzee has Robinson cast his plagiarists,t ranslators,a nd adapters as ac annibal horde, who 'soughttostrike me down and roast me and devour me.' Thinking that he was defending himself against these corruptors of his ownhistory,Coetzee'sC rusoe comes to realise that 'these cannibals were but figures of am ore devilish voracity,that would gnawa tt he very substance of truth.'¹ If, as Harold Bloom argued in TheAnxiety of Influence, manybelated readings are acts of misreading-deliberate or otherwise-then Defoe'snovel must surelybeone of the texts par excellence through which such acts of literary cannibalism have taken place.² Even today, Robinson Crusoe continues to present achallengetoevenits most confident readers who continue to engageinwhat Coetzee called 'gnawing at the truth'. This is hardlysurprising.The book Defoe left the public in 1719 maybecompelling but it is also rambling, uneven, and often bewildering. Virginia Woolf, an