Daniel Defoe Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by
- •
- History of the Senses, 18th Century British Literature, Daniel Defoe, History of the Novel

In this article, I want to show the crucial role London as a social environment played in the Burke-Wollstonecraft-Debate. For reasons specific to the Protestant-humanist development of early modern England, London at the time is a hot-bed for political radicalism. Starting as a political dispute about the meaning of the French revolution, the Burke-Wollstonecraft-Debate soon developed into a dispute about whether Britain shall move into the direction of a democracy. Burke's argument against democracy is based on his view that the majority of the people easily become a dangerous mob, and therefore, if allowed sovereignty, are rather a threat to liberty than its democratic guarantor. Remarkably, the topic of the mob as being uncontrollable if it is allowed a voice as a whole people is also central to his speeches as an MP in the House of Commons, which are concerned with the social control of the London mob. Wollstonecraft counters Burke's anti-democratic line of argument by claiming that the true mob is the elite, because the mob is everyone who does not contribute to the common good. Seeing the mob as the elite is a strong theme in London popular culture at the time, especially in the works of William Hogarth and John Gay. The problems the City of London had with governing crowds, are exemplarily shown by the decision of city administrators to not punish political dissent with standing in the pillory anymore, because the pillory allowed the mob an active role in the punishment, and therefore, led to the mob taking action in favor of political dissenters, who were put in the pillory, the most famous example of is Daniel Defoe. As the active integration of the mob into city politics failed, punishment moved into the direction of just quietening dissent by imprisonment. However, the democratic theme of giving ordinary people a voice remained strong in London popular culture.

- by Dirk Schuck
- •
- Edmund Burke, History Of London, Humanism, Cultures of Punishment

This essay analyses literary and artistic works that are specifically tied to the experience or anticipation of plague by their content and purpose; that is, they contain direct reference to the disease, visually or verbally, and are... more

- by louise marshall
- •
- Iconography, Renaissance Studies, Cult of Saints, Early Modern Europe

Robinson Crusoe has been conjured with in many ways over the course of 300 years. While there has been an anti-orientalist critique of the figure of Friday, and some exposure of Crusoe’s investments in the slave trade, there are other aspects of Defoe’s book that receive less consideration. Post-structuralist and Marxist readings that have been made familiar again in recent work, look decidedly more interesting when the role of the English East India Company is reinstated as backdrop. What then of the resurgence of interest in the models that Robinson provides across the centuries: isolated individual, self-reliant, economic rational and civilising force, alone among nature … ? If Marx were writing of Robinson today, would the colonial corporation feature? The possibility must be that the environment would be in focus, and a target would be the transnational corporate polluters who accumulate profits through exchanges that risk any future rescue. To think of Robinson is to seek again an allegory for our times, as ever. Perhaps every interpretation of the text leaves us isolated and stranded, left to our own devices with only the sketchiest tools, and a vague textual-moral compass, with which to reproduce a livelihood on an island planet far from home.

- by John Hutnyk
- •
- History, Historical Sociology, Jacques Derrida, Daniel Defoe
- by Thiago Rhys Bezerra Cass
- •
- Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe, Charles Lamb, Marquis De Sade

When George I arrived in Britain in 1714, he brought with him his two Turkish servants Mahomet and Mustapha (the spelling varies in different contemporary texts), who continued to wear their Turkish turbans while working in court as personal servants to their Hanoverian master. Though the Turk in general may have represented what many eighteenth-century Britons saw as the abomination, deception, and apostasy of Islam, however, this usually exoticised figure in British consciousness at this time has also served as a means by which contemporary political, social and cultural power could be reenacted, reinstated and re-empowered. This essay considers how Mustapha and Mahomet functioned within a specific cultural, political, economic and social eighteenth-century environment, the beginning of the Hanoverian reign in Britain. King George seems to have used his two turbaned Turkish servants as surrogate targets to evade and redirect British domestic criticism from his court. Kenneth M. Setton argues in his book Western Hostility to Islam and Prophecies of Turkish Doom that " thoughts of the Turk, in Britain " since the sixteenth century were attended by " popular notions of lust and betrayal. " However, " these thoughts or perceptions, " according to Setton, continued to emphasise more often than not the strong performance of Turks in war. 1 In addition, he says, these early representations of the Turks in Britain did not reflect a genuine

- by Khaled Aljenfawi
- •
- Daniel Defoe

From the island of certainty that is the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus to the everyday ethics of the mainland in the Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy traces a journey similar to the one etched into Robinson Crusoe's deserted beaches. In this essay I map out points contact between Wittgenstein's philosophy and Defoe's novel, providing a fresh glimpse at the philosophical underpinnings of the adventures depicted in Robinson Crusoe, as well as of Wittgenstein's philosophical motivations.

- by Ron Ben Tovim
- •
- Daniel Defoe, Philosophy and Literature, Robinson Crusoe, Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Anthony Burgess and Science Fiction”, Jim Clarke, SFRA Review 313, Summer 2015, pp. 28-35. Anthony Burgess was a reluctant writer of SF, but a highly influential one. This article, for the SFRA Review, introduces the author and his SF... more

- by Kevin Pinkham
- •
- British Literature, James Joyce, Anthony Burgess, George Orwell

The Restoration Period is an age of enormous energy and inventiveness in that it has produced Paradise Lost, The Country Wife and Pilgrim's Progress. Both literature and philosophy began to flourish in this period. Moreover, it would be impossible not to mention the works of prose in this period, but it is also impossible to satisfactorily date the beginning of the novel in English literature. On the other hand, without speaking of the early-period (amateur) novel, it seems extremely difficult to discuss the eighteenth-century literature. The British novel can be studied under the light of many themes, because many of the works of prose, from the very beginning to the contemporary novels, use some recurring topics or themes in different types of novel. The protagonists' journeys so frequently make up the form and the message of the stories. This type of journeys is observable in almost all novels of the period. Thus, this study undertakes to explore the travel as a narrative framework in the novels of this period, the five early novels of British novel tradition, which are Idalia (1723), Robinson Crusoe (1719), Pamela (1740), Joseph Andrews (1742), and Tristram Shandy (1759), and foreground the travel pattern as a driving force in the context of plot and meaning in these classical novels. Özet Restorasyon Dönemi, Paradise Lost, Country Wife ve Pilgrim's Progress gibi eserlerin üretildiği dönem olması bakımından muazzam bir enerji ve yaratıcılık çağıdır. Hem edebiyat hem de felsefe bu dönemde geliş-meye başlamıştır Dahası, bu dönemde yazılan eserlerden bahsetmemek imkansızdır, ancak İngiliz edebiya-tında romanın başlangıcını tatmin edici bir şekilde tarihlemek de imkansızdır. Fakat öte yandan, erken-dönem (amatör) romandan bahsetmeden on sekizinci yüzyıl edebiyatını tartışmak çok zordur. İngiliz romanı birçok temanın ışığı altında incelenebilir çünkü, en başından günümüz romanlarına kadar, eserlerin çoğu farklı roman türlerinde tekrar eden bazı konular veya temalar kullanmıştır. Bu erken-dönem romanlarda kahramanların yolculukları sık sık hikayelerin biçimini ve mesajını oluşturur. Bu tür yolculuklar, dönemin neredeyse tüm romanlarında gözlemlenebilir. Bu nedenle bu çalışma, Idalia (1723), Robinson Crusoe (1719), Pamela (1740), Joseph Andrews (1742) ve Tristram Shandy (1759) gibi İngiliz roman geleneğinin beş erken-dönem romanında bir anlatı çerçevesi olarak yolculuk fikrini tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır ve bu klasik romanlarda, olay örgüsü ve anlam bağlamında itici bir güç olarak yolculuk motifini ön plana çıkaracaktır.

- by Ana Acosta
- •
- Religion & the Public Sphere, Richard Price, Daniel Defoe, London

This thesis work addresses the work of one of the pioneers of the historical novel – Daniel Defoe, examining two of his books in the context of the conventions of historical writing between the end of the seventeenth century and the first... more

- by Rudy Kisler
- •
- Literature, The Novel, Historiography, Eighteenth-Century British History and Culture

In this article, I argue that being a lie disqualifies something from being a literary work. If something is a lie then it is not a literary work of any kind, and if something is a literary work of any kind then it is not a lie. Being a... more

The essay is a discussion of Defoe’s novel as an oscillation between a search for a Divine providential meaning in the plights of existence and a more secular interpretation of phenomena. The essay shows how Crusoe as narrator tries to reflect back on his journey as a sort of spiritual self-discovery; however, his own actions and deepest passions (in the form of his naturalistic interpretation of events on the island as well as his excessive attachment to wealth) undermine this spiritual orientation. This oscillation between the explanatory frameworks offered by Christianity and secular modernity, I assert, make the novel still relevant and powerful for us today.

Béres Norbert, Az első magyar nyelvű robinzonádok, Irodalomismeret, 2021/1, 4–28.

- by Béres Norbert
- •
- Enlightenment, 18th & 19th Centuries, Hungarian Literature, Daniel Defoe

In all the numerous reviews of Defoe’s novel, most fail to mention Defoe’s total lack of empathy for his fellow human beings, his conceit, his arrogance, and his sense of entitlement (along with several more personal flaws). Specifically, they fail to mention Crusoe’s likelihood of having a mental disorder: schizophrenia. Crusoe displays several symptoms of schizophrenia in Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, such as social isolation and withdrawal, marked paranoia, hallucinations, a reliance on drugs and/or alcohol (to self-medicate), and a total lack of empathy.

- by Crystal Weissenberger
- •
- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Defoe, Daniel, Defoe
- by Ashley Marshall
- •
- Eighteenth-Century literature, Daniel Defoe

- by Jim Clarke
- •
- British Literature, James Joyce, SF History, Anthony Burgess

The aim of this essay is to analyze misogyny in the eighteenth-century novel through the representation of women in Defoe’s work and to evaluate the degree to which Defoe’s work itself can be considered misogynistic. In order to do so, I will examine Defoe’s previous works and how they influenced the representation of women in his novels with different rhetoric to that of his contemporaries. I will look at various approaches to Defoe’s works, arguing within the context of gender-specific commodification in Scheuermann’s, Laura Brown’s explication of Roxana as proto-feminist and Helen Moglen´s approach. Most importantly, I will present what I consider to be a new interpretation of Daniel Defoe’s heroines.

This paper will draw a comparison between Oroonoko and Robinson
Crusoe, with a focus on 1. how both novels carry characteristics of early novels and 2. the colonial and racist instances present in both novels which are the renaming of slaves, the characterization of natives as "noble savages" for looking like and being educated by Europeans, the depiction of natives as savages who have to be feared, the fact that English becomes the dominant language used for communication with the natives and that slavery does not get criticized but seen as a natural and necessary part of life. Even though Oroonoko has been read by many as a work of the abolitionist movement, a detailed reading of the novel shows that at its core, it is still a novel that justifies and reinforces colonialism and slavery.

- by Betül Sena Özer
- •
- Comparative Literature, The Novel, Race and Racism, Colonialism

This short paper is going to explore the question of why woman body is represented as a commodity in Defoe's Moll Flanders, a commodity fit to be traded, exchanged or completely forfeited for mere survival. This paper states that Moll trading and exchanging her own body for material security takes place on three levels and for three reasons: first, she wants to secure financial security and independence; second, she wants to buy and establish respectability; third, she wants to ensure her future and her desire to become a gentlewoman. These three reasons will be discussed in detail.

- by Laszlo Szabo
- •
- English Literature, Literature, English language, Daniel Defoe

Since soon after the publication of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, there have been many different cinematic and literary adaptations of this famous adventure story, which are collectively known as “Robinsonades.” Due to the plastic nature of the Robinson Crusoe story, which is a function of what Mikhail Bakhtin defines as the “adventure chronotope,” there are many intra-medial and inter-medial adaptations of Defoe’s novel in different historical, cultural, social and ideological contexts in which the “dominant” and/or “emergent” “structures of feeling” are represented. Thus, as an outcome of all these various adaptations, it is possible to observe a polyphonic voice in the entirety of the Robinsonades, in which many contradictory ideas and voices are highlighted. This thesis furthers the exploration of the adaptability of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe by illustrating the central argument with reference to an intra-medial (Elizabeth Whittaker’s “Robina Crusoe and Her Lonely Island Home”) and one inter-medial adaptation (Robinson Crusoe, 1997) of the Robinson Crusoe story. In the introduction part of the thesis, following a brief account of the adventure genre, Raymond Williams’s “structures of feeling” model is introduced with reference to the Robinson Crusoe story and the Robinsonade tradition. Then, Bakhtin’s ideas on “chronotope,” “adventure time,” and “polyphony” and the main methodological approach that is used in analysing these adaptations are explained. In the first chapter, Elizabeth Whittaker’s serialised fiction “Robina Crusoe and Her Lonely Island Home” is dealt with to argue that Whittaker’s “Robina” not only exemplifies the conventional woman character of the period, but also articulates and highlights the changing relationships between the Empire and the woman, and, in turn, gives voice to the New Woman in this same period, showing the text’s ability to address certain themes and tensions which were relevant for its particular reading audience and which represented the “dominant” and/or “emergent” “structures of feeling” in late Victorian Britain. The same method is also used in the second chapter while illustrating the discursive and ideological plasticity of the Robinson Crusoe story by discussing selected scenes from an inter-medial adaptation, namely the film Robinson Crusoe that accommodates both the “dominant” and “emergent” discourses on post-colonial multiculturalism. Moreover, it is argued that even though the polyphonic quality is attributed to the entirety of the Robinsonade tradition, in the film Robinson Crusoe, there is polyphony within the work itself as well, which is explained with reference to the voices heard in the various textual examples dealt with in this chapter. In the conclusion part, it is contended that the Robinson Crusoe story’s plasticity and heterogeneity can best be explained with reference to a specific type of “literary chronotope,” one which Bakhtin calls the “adventure chronotope,” and to “polyphony” in which different ideological positions are represented and given voice.

- by Seda Öz
- •
- Creative Nonfiction, Gender Studies, Film Studies, Children's Literature

This thesis is a study of occluded intertextuality in two novels by South African author J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K (1983) and Foe (1986). It examines Coetzee’s novels in concert with intertexts and archival materials to determine how Coetzee employed intertextuality as a means of negotiating his positionality as a white liberal author in late-apartheid South
Africa. In Chapter 1 I examine Coetzee’s initial intention, exhibited in a working notebook and early drafts, to rewrite Heinrich Von Kleist’s 1811 novella Michael Kohlhaas, demonstrating
how, although Coetzee ultimately moved away from this intertext, its traces remain in Michael K through an inescapable lacuna which creates an experience of hesitation for character, author,
and reader. In Chapter 2, I trace Coetzee’s attempts to rewrite Daniel Defoe’s 1724 courtesan narrative, Roxana, although Foe’s typically identified intertext is Robinson Crusoe. A
contrapuntal reading of Roxana reveals that imperialism, motherhood, prostitution, and authorship form a knot in that text, which is transferred to Coetzee’s novel via the return of
Susan Barton’s lost daughter in the novel’s final section. Chapter 2 thus seeks to supplement readings of Foe that posit Friday as the novel’s ultimate representation of ethical engagement
with alterity. This thesis establishes a relationship of comparative exchange between several kinds of intertext and in doing so aims to construct a personal ethics of reading. Derek Attridge
describes the ethics of reading as an encounter, through literature, with the other, or an other. For Attridge, “Coetzee’s works both stage, and are, irruptions of otherness into our familiar worlds” (xii) precisely because reading his work is an event. This thesis seeks to expand Attridge’s conceptualization of reading Coetzee’s work as an event beyond the borders of individual texts to consider the ethical force that results from reading text, intertext and foretext concurrently and
interactively.

- by Christina Turner
- •
- Postcolonial Studies, Intertextuality, Daniel Defoe, J. M. Coetzee

It was written by Sultan Saraç, in 2016.
The aim of this research is to show the troubles of women in 18th century England, through a character of a realistic novel by Daniel Defoe , “Moll Flanders”. This paper which is good for people to research and learn the history of 17th and 18th century England society, will discuss and show these troubles of a real-like female character from a novel.

- by Sultan Aykoç
- •
- Daniel Defoe, Woman, Woman Studies, Moll Flanders

This research paper aims to explore the topic of paternalism as it appears in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) in relation to the novel’s themes of individualism, spiritual awakening, and survival. The analysis will therefore trace the dynamic of Crusoe’s paternal relationships with other characters in the novel. The idea of paternalism is thus manifested emphatically through Crusoe’s father, metaphorically through God, and subjectively through Crusoe himself yet in each case it has a specific function for the protagonist as related to the themes of the novel.

In this paper I discuss Defoe's political biography and his experimental style of writing in order to connect them with the main issue, which is the political reading of Robinson Crusoe from an historical overview of his political tradition. To do so I follow Coby Dodwell's distinction of three different tempo in Crusoe's island, drawing a gradual line from Crusoe's original state of nature to the late Crusoe, a sophisticated monarch with loyal subordinates.

- by Ashley Marshall
- •
- Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift

Robinson Crusoe is a mythic character who lives not only in the popular imaginary but through the history of political and social thought. Defoe's protagonist lives marooned on his island, isolated and apart from society. The narrative is a perfect naturalisation of the 'bourgeois' world, dependent on an ontology of the self-sufficient individual. This article analyses this lineage in the social contract theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Later, Hegel used the novel to illustrate his dialectic of mastery/servitude. Challenging the atomism of the state of nature, Hegel's theory of recognition gives an account of positive freedom, where the individual is formed in and through social interdependence. This sociality is continued by Marx, who satirises Defoe's novel in his value-form critique of political economy. The value-form provides insight into Robinson's island labour and Marx's difference with Locke's labour theory of value. For Marx, the myth of 'natural man' hides the domination of capitalist development and Robinson Crusoe reflects the internalisation of the abstract rationality of commodity society. However, Marx's immanent critique of the novel points to a radical idea of social life and freedom.

- by Michael Lazarus
- •
- G.W.F. Hegel, Daniel Defoe, Karl Marx, State of Nature

Restorasyon Donemi, Paradise Lost, Country Wife ve Pilgrim’s Progress gibi eserlerin uretildigi donem olmasi bakimindan muazzam bir enerji ve yaraticilik cagidir. Hem edebiyat hem de felsefe bu donemde gelismeye baslamistir. Dahasi, bu donemde yazilan eserlerden bahsetmemek imkansizdir, ancak Ingiliz edebiyatinda romanin baslangicini tatmin edici bir sekilde tarihlemek de imkansizdir. Ingiltere'de kurgu eserler, romanslar ve kurgusal biyografiler ortaya cikmaya baslamis olsa da bu erken donemde roman olarak adlandirilmamistir. Fakat ote yandan, erken-donem (amator) romandan bahsetmeden on sekizinci yuzyil edebiyatini tartismak imkânsiz gibi gorunmektedir. Ingiliz romani bircok temanin isigi altinda incelenebilir cunku, en basindan gunumuz romanlarina kadar, eserlerin cogu farkli roman turlerinde tekrar eden bazi konular veya temalar kullanmistir. Bu erken-donem romanlarda kahramanlarin yolculuklari sik sik hikayelerin bicimini ve mesajini olusturur. Bu tur yolculuklar, donemin n...

- by Hilal Kaya
- •
- Art, Literature, Narrative, Travel Literature

A representation can be defined as presenting an object, individual, idea, or entity
not by drawing it as it is but by “representing” it or preparing it in a new structure or a new
form. The discourse of Imperialism defines “others” as Imperialistic subjects by
constructing them in the process of representation. Imperialistic representation presents
semiotic meanings in which words, characters, or situations often express contradictory or
complementary impulses, attitudes. This thesis intends to explore Imperialistic
representation through European writers' novels, Daniel Defoe. The writers deal with
Imperialistic discourses that reveal foreign cultures as “dark” and “depraved.”
Representation of the minority image, again and again, comes as evil where European
images are considered pure and superior. It will look at the imperialistic aspects of
Robinson Crusoe, where an Englishman asserts and reasserts his Christian moral and
British superiority to consider his sense of identity. The paper will also show how
subjugation, domination, profit, and power are reflected in adventure fiction.

- by MD Kamrul Hasan
- •
- American Literature, World Literatures, Philosophy, English Literature

Salman Rushdie being one of these theorists coined the phrase: “The Empire writes back to the centre”. Walcott’s play is an embodiment of this phrase as he creates a counter colonial discourse writing back to one of the canonical texts: Robinson Crusoe. Let it be known that contrary to popular belief Walcott does not attempt to rewrite Defoe’s book but rather writes back to it as he creates a play which reverses the roles of the stereotypical ‘black’ man and ‘white’ man or as Edward Said would term them: the orient and the occident. (Said ).

- by Samaria Deonauth
- •
- Caribbean Literature, Post-Colonialism, Derek Walcott, Daniel Defoe
- by Severino Antonelli
- •
- English Literature, Postmodernism, South African Literature, Daniel Defoe

This paper will aim to analyse the ways in which Robinson Crusoe corresponds with the ideology of early colonial capitalism which was burgeoning in Defoe's time, and of which he was a great proponent. Arguably, the novel presents the worldview of the flourishing capitalist class to which Defoe belonged, especially concerning the matters of trade, entrepreneurship, and colonial rule. This is particularly present in Crusoe's actions upon becoming shipwrecked, which embody the Protestant ethics of hard work, and also in the way he observes the island as his colonial dominion and Friday as his natural servant. The paper will seek to describe how the novel illustrates the economic background which leads to colonialism, and how the two give rise to a particular ideology which was present not just in Defoe's time, but in various shapes survives until today. For that purpose, the paper will rely on the way in which Terry Eagleton views and defines ideology, in the hope of giving an insight into the interplay of material conditions and ideology in the novel.

- by Stefan Čizmar
- •
- English Literature, Ideology, Colonialism, Capitalism