Images of the Antipodes in the Eighteenth Century

Images of the Antipodes in the Eighteenth Century
Author: David Fausett
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2022-03-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 900448471X

How did Europeans view the unknown region at their antipodes in early times, before the explorations of Captain Cook and others made it well known? Throughout the ages it has evoked fantastic images which affected the arts and sciences, and the evolution of the novel in the century prior to the major discoveries was influenced in the same way. The eighteenth century was also a critical phase in European social history, a time when many modern patterns of economic life and international relations were formed. Distant explorations and discoveries bore implications for that process, which tended to be worked out in fictional voyages mingling fact with fiction. Images of the Antipodes asks what these can tell us about Europe's expansion to the limits of the New World - about the first contacts between cultures with very different worldviews, about the colonial relations that followed, and about the geopolitics of the region since then. They offer a perspective on cross- cultural relationships generally - nowhere more apparent than in their use of ancient images of the antipodes. This is the third part of a study on the intellectual history of travel fiction, and deals with the period from the 1720s to the 1790s, focusing on an issue that is as vital now as it was then: cultural or racial stereotyping, and the link between this and the differing politico-economic aspirations of peoples. It is a dual problem of exploitation, which has been associated with the antipodes since the beginnings of Western literature. The book discusses teratological fantasies, the literary background in utopias and Robinsonades, Gulliver's Travels and other travel fiction from mid-century onwards, the parallels between real and imaginary voyages, and the way the latter often prefigured the rise of modern anthropology and of colonial relationships in the austral regions. Particularly relevant was the odd blend of arcadianism and horror inspired by, or projected onto, these places in the later eighteenth century - as it had long been in the past. The works discussed are chiefly English and French, but include other European examples of the type.

Exhibited by Candlelight

Exhibited by Candlelight
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2022-05-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004490116

Exhibited by Candlelight: Sources and Developments in the Gothic Tradition focuses on a number of strands in the Gothic. The first is Gothic as a way of looking. Paintings used as reference points, tableaux, or the Hammer Studios' visualizations of Dracula present ways of seeing which are suggestive and allow the interplay of primarily sexual passions. Continuity with the past is a further strand which enables us to explore how the sources of the Gothic are connected with the origin of existence and of history, both individual and general. Here, the Gothic offers a voice for writers whose perceptions do not fit into those of the dominant group, which makes them sensitive both to psychological and social gaps. This leads to an exploration of the very idea of sources and an attempt to bridge the gaps, as can be observed in the variety of epithets used to clarify the ways that Gothic works, ranging from heroic gothic to porno-gothic. This takes the reader to the main core of Gothic: a genre which is always ready to admit new forms of the unreal to enter and change whatever has become mainstream literature, and a way of reading and a mode profoundly affecting the reading experience. The Gothic mode cultivates its wicked ways in literature, working through it as a leavening yeast.

Australia as the Antipodal Utopia

Australia as the Antipodal Utopia
Author: Daniel Hempel
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2019-10-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1785271407

Australia has a fascinating history of visions. As the antipode to Europe, the continent provided a radically different and uniquely fertile ground for envisioning places, spaces and societies. Australia as the Antipodal Utopia evaluates this complex intellectual history by mapping out how Western visions of Australia evolved from antiquity to the modern period. It argues that because of its antipodal relationship with Europe, Australia is imagined as a particular form of utopia – but since one person’s utopia is, more often than not, another’s dystopia, Australia’s utopian quality is both complex and highly ambiguous. Drawing on the rich field of utopian studies, Australia as the Antipodal Utopia provides an original and insightful study of Australia’s place in the Western imagination.

The Victorian Colonial Romance with the Antipodes

The Victorian Colonial Romance with the Antipodes
Author: H. Blythe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2014-05-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137397837

This study treats the Victorian Antipodes as a compelling site of romance and satire for middle-class writers who went to New Zealand between 1840 and 1872. Blythe's research fits with the rising study of settler colonialism and highlights the intersection of late-Victorian ideas and post-colonial theories.

Antipodean America

Antipodean America
Author: Paul Giles
Publisher: OUP Us
Total Pages: 590
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199301565

A sweeping study that spans two continents and over three hundred years of literary history, Antipodean America identifies the surprising affinites between Australian and American literature.

Virtual Voyages

Virtual Voyages
Author: Paul Longley Arthur
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2011-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781843313182

'Virtual Voyages' is a fascinating account of the European discovery of the elusive 'great south land' told through the literature of 'imaginary voyages'. Written at the height of the era of European maritime exploration, these bizarre and captivating tales, with their wildly imaginative visions of antipodean inversion and strangeness, reveal a hidden history of attitudes to colonization. By exposing the relationship between myth and reality in the antipodes, this book casts new light on the power of fiction to influence history. In the post-colonial studies field, books about travel writing and empire have tended to focus on the high period of nineteenth-century imperialism and on the colonial settings of Africa and India. This book offers a fresh perspective by focussing on the eighteenth century, and referring to the geographical region of Australia and the Pacific, which has had far less attention. The book also breaks new ground by being the first to approach the genre of the imaginary voyage from a post-colonial perspective. In addition to the new insights into European colonialism that it offers, the book illustrates many broader themes in eighteenth-century history and thought. These include connections between the rise of science and modern imperialism, the development of narrative history and fiction and the influence of romanticism, the evolution of the early novel in Britain and France, and the role of mythology in the development of national identity.

Comedy, Fantasy and Colonialism

Comedy, Fantasy and Colonialism
Author: Graeme Harper
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2002-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1847142168

Drawing together for the first time original work from international specialists, this book assesses the role and character of comedy and fantasy in colonial societies from India to Ireland, Australia to Cuba, Africa to North America. There are cross-cultural comparisons and consideration of both imperial responses and colonized resistance. The book deals with oral as well as written traditions, the history of comic and fantastic discourse, visual, theatrical and literary representations as well as historical and cultural accounts.

Caught between Worlds

Caught between Worlds
Author: Joe Snader
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813184444

The captivity narrative has always been a literary genre associated with America. Joe Snader argues, however, that captivity narratives emerged much earlier in Britain, coinciding with European colonial expansion, the development of anthropology, and the rise of liberal political thought. Stories of Europeans held captive in the Middle East, America, Africa, and Southeast Asia appeared in the British press from the late sixteenth through the late eighteenth centuries, and captivity narratives were frequently featured during the early development of the novel. Until the mid-eighteenth century, British examples of the genre outpaced their American cousins in length, frequency of publication, attention to anthropological detail, and subjective complexity. Using both new and canonical texts, Snader shows that foreign captivity was a favorite topic in eighteenth-century Britain. An adaptable and expansive genre, these narratives used set plots and stereotypes originating in Mediterranean power struggles and relocated in a variety of settings, particularly eastern lands. The narratives' rhetorical strategies and cultural assumptions often grew out of centuries of religious strife and coincided with Europe's early modern military ascendancy. Caught Between Worlds presents a broad, rich, and flexible definition of the captivity narrative, placing the American strain in its proper place within the tradition as a whole. Snader, having assembled the first bibliography of British captivity narratives, analyzes both factual texts and a large body of fictional works, revealing the ways they helped define British identity and challenged Britons to rethink the place of their nation in the larger world.

Celebrity Culture and the Myth of Oceania in Britain

Celebrity Culture and the Myth of Oceania in Britain
Author: Ruth Scobie
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783274085

An intriguing case study on how popular images of Oceania, mediated through a developing culture of celebrity, contributed to the formation of British identity both domestically and as a nascent imperial power in the eighteenth century.

The Mighty Kingdom of Krinke Kesmes

The Mighty Kingdom of Krinke Kesmes
Author: Hendrik Smeeks
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2024-01-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004657762

This is the first English edition of a novel that is little known outside Dutch literary circles, but is an interesting example of popular fiction and radical thought about science and society in its day - not only in the Netherlands, but throughout Western Europe. It formed a bridge between the rationalist seventeenth century and the Age of Enlightenment, and was also a lively story in itself. It was rather less than imaginary, moreover, being linked to seventeenth to seventeenth-century Dutch activities in Australia and the first real knowledge about the legendary southern continent. Among the novels based on such exploits, this was one of the most remarkable. The dominance of classics like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe has tended to obscure many such works, but they can be better appreciated today as a result of changing views about literary genres. Defoe, in particular, built on an earlier tradition in which Krinke Kesmes played a vital role. The text is translated from the original edition, and the author's handwritten additions to it are included or discussed in the introduction. A glossary explaining obscure terms and a full bibliography are given along with the introduction, which outlines the background and significance of the work. This is by David Fausett, an authority on early travel fiction and, in particular, that relating to exploration in the austral regions.