There is no shortage of explanations for the longevity of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, which has been interpreted as both religious allegory and frontier myth, with Crusoe seen as an example of the self-sufficient adventurer and the archetypal colonizer and capitalist. Defoe’s original has been reimagined multiple times in legions of Robinsonade or castaway stories, but the Crusoe myth is far from spent. This wideranging collection brings together eleven scholars who suggest new and unfamiliar ways of thinking about this most familiar of works, and who ask us to consider the enduring appeal of “Crusoe,” more recognizable today than ever before.
Author(s): Andreas K. E., Glynis Ridley
Series: (Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture 1650-1850)
Edition: 1
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 234
Tags: Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Postcolonialsim, Novel Criticism
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
A Note on the Text
Introduction \ Andreas K. E. Mueller and Glynis Ridley
Part One: Generic Revisions
1. The Martian: Crusoe at the Final Frontier \ Glynis Ridley
2. Robinson’s Transgender Voyage: or, Burlesquing Crusoe \ Geoffrey Sill
3. Animal Crusoes: Anthropomorphism and Identification in Children’s Robinsonades \ Amy Hicks and Scott Pyrz
Part Two: Mind and Matter
4. Defoe and Newton: Modern Matter \ Laura Brown
5. Crusoe’s Ecstasies: Passivity, Resignation, and Tobacco Rites \ Daniel Yu
6. Taken by Storm: Robinson Crusoe and Aqueous Violence \ Jeremy Chow
7. Life Gets Tedious: Crusoe and the Threat of Boredom \ Pat Rogers
Part Three: Character and Form
8. Crusoe’s Rambling \ Benjamin F. Pauley
9. Crusoe’s Encounters with the World and the Problem of Justice in The Farther Adventures \ Maximillian E. Novak
10. “To Us the Mere Name Is Enough”: Robinson Crusoe, Myth, and Iconicity \ Andreas K. E. Mueller
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
