| Description |
xiii, 306 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. |
| Series |
Translation/transnation
|
|
Translation/transnation.
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-289) and index. |
| Summary |
For a century, the history of the novel has been written in terms of nations and territories: the English novel, the French novel, the American novel. But what if novels were viewed in terms of the seas that unite these different lands? Examining works across two centuries, this work recounts the novel's rise, told from the perspective of the ship's deck and the allure of the oceans in the modern cultural imagination. The author moors the novel to overseas exploration and work at sea, framing its emergence as a transatlantic history, steeped in the adventures and risks of the maritime frontier. She explores how Robinson Crusoe competed with the best-selling nautical literature of the time by dramatizing remarkable conditions, from the wonders of unknown lands to storms, shipwrecks, and pirates. She considers James Fenimore Cooper's refashioning of the adventure novel in postcolonial America, and a change in literary poetics toward new frontiers and to the maritime labor and technology of the nineteenth century. She shows how Jules Verne reworked adventures at sea into science fiction; how Melville, Hugo, and Conrad navigated the foggy waters of language and thought; and how detective and spy fiction built on sea fiction's problem-solving devices. She also discusses the transformation of the ocean from a theater of skilled work to an environment of pristine nature and the sublime. This literary history challenges readers to rethink their land-locked assumptions about the novel. |
| Contents |
Introduction: seafaring Odysseus -- Mariner's craft -- Remarkable occurrences at sea and in the novel -- Sea adventure fiction, 1748-1824? -- Interlude: the sublimation of the sea -- Sea fiction in the nineteenth century: patriots, pirates, and supermen -- Sea fiction beyond the seas -- Afterword: Jack Aubrey, Jack Sparrow, and the Whole Sick Crew. |
| Subject |
Sea stories, English -- History and criticism.
|
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Sea stories, English. |
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Adventure stories, English -- History and criticism.
|
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Adventure stories, English. |
|
Naval art and science in literature.
|
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Naval art and science in literature. |
|
Seafaring life in literature.
|
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Seafaring life in literature. |
|
Sailors in literature.
|
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Sailors in literature. |
|
Romans. |
|
Zeeën. |
| Genre/Form |
Fiction.
|
|
Fiction.
|
| Subject |
Sea stories, English -- History and criticism.
|
|
Adventure stories, English -- History and criticism.
|
|
Naval art and science in literature.
|
|
Seafaring life in literature.
|
|
Sailors in literature.
|
| ISBN |
9780691140650 hardcover alkaline paper |
|
0691140650 hardcover alkaline paper |
|
