Robinson Crusoe Was Born in a Good Family"
Robinson Crusoe has fabricated a profound impression on readers besides as on whole cultures. Samuel Johnson, a demanding critic, gave it the highest praise, "Was there ever notwithstanding whatsoever thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?" (1776). Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarded it equally "the ane book that teaches all that books can teach." In Emilius and Sophia: or, A New System of Education (1762), he wanted Emilius to read only Robinson Crusoe during his formative years, because it would "guide his development to a state of reason" and teach him to judge everything by its usefulness. According to John Robert Moore, Crusoe created not merely a new literary course (the novel), but also a new reading public. Crusoe can besides exist appreciated by unsophisticated or novice readers and has even been memorialized in children's culture by a plant nursery rhyme:
Poor quondam Robinson Crusoe!
Poor old Robinson Crusoe!
They made him a coat
Of an erstwhile nanny goat;
I wonder how they could practice then!
With a ring a ting tang,
And a ring a ting tang,
Poor old Robinson Crusoe!
What explains the almost universal appeal of Crusoe? Why do then many people, regardless of age, social class, intellectual level, and civilization, admire Crusoe? Even a fractional list of the explanations offered is lengthy:
- The thrill of risk lures u.s.a. into identifying with Crusoe and his triumph over mishaps, specially since the specific details of Defoe'due south portrayal brand his experiences real for u.s.. This view does non account for the enthusiasm of sophisticated readers like Johnson and Rousseau.
- English readers oftentimes see Crusoe every bit the typical (really idealized?) Englishman–
manly, cocky-reliant, courageous, heroic, and resourceful. This narrow chauvinistic response excludes all not-English readers, yet Crusoe transcends national, religious, and cultural boundaries. The French, in particular, have had a longstanding affection for Crusoe. They admired him every bit a man of heroic stature, a man who overcame dire adversities. During the French Revolution, Crusoe'southward courage, independence, and determination reflected the spirit and values of the Revolution. To emphasize their similarity, the novel was partially rewritten: Friday patriotically refused to leave his home for Europe, and Crusoe praised Nature, not God, for the barley. Gerard Grandville'southward illustration for an 1840 edition of Crusoe represented the French view of Crusoe as a larger-than-life figure. Crusoe was then well known in France that, until the 1930s, a big umbrella was chosen un robinson.
- John J. Richetti expanded the view of Crusoe as the typical Englishman, seeing him rather as the archetypal "personage of the last ii hundred and l years of European consciousness." Manifestly this view is Eurocentric and excludes non-Europeans. Merely Crusoe seems infinitely adaptable and travels well to other cultures. In a nineteenth century Eskimo translation published in Greenland, ane illustration depicted Friday bowing to Crusoe. Friday wore a loincloth, and Crusoe was dressed like an Eskimo in furs, with a harpoon in the background; the scenery consisted of palm copse, dumbo bushes, and a partially snowfall-covered colina.
- Coleridge saw Crusoe in universal terms, as "a representative of humanity in general; neither his intellectual nor his moral qualities set him above the middle caste of mankind...." He is "the universal representative, the person for whom every reader could substitute himself. But now nix is done, thought, or suffered, or desired, just what every man can imagine himself doing, thinking, feeling, or wishing for." He rises simply where "in faith, in resignation, in dependence on, and thankful acknowledgement of the divine mercy and goodness" (1832).
- For James Beattie, "Robinson Crusoe, though there is null of love in it, is one of the most interesting narratives that ever was written; at least in all that role which related to the desert island: being founded on a passion all the same more prevalent than honey, the desire of self-preservation; and therefore likely to engage the curiosity of every class of readers, both old and immature, both learned and unlearned" (1783).
- The sectionalization of labor and industrialization have cutting off modern men and women from simple tasks; we no longer know the whole process of bones activities, like growing wheat, milling flour, and baking breadstuff. This was true in Defoe's fourth dimension also, though to a lesser extent. So the details of Crusoe's everyday life fascinate us, as we watch him recreate civilization lonely. He makes u.s. look at the activities and necessities of everyday life in a new way, and we enjoy each discovery with Crusoe.
- Walter Allen sees in Crusoe the dramatization of "the inescapable solitariness of each man in his relation to God and the universe." Edward Gordon Craig, a modern illustrator, gives a personal and modern spin to Allen's proposition: "we secretly savor loneliness through him."
In writing Crusoe, Defoe created a character who speaks to something deep in the man psyche and essential to the human status. This is the reason, I propose, that Crusoe tin can be alloyed into diverse cultures, that the meanings assigned him change to reflect changes in a lodge, that he can be given alien meanings, and that he reaches into the private souls of individuals. Information technology is these qualities that make Crusoe a mythic or an archetypal figure.
myth:
Myth originates in the attempt of archaic people to explain some practice, belief, institution, or natural happening. Myths are anonymous and accepted as true. "Broadly speaking myths and mythologies seek to rationalize and explicate the universe and all that is in it. Thus, they accept a similar part to scientific discipline, theology, religion and history in modern societies" (Bernard Doyle, Encyclopedia Mythica). Common types of myth are cosmos myths or stories which explain how the gods, the world or a miracle came virtually. A mythic figure is a heroic figure involved in events which have a significant effect on the universe or society.
Other kinds of myths and uses for myth developed as society became more sophisticated. Plato, for instance, created myths or narratives of supernatural beings to speculate almost open-concluded subjects, that is, topics for which absolute certainty is impossible. William Blake created a private mythology in his poetry, maxim "I must create a system or exist enslaved by another man's." A myth may be a false belief, eastward.m., the myth of progress. Or it may exist a fictional, fully adult setting for a literary work, like Thomas Hardy's myth of Wessex or Faulkner'south Yoknapatawpha Canton.
archetype:
(ane) An classic is the original or prototype who sets the pattern for like beings, for instance, Frankenstein (monster) or Hercules (hero).
(two) A bones concept in Jungian psychology, the archetype is a pattern of thought or an paradigm which is passed downward from ane generation to the other, a process which Jung called the "psychic residua of bags experiences of the same type." The commonage unconscious thus holds the same images as humanity'southward primitive ancestors, like the good mother, the wise man, the magician, the vampire, and the monster
Archetypes appear in the myths, religion, literature, art, and fairy tales of most, mayhap all societies. Common archetypes are the death-rebirth motif, going to the bounding main, the fatal woman, Cinderella-stories, and the sacrificial hero or god.
| Mean solar day i (West, Sept. iv) | Introduction |
| Day two (M, Sept. nine) | Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, "Preface" - "I Build My Fortress" Overview of Daniel Defoe Overview of Robinson Crusoe The Sources of Robinson Crusoe Alexander Selkirk |
| Solar day 3 (W, Sept. 11) | Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, "The Periodical" - "I am Very Seldom Idle" Puritanism Increase Mather, Remarkable Providences |
| Day 4 (T, Sept. 17) | Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, "I Make Myself a Canoe" - "I Come across the Wreck..." |
| Day 5 (W, Sept. 18) | Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, "I Hear the First Sound..." - "Nosotros Quell..." |
| Day 6 (M, Sept. 23) | Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, "We Seize the Ship" - "I Revisit My Island" Robinson Crusoe as Economical Man |
Source: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/defoe/crusoe.html
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