186,631 research outputs found
The public voices of Daniel Defoe
No full textThis is a study of Daniel Defoe's political rhetoric and polemical strategies
between the years 1697 and 1717. It explores and analyses a representative selection
of what may be termed Defoe's `public voices'. In its broadest definition, these public
voices are understood to be the opinions expressed and the rhetorical stances taken by
Defoe in those pieces of his writing which directly or indirectly relate to the sphere of
official, governmental and national discourse and activity. In the most basic sense,
this thesis attempts to highlight and explain the way in which the language, imagery
and concerns of Defoe's publications were shaped by the events and attitudes of the
historical moment at which they were produced. In the process, this study re-situates,
and thus necessarily re-evaluates, the voices and apparent meanings of some of
Defoe's better known texts, while offering extensive investigations of the rhetorical
strategies of publications which have previously been neglected by Defoe scholars.
In the context of the above, an attempt is made to demonstrate that the poem
The True-Born Englishman (1701) was not only a response to xenophobic sentiments
prevalent in English society at the turn of the century but did, in fact, represent
Defoe's final, summative contribution to the standing army controversy of the late
1690s. On a similar note, this thesis aims to show that the verse satire Jure Divino
(1706) was the culmination of Defoe's involvement in the occasional conformity
controversy of the early 1700s and constituted on important element of his campaign
in favour of religious toleration. In addition, I argue that volume one of The Family
Instructor (1715) was Defoe's response to the Jacobite-inspired unrest of the years
1714-15 and, as such, represented an important political act. Finally, this study offers
an extensive investigation of one of Defoe's most problematic publications, An
Argument Proving that the Design of Employing and Tnobling Foreigners, Is a
Treasonable Conspiracy (1717). The pamphlet, I suggest, represented a highly ironic
attack on one of Defoe's old adversaries, John Toland, and only develops its full
rhetorical force if read in the context of the standing army controversy
Competing models of socially constructed economic man : differentiating Defoe's Crusoe from the Robinson of neoclassical economics
No full textDaniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe has seldom been read as an explicitly political text. When it has, it appears that the central character was designed to warn the early eighteenth-century reader against political challenges to the existing economic order. Insofar as Defoe’s Crusoe stands for "economic man", he is a reflection of historically-produced assumptions about the need for social conformity, not the embodiment of any genuinely essential economic characteristics. This insight is used to compare Defoe’s conception of economic man with that of the neoclassical Robinson Crusoe economy. On the most important of the ostensibly generic principles espoused by neoclassical theorists, their "Robinson" has no parallels with Defoe’s Crusoe. Despite the shared name, two quite distinct social constructions serve two equally distinct pedagogical purposes. Defoe’s Crusoe extols the virtues of passive middle-class sobriety for effective social organisation; the neoclassical Robinson champions the establishment of markets for the sake of productive efficiency
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Whence the Defoe Canon?
No full textA rejoinder to an attack on the work on the Defoe canon of P.N. Furbank and W.R. Owens, by Maximillian E. Novak ('Whither the Defoe Canon?', in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, October 1986). Argues that Novak's central principle of attribution -- that 'what reads like Defoe stylistically and contains some of Defoe's often quite unusual ideas is probably by Defoe' -- is a hopeless basis for the construction of an authorial canon
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Defoe and Francis Noble
No full textA study of the part played in the 1770s and 1780s by a rascally publisher named Francis Noble in the construction of the modern idea of Daniel Defoe as 'novelist'. It was Noble who first published (wildly garbled and re-written) editions of works like Moll Flanders as 'novels' by Defoe, and, even more importantly, it was Noble who first attributed some of these famous works to Defoe by placing his name on the title pages
Daniel Defoe: his life and recently discovered writings, extending from 1716 to 1729 /
No full text"A chronological catalogue of Daniel Defoe's works": v. 1, p. [xxvii]-lv.v. 1. The life of Daniel Defoe.--v. 2. The first volume of his writings.--v. 3. The second volume of his writings.Microform.Mode of access: Internet
Defoe and 'Sir Andrew Politick'
No full textA study of an inflammatory article, supposedly a 'letter' by 'Sir Andrew Politick' but actually by Daniel Defoe, printed in Mist's Journal for 25 October 1718, for which Mist and various of his associates were arrested. Argues that Mist and Defoe were in collusion against the Government. The text of the letter is included as an appendix
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Defoe as secret agent: three unpublished letters
No full textPublishes three previously unknown letters of 1708 by Daniel Defoe to Sidney, Earl of Godolphin, then Lord Treasurer. The letters were written from Scotland, where Defoe was working as an undercover agent for Godolphin
Defoe and the 'Tippony Ale'
No full textArgues against the attribution to Defoe of a tract entitled 'Consideration in Relation to Trade Considered' (1706) on several grounds but most importantly because it clashes with Defoe's known views on the problem of the excise on Scotland's ale. Defoe laid a proposal on how to solve this problem before a Committee of the Scottish Parliament
Defoe Tournier, Coetzee: la metamorfosi del Selvaggio
No full textIl modulo interculturale prende in esame la trasformazione della rappresentazione del selvaggio coloniale da Defoe fino al Novecento di Tournier e Coetzee, sudafricano premio nobel per la letteratura. Viene sottolineata, in particolare, la riduzione a cosa di Venerdì operata da parte di Defoe nell'ottica del colonizzatore inglese del Settecento. Solo la nascita di una nuova sensibilità, frutto delle lotte di liberazione dei popoli del Terzo mondo dal colonialismo e dall'imperialismo, modifica la percezione di tale relazione restituendo umanità e soggettività agli ex colonizzati
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