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An examination into the homoerotic and other transgressive aspects of the pirate's world Despite, or perhaps because of, our lack of actual knowledge about pirates, an immense architecture of cultural mythology has arisen around them. Three hundred years of novels, plays, painting, and movies have etched into the popular imagination contradictory images of the pirate as both arch-criminal and anti-hero par excellence. How did the pirate-a real threat to mercantilism and trade in early-modern Britain-become the hypermasculine anti-hero familiar to us through a variety of pop culture outlets? How did the pirate's world, marked as it was by sexual and economic transgression, come to capture our...
The notorious troublemaker Charlotte Charke worked as a novelist, autobiographer, and strolling actress. But it was as a cross-dresser -- both on stage and off -- that she scandalized eighteenth-century England. Known as Mr. Charles Brown, she lived openly with another woman for nearly a decade.Charke, daughter of Colley Cibber, the English playwright and poet laureate (1740), lived a life of masquerade. Her autobiography is a fascinating document of low- and middle-class life in the 1700s and is explored in some detail by Philip E. Baruth. Other contributors to this collection look at Charke, her famous family, and her place within stage and cross-dressing traditions. Felicity A. Nussbaum provides a thought-provoking afterword on the current state of Charke criticism.
The resurgence of marriage as a transnational institution, same-sex or otherwise, draws upon as much as it departs from enlightenment ideologies of sex, gender, and sexuality which this collection aims to investigate, interrogate, and conceptualize anew. Coming to terms with heteronormativity is imperative for appreciating the literature and culture of the eighteenth century writ large, as well as the myriad imaginaries of sex and sexuality that the period bequeaths to the present. This collection foregrounds British, European, and, to a lesser extent, transatlantic heteronormativities in order to pose vital if vexing questions about the degree of continuity subsisting between heteronormativ...
An Investigation of the 16th-18th Century Puritan Vernacular Tradition argues that Puritan writers, specifically from the 17th to the 19th century, developed a collective vernacular which was intended to—in the words of John Milton—"justify the ways of God to man." However, their phrases (much like the Puritans themselves) never achieved a sufficient level of uniformity. As a result, their verbiage, though quite often similar, the manner in which it is used frequently differs. Puritan authors' routine suggestion that certain circumstances "pleased God" began as an attempt with which to interpret God's involvement in their day-to-day lives. However, as time passed, these interpretations became further removed from the Scripture and ultimately functioned as a way for writers to indict God when things badly or to praise him only when he showed them favor.
Hostis humani generis, meaning "enemy of humankind," is the legal basis by which Western societies have defined such criminals as pirates, torturers, or terrorists as beyond the pale of civilization. Sonja Schillings argues that the legal fiction designating certain persons or classes of persons as enemies of all humankind does more than characterize them as inherently hostile: it supplies a narrative basis for legitimating violence in the name of the state. The book draws attention to a century-old narrative pattern that not only underlies the legal category of enemies of the people, but more generally informs interpretations of imperial expansion, protest against structural oppression, and the transformation of institutions as "legitimate" interventions on behalf of civilized society. Schillings traces the Anglo-American interpretive history of the concept, which she sees as crucial to understanding US history, in particular with regard to the frontier, race relations, and the war on terror.
Innovative in its structure and approach, Daniel Defoe in Context contains 42 essays by leading scholars illuminating the life, times, and world of Daniel Defoe. Defoe is one of the most important literary figures in English history, thanks not only to his pioneering novels Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, but also to his notable works in journalism, travel writing, conduct literature, and verse, both satiric and serious. Written with general readers and students in mind, the essays in this volume provide up-to-date knowledge about eighteenth-century literature, culture, and history in a high quality, clearly written, but completely accessible form. Together they demonstrate the ways not only in which Defoe's world shaped his writing, but also in which Defoe's writings profoundly affected his world, and therefore our world.
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Planning the Past studies the way a post-colonial society reconstructs its national history and grapples with its colonial past, specifically in Port Royal, a Jamaican village with a dramatic history of pirates, naval admirals, and earthquakes. The plans for Port Royal's heritage tourism development represent a chronological record of historical revisionism, and the fact that none of the plans has been realized reflects post-colonial social processes and national ambivalence about piratical and naval history.
Explores the sexual world of the one of the most fabled and romanticized character in history--the pirate Pirates are among the most heavily romanticized and fabled characters in history. From Bluebeard to Captain Hook, they have been the subject of countless movies, books, children's tales, even a world-famous amusement park ride. In Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition, historian B. R. Burg investigates the social and sexual world of these sea rovers, a tightly bound brotherhood of men engaged in almost constant warfare. What, he asks, did these men, often on the high seas for years at a time, do for sexual fulfillment? Buccaneer sexuality differed widely from that of other all- male institutions such as prisons, for it existed not within a regimented structure of rule, regulations, and oppressive supervision, but instead operated in a society in which widespread toleration of homosexuality was the norm and conditions encouraged its practice. In his new introduction, Burg discusses the initial response to the book when it was published in 1983 and how our perspectives on all-male societies have since changed.
"Even as press-gangs roamed the London streets, eighteenth-century writers applauded, critiqued, and condemned the practice Pepys called "a great tyranny" - the means of naval recruitment by which Britain simultaneously manned her fleets and oppressed her citizens." "This book centers on literature produced in "moments of crisis" - times when Britain faced a military challenge and thus needed her Navy most. When the French gained the upper hand early in the Seven Years' War, David Garrick was moved to write "To honour we call you, not press you like slaves, / For who are so free as we sons of the waves?" This characterization of the press as benign was common in the theater, even as sailors brawled with press-gangs on London Bridge. At the same time, novelists bitterly attacked impressment policy, showing how the press weighs most heavily on the poor."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved