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Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe[a] (/ˈkrs/) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary, confessional, and didactic forms, the book follows the title character (born Robinson Kreutznaer) after he is cast away and spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk,[2] a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (now part of Chile) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.[3]: 23–24 [4] Pedro Serrano is another real-life castaway whose story might have inspired the novel.[5][6]

Robinson Crusoe
Title page from the first edition
AuthorDaniel Defoe
Original titleThe Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself.
CountryGreat Britain
LanguageEnglish
GenreAdventure, historical fiction
Set inEngland, the Caribbean and the Pyrenees, 1651–1687
PublisherWilliam Taylor
Publication date
25 April 1719 (304 years ago) (1719-04-25)
823.51
LC ClassPR3403 .A1
Followed byThe Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe 
TextRobinson Crusoe at Wikisource

The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and that the book was a non-fiction travelogue.[7] Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel.[8] Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television, and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade.[9]

Plot summary edit

 
Pictorial map of Crusoe's island, the "Island of Despair", showing incidents from the book

Robinson Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer") sets sail from Kingston upon Hull, England, on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his desire for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster, as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates (the Salé Rovers) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is en route to Brazil. Crusoe sells Xury to the captain. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation in Brazil.

Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa but is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island off the Venezuelan coast (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco River on 30 September 1659.[1]: Chapter 23  He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on this island. Only he, the captain's dog, and two cats survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society.

More years pass and Crusoe discovers cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. He plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe teaches Friday the English language and converts him to Christianity.

After more cannibals arrive to partake in a feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and save two prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.

Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship. With their ringleader executed by the captain, the mutineers take up Crusoe's offer to be marooned on the island rather than being returned to England as prisoners to be hanged. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming.

 
The route taken by Robinson Crusoe over the Pyrenees mountains in chapters 19 & 20 of Defoe's novel, as envisaged by Joseph Ribas

Crusoe leaves the island on 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England from Portugal to avoid travelling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route, they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.[10]

Characters edit

  • Robinson Crusoe: The narrator of the novel who gets shipwrecked.
  • Friday: A native Caribbean whom Crusoe saves from cannibalism, and subsequently named "Friday". He becomes a servant and friend to Crusoe.
  • Xury: Servant to Crusoe after they escape slavery from the Captain of the Rover together. He is later given to the Portuguese Sea Captain as an indentured servant.
  • The Widow: Friend to Crusoe who looks over his assets while he is away.
  • Portuguese Sea Captain: Rescues Crusoe after he escapes from slavery. Later helps him with his money and plantation.
  • The Spaniard: A man rescued by Crusoe and Friday from the cannibals who later helps them escape the island.
  • Friday's father: rescued by Crusoe and Friday at the same time as the Spaniard.
  • Robinson Crusoe's father: A merchant named Kreutznaer.
  • Captain of the Rover: Moorish pirate of Sallee who captures and enslaves Crusoe.
  • Traitorous crew members: members of a mutinied ship who appear towards the end of novel
  • The Savages: Cannibals that come to Crusoe's Island and who represent a threat to Crusoe's religious and moral convictions as well as his own safety.

Religion edit

Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century. In the novel, Crusoe sheds light on different aspects of Christianity and his beliefs. The book can be considered a spiritual autobiography as Crusoe's views on religion change dramatically from the start of his story to the end.[11]

At the beginning of the book, Crusoe is concerned with sailing away from home, whereupon he meets violent storms at sea. He promises to God that, if he survived that storm, he would be a dutiful Christian man and head home according to his parents' wishes. However, when Crusoe survives the storm, he decides to keep sailing and notes that he could not fulfill the promises he had made during his turmoil.[1]: 6 

After Robinson is shipwrecked on his island, he begins to suffer from extreme isolation. He turns to his animals, such as his parrot, to talk to but misses human contact. He turns to God during his time of turmoil in search of solace and guidance. He retrieves a Bible from a ship that was washed along the shore and begins to memorize verses. In times of trouble, he would open the Bible to a random page and read a verse that he believed God had made him open and read, and that would ease his mind. Therefore, during the time in which Crusoe was shipwrecked, he became very religious and often would turn to God for help.

When Crusoe meets his servant Friday, he begins to teach him scripture and Christianity. He tries to teach Friday to the best of his ability about God and what Heaven and Hell are. His purpose is to convert Friday into being a Christian and to his values and beliefs. "During a long time that Friday has now been with me, and that he began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind; particularly I asked him one time who made him?"[1]: 158 

Sources and real-life castaways edit

 
Statue of Robinson Crusoe at Alexander Selkirk's birthplace of Lower Largo by Thomas Stuart Burnett
 
Book on Alexander Selkirk

There were many stories of real-life castaways in Defoe's time. Most famously, Defoe's suspected inspiration for Robinson Crusoe is thought to be Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years on the uninhabited island of Más a Tierra (renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966)[3]: 23–24  in the Juan Fernández Islands off the Chilean coast. Selkirk was rescued in 1709 by Woodes Rogers during an English expedition that led to the publication of Selkirk's adventures in both A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World and A Cruising Voyage Around the World in 1712. According to Tim Severin, "Daniel Defoe, a secretive man, neither confirmed nor denied that Selkirk was the model for the hero of his book. Apparently written in six months or less, Robinson Crusoe was a publishing phenomenon."[12]

According to Andrew Lambert, author of Crusoe's Island, it is a "false premise" to suppose that Defoe's novel was inspired by the experiences of a single person such as Selkirk, because the story is "a complex compound of all the other buccaneer survival stories."[13] However, Robinson Crusoe is far from a copy of Rogers' account: Becky Little argues three events that distinguish the two stories:

  1. Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked while Selkirk decided to leave his ship, thus marooning himself;
  2. The island that Crusoe was shipwrecked on had already been inhabited, unlike the solitary nature of Selkirk's adventures.
  3. The last and most crucial difference between the two stories is that Selkirk was a privateer, looting and raiding coastal cities during the War of Spanish Succession.

"The economic and dynamic thrust of the book is completely alien to what the buccaneers are doing," Lambert says. "The buccaneers just want to capture some loot and come home and drink it all, and Crusoe isn't doing that at all. He's an economic imperialist: He's creating a world of trade and profit."[13]

Other possible sources for the narrative include Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, and Spanish sixteenth-century sailor Pedro Serrano. Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan is a twelfth-century philosophical novel also set on a desert island, and translated from Arabic into Latin and English a number of times in the half-century preceding Defoe's novel.[14][15][16][17]

Pedro Luis Serrano was supposed to be a Spanish sailor who was marooned for seven or eight years on a small desert island after shipwrecking in the 1520s on a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua. He had no access to fresh water and lived off the blood and flesh of sea turtles and birds. He was quite a celebrity when he returned to Europe; before passing away, he recorded the hardships suffered in documents that show the endless anguish and suffering, the product of absolute abandonment to his fate, now held in the General Archive of the Indies, in Seville.[citation needed] There is some doubt of the historicity of the tale; nonetheless it is possible that Defoe heard his story in one of his visits to Spain before becoming a writer.[18]

Yet another source for Defoe's novel may have been the Robert Knox account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon Rajasinha II of Kandy in 1659 in An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon.[19][20]

Severin (2002)[3] unravels a much wider range of potential sources of inspiration, and concludes by identifying castaway surgeon Henry Pitman as the most likely:

An employee of the Duke of Monmouth, Pitman played a part in the Monmouth Rebellion. His short book about his desperate escape from a Caribbean penal colony, followed by his shipwrecking and subsequent desert island misadventures, was published by John Taylor of Paternoster Row, London, whose son William Taylor later published Defoe's novel.

Severin argues that since Pitman appears to have lived in the lodgings above the father's publishing house and that Defoe himself was a mercer in the area at the time, Defoe may have met Pitman in person and learned of his experiences first-hand, or possibly through submission of a draft.[3] Severin also discusses another publicized case of a marooned man named only as Will, of the Miskito people of Central America, who may have led to the depiction of Friday.[21]

Secord (1963)[22] analyses the composition of Robinson Crusoe and gives a list of possible sources of the story, rejecting the common theory that the story of Selkirk is Defoe's only source.

Reception and sequels edit

 
Plaque in Queen's Gardens, Hull, showing him on his island

The book was published on 25 April 1719. Before the end of the year, this first volume had run through four editions.

By the end of the nineteenth century, no book in the history of Western literature had more editions, spin-offs, and translations (even into languages such as Inuktitut, Coptic, and Maltese) than Robinson Crusoe, with more than 700 such alternative versions, including children's versions with pictures and no text.[23]

The term "Robinsonade" was coined to describe the genre of stories similar to Robinson Crusoe.

Defoe went on to write a lesser-known sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719). It was intended to be the last part of his stories, according to the original title page of the sequel's first edition, but a third book was published (1720) Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of the Angelick World.

Interpretations of the novel edit

 
Crusoe standing over Friday after he frees him from the cannibals

"He is the true prototype of the British colonist. ... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity."

Irish novelist James Joyce[24]

The novel has been subject to numerous analyses and interpretations since its publication. In a sense, Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of the island, whilst the captain describes him as the "governor" to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is referred to as a "colony". The idealized master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural assimilation, with Crusoe representing the "enlightened" European whilst Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his cultural manners through assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nonetheless, Defoe used Friday to criticize the Spanish colonization of the Americas.[25]

According to J.P. Hunter, Robinson is not a hero but an everyman. He begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand, and ends as a pilgrim, crossing a final mountain to enter the promised land. The book tells the story of how Robinson becomes closer to God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read.

Conversely, cultural critic and literary scholar Michael Gurnow views the novel from a Rousseauian perspective: The central character's movement from a primitive state to a more civilized one is interpreted as Crusoe's denial of humanity's state of nature.[26]

Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was a Puritan moralist and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing books on how to be a good Puritan Christian, such as The New Family Instructor (1727) and Religious Courtship (1722). While Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide, it shares many of the themes and theological and moral points of view.

"Crusoe" may have been taken from Timothy Cruso, a classmate of Defoe's who had written guide books, including God the Guide of Youth (1695), before dying at an early age – just eight years before Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe. Cruso would have been remembered by contemporaries and the association with guide books is clear. It has even been speculated that God the Guide of Youth inspired Robinson Crusoe because of a number of passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel.[27] A leitmotif of the novel is the Christian notion of providence, penitence, and redemption.[28] Crusoe comes to repent of the follies of his youth. Defoe also foregrounds this theme by arranging highly significant events in the novel to occur on Crusoe's birthday. The denouement culminates not only in Crusoe's deliverance from the island, but his spiritual deliverance, his acceptance of Christian doctrine, and in his intuition of his own salvation.

When confronted with the cannibals, Crusoe wrestles with the problem of cultural relativism. Despite his disgust, he feels unjustified in holding the natives morally responsible for a practice so deeply ingrained in their culture. Nevertheless, he retains his belief in an absolute standard of morality; he regards cannibalism as a "national crime" and forbids Friday from practising it.

Economics and civilization edit

In classical, neoclassical and Austrian economics, Crusoe is regularly used to illustrate the theory of production and choice in the absence of trade, money, and prices.[29] Crusoe must allocate effort between production and leisure and must choose between alternative production possibilities to meet his needs. The arrival of Friday is then used to illustrate the possibility of trade and the gains that result.

One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand.

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, 1719

The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilization; as a manifesto of economic individualism; and as an expression of European colonial desires. Significantly, it also shows the importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe's religious convictions. Critic M.E. Novak supports the connection between the religious and economic themes within Robinson Crusoe, citing Defoe's religious ideology as the influence for his portrayal of Crusoe's economic ideals, and his support of the individual. Novak cites Ian Watt's extensive research[30] which explores the impact that several Romantic Era novels had against economic individualism, and the reversal of those ideals that takes place within Robinson Crusoe.[31]

In Tess Lewis's review, "The heroes we deserve", of Ian Watt's article, she furthers Watt's argument with a development on Defoe's intention as an author, "to use individualism to signify nonconformity in religion and the admirable qualities of self-reliance".[32]: 678  This further supports the belief that Defoe used aspects of spiritual autobiography to introduce the benefits of individualism to a not entirely convinced religious community.[32] J. Paul Hunter has written extensively on the subject of Robinson Crusoe as apparent spiritual autobiography, tracing the influence of Defoe's Puritan ideology through Crusoe's narrative, and his acknowledgement of human imperfection in pursuit of meaningful spiritual engagements – the cycle of "repentance [and] deliverance".[33]

This spiritual pattern and its episodic nature, as well as the re-discovery of earlier female novelists, have kept Robinson Crusoe from being classified as a novel, let alone the first novel written in English – despite the blurbs on some book covers. Early critics, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, admired it, saying that the footprint scene in Crusoe was one of the four greatest in English literature and most unforgettable; more prosaically, Wesley Vernon has seen the origins of forensic podiatry in this episode.[34] It has inspired a new genre, the Robinsonade, as works such as Johann David Wyss' The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) adapt its premise and has provoked modern postcolonial responses, including J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986) and Michel Tournier's Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique (in English, Friday, or, The Other Island) (1967). Two sequels followed: Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and his Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world (1720). Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) is in part a parody of Defoe's adventure novel.

Legacy edit

Influence on language edit

The book proved to be so popular that the names of the two main protagonists, Crusoe and Friday, have entered the language. During World War II, people who decided to stay and hide in the ruins of the German-occupied city of Warsaw for a period of three winter months, from October to January 1945, when they were rescued by the Red Army, were later called Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw (Robinsonowie warszawscy).[35] Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my man Friday", from which the term "Man Friday" (or "Girl Friday") originated.

Influence on literature edit

Robinson Crusoe marked the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre.[36] Its success led to many imitators; and castaway novels, written by Ambrose Evans, Penelope Aubin, and others, became quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries.[37] Most of these have fallen into obscurity, but some became established, including The Swiss Family Robinson, which borrowed Crusoe's first name for its title.

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, published seven years after Robinson Crusoe, may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man, Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned about refuting the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's novel seems to suggest. In Treasure Island, author Robert Louis Stevenson parodies Crusoe with the character of Ben Gunn, a friendly castaway who was marooned for many years, has a wild appearance, dresses entirely in goat skin, and constantly talks about providence.

In Jean-Jacques Rousseau's treatise on education, Emile, or on Education, the one book the protagonist is allowed to read before the age of twelve is Robinson Crusoe. Rousseau wants Emile to identify himself as Crusoe so he can rely upon himself for all of his needs. In Rousseau's view, Emile needs to imitate Crusoe's experience, allowing necessity to determine what is to be learned and accomplished. This is one of the main themes of Rousseau's educational model.

 
Robinson Crusoe bookstore on İstiklal Avenue, Istanbul

In The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, Beatrix Potter directs the reader to Robinson Crusoe for a detailed description of the island (the land of the Bong tree) to which her eponymous hero moves. In Wilkie Collins' most popular novel, The Moonstone, one of the chief characters and narrators, Gabriel Betteredge, has faith in all that Robinson Crusoe says and uses the book for a sort of divination. He considers The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe the finest book ever written, reads it over and over again, and considers a man but poorly read if he had happened not to read the book.

French novelist Michel Tournier published Friday, or, The Other Island (French Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique) in 1967. His novel explores themes including civilization versus nature, the psychology of solitude, as well as death and sexuality in a retelling of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe story. Tournier's Robinson chooses to remain on the island, rejecting civilization when offered the chance to escape 28 years after being shipwrecked. Likewise, in 1963, J. M. G. Le Clézio, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, published the novel Le Proces-Verbal. The book's epigraph is a quote from Robinson Crusoe, and like Crusoe, the novel's protagonist Adam Pollo suffers long periods of loneliness.

"Crusoe in England", a 183 line poem by Elizabeth Bishop, imagines Crusoe near the end of his life, recalling his time of exile with a mixture of bemusement and regret.

J. M. Coetzee's 1986 novel Foe recounts the tale of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of a woman named Susan Barton.

Other stories inspired by Robinson Crusoe include William Golding's Lord Of The Flies (1954), J. G. Ballard's Concrete Island (1974), and Andy Weir's The Martian (2011).[citation needed]

Inverted Crusoeism edit

The term "inverted Crusoeism" was coined by J. G. Ballard. The paradigm of Robinson Crusoe has been a recurring topic in Ballard's work.[38] Whereas the original Robinson Crusoe became a castaway against his own will, Ballard's protagonists often choose to maroon themselves; hence inverted Crusoeism (e.g., Concrete Island). The concept provides a reason as to why people would deliberately maroon themselves on a remote island; in Ballard's work, becoming a castaway is as much a healing and empowering process as an entrapping one, enabling people to discover a more meaningful and vital existence.

Editions edit

  • The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe: of York, mariner: who lived twenty eight years all alone in an un-inhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the great river of Oroonoque; ... Written by himself., Early English Books Online, 1719. Defoe, Daniel (January 2007). "1719 text". Oxford Text Archive. hdl:20.500.12024/K061280.000.
  • Robinson Crusoe, Oneworld Classics 2008. ISBN 978-1-84749-012-4
  • Robinson Crusoe, Penguin Classics 2003. ISBN 978-0-14-143982-2
  • Robinson Crusoe, Oxford World's Classics 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-283342-6
  • Robinson Crusoe, Bantam Classics
  • Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe, edited by Michael Shinagel (New York: Norton, 1994), ISBN 978-0393964523. Includes a selection of critical essays.
  • Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Dover Publications, 1998.
  • Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Rand McNally & Company. The Windermere Series 1916. No ISBN. Includes 7 illustrations by Milo Winter

See also edit

From real life edit

From television and films edit

Novels edit

Stage adaptations edit

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ Full title: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself.[1]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d Defoe, Daniel (1998-06-10) [1719]. Robinson Crusoe. Courier Corporation. hdl:20.500.12024/K061280.000. ISBN 9780486404271.
  2. ^ Magazine, Smithsonian. "The Real Robinson Crusoe". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  3. ^ a b c d Severin, Tim (2002). In Search of Robinson Crusoe. New York, NY: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-07698-X.
  4. ^ "Rescue of Real-Life Robinson Crusoe". education.nationalgeographic.org. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
  5. ^ "Pedro Serrano, el náufrago español que sobrevivió 8 años en una isla caribeña: inspiró a Robinson Crusoe". El Español (in Spanish). 2021-06-28. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  6. ^ Brule, Álvaro Van den (2019-09-07). "El Robinson Crusoe español: la increíble peripecia del náufrago que inspiró a Defoe". elconfidencial.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  7. ^ Heitman, Danny (2013-01-11). "Fiction as authentic as fact". Wall Street Journal. from the original on 2017-08-02. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  8. ^ Drabble, Margaret, ed. (1996). "Defoe". The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 265.
  9. ^ "UF Digital Collections". ufdc.ufl.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  10. ^ Ribas, Joseph [1995]. Robinson Crusoé dans les Pyrénées. Éditions Loubatières. ISBN 2-86266-235-6.
  11. ^ "Robinson Crusoe faith in God – ENGLISH 123: Introduction to Fiction". 2018-10-03. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  12. ^ Severin, Tim (2002). "Marooned: The Metamorphosis of Alexander Selkirk". The American Scholar. 71 (3): 73–82. JSTOR 41213335.
  13. ^ a b Little, Becky (2016-09-28). . National Geographic. Archived from the original on 2017-12-08. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
  14. ^ Hassan, Nawal Muhammad (1980). Hayy bin Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe: A study of an early Arabic impact on English literature. Al-Rashid House.
  15. ^ Glasse, Cyril (2001). New Encyclopedia of Islam. Rowman Altamira. p. 202. ISBN 0-7591-0190-6.
  16. ^ Haque, Amber (2004). "Psychology from Islamic perspective: Contributions of early Muslim scholars and challenges to contemporary Muslim psychologists". Journal of Religion and Health. 43 (4): 357–377, esp.369. doi:10.1007/s10943-004-4302-z. S2CID 38740431.
  17. ^ Wainwright, Martin (2003-03-22). . The Guardian. Review. Archived from the original on 2008-07-24.
  18. ^ "La historia que inspiró a Robinson Crusoe, española. Pedro Serrano, 1526". ABC Blogs (in Spanish). 2016-08-02. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  19. ^ Knox, Robert (1911). An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon based on the 1659 original text. Glasgow, UK: James MacLehose and Sons.
  20. ^ see Alan Filreis
  21. ^ Dampier, William (1697). A New Voyage round the World. London: James Knapton.
  22. ^ Secord, Arthur Wellesley (1963) [1924]. Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe. New York, NY: Russell & Russell. pp. 21–111.
  23. ^ Watt, Ian (April 1951). "Robinson Crusoe as a myth". Essays in Criticism.
    Watt, Ian (1994). Robinson Crusoe as a Myth. Norton Critical Edition (Second) (reprint ed.).
  24. ^ Joyce, James (1964). Translated by Prescott, Joseph. "Daniel Defoe". Buffalo Studies (English translation of Italian manuscript ed.). 1: 24–25.
  25. ^ "Colonial Representation in Robinson Crusoe, Heart of Darkness and A Passage to India" (PDF). Dspace.bracu.ac.bd. Retrieved 2018-10-27.
  26. ^ Gurnow, Michael (Summer 2010). "'The folly of beginning a work before we count the cost': Anarcho-primitivism in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe". Fifth Estate. No. 383. from the original on 2014-03-17. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
  27. ^ Hunter, J. Paul (1966). The Reluctant Pilgrim. Norton Critical Edition.
  28. ^ Greif, Martin J. (Summer 1966). "The Conversion of Robinson Crusoe". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 6 (3): 551–574. doi:10.2307/449560. JSTOR 449560.
  29. ^ Varian, Hal R. (1990). Intermediate microeconomics: A modern approach. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-95924-6.
  30. ^ Watt, Ian. Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe.[full citation needed]
  31. ^ Novak, Maximillian E. (Summer 1961). "Robinson Crusoe's "original sin"". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 1 (3): 19–29. doi:10.2307/449302. JSTOR 449302.
  32. ^ a b Lewis, Tess (1997). Watt, Ian (ed.). "The heroes we deserve". The Hudson Review. 49 (4): 675–680. doi:10.2307/3851909. JSTOR 3851909.
  33. ^ Halewood, William H. (1969-02-01). "The Reluctant Pilgrim: Defoe's emblematic method and quest for form in Robinson Crusoe. J.Paul Hunter, Defoe, and spiritual autobiography. G.A. Starr". Modern Philology. 66 (3): 274–278. doi:10.1086/390091.
  34. ^ West, Richard (1998). Daniel Defoe: The life and strange, surprising adventures. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-7867-0557-3.
  35. ^ Engelking, Barbara; Libionka, Dariusz (2009). Żydzi w Powstańczej Warszawie. Warsaw, PL: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów. pp. 260–293. ISBN 978-83-926831-1-7.
  36. ^ Buss, Kathleen; Karnowski, Lee (2000). Reading and Writing Literary Genres. International Reading Association. p. 7. ISBN 978-0872072572.
  37. ^ Brown, Laura (2003). "Ch. 7 Oceans and Floods". In Nussbaum, Felicity A. (ed.). The Global Eighteenth Century. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 109.
  38. ^ Sellars, Simon (2012). "Zones of Transition": Micronationalism in the work of J.G. Ballard. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 230–248.
  39. ^ "event notice". ausstage.edu.au. from the original on 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2019-11-13.

Additional references edit

  • Boz (Charles Dickens) (1853). Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. London: G. Routledge & Co.
  • Findlater, Richard (1955). Grimaldi King of Clowns. London: Magibbon & Kee. OCLC 558202542.
  • Malabou, Catherine. “To Quarantine from Quarantine: Rousseau, Robinson Crusoe, and ‘I.’” Critical Inquiry, vol. 47, no. S2, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1086/711426.[1]
  • McConnell Stott, Andrew (2009). The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi. Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84767-761-7.
  • Ross, Angus, ed. (1965), Robinson Crusoe. Penguin.
  • Secord, Arthur Wellesley (1963). Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe. New York: Russell & Russell. (First published in 1924.)
  • Shinagel, Michael, ed. (1994). Robinson Crusoe. Norton Critical Edition. ISBN 0-393-96452-3. Includes textual annotations, contemporary and modern criticisms, bibliography.
  • Severin, Tim (2002). In search of Robinson Crusoe, New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-07698-X
  • Hymer, Stephen (September 1971). "Robinson Crusoe and the secret of primitive accumulation". Monthly Review. 23 (4): 11. doi:10.14452/MR-023-04-1971-08_2.
  • Shinagel, Michael, ed. (1994), Robinson Crusoe. Norton Critical Edition (ISBN 0-393-96452-3). By Kogul, Mariapan.

Literary criticism edit

  • Backscheider, Paula Daniel Defoe: His Life (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). ISBN 0801845122.
  • Ewers, Chris Mobility in the English Novel from Defoe to Austen. (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2018). ISBN 978-1787442726. Includes a chapter on Robinson Crusoe.
  • Richetti, John (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) ISBN 978-0521675055. Casebook of critical essays.
  • Rogers, Pat Robinson Crusoe (London: Allen and Unwin, 1979). ISBN 0048000027.
  • Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel (London: Pimlico, 2000). ISBN 978-0712664271.

External links edit

robinson, crusoe, other, uses, disambiguation, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, boo. For other uses see Robinson Crusoe disambiguation This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Robinson Crusoe news newspapers books scholar JSTOR May 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Robinson Crusoe a ˈ k r uː s oʊ is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe first published on 25 April 1719 Written with a combination of Epistolary confessional and didactic forms the book follows the title character born Robinson Kreutznaer after he is cast away and spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad encountering cannibals captives and mutineers before being rescued The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk 2 a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called Mas a Tierra now part of Chile which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966 3 23 24 4 Pedro Serrano is another real life castaway whose story might have inspired the novel 5 6 Robinson CrusoeTitle page from the first editionAuthorDaniel DefoeOriginal titleThe Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York Mariner Who lived Eight and Twenty Years all alone in an un inhabited Island on the Coast of America near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck wherein all the Men perished but himself With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver d by Pyrates Written by Himself CountryGreat BritainLanguageEnglishGenreAdventure historical fictionSet inEngland the Caribbean and the Pyrenees 1651 1687PublisherWilliam TaylorPublication date25 April 1719 304 years ago 1719 04 25 Dewey Decimal823 51LC ClassPR3403 A1Followed byThe Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe TextRobinson Crusoe at WikisourceThe first edition credited the work s protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author leading many readers to believe he was a real person and that the book was a non fiction travelogue 7 Despite its simple narrative style Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel 8 Before the end of 1719 the book had already run through four editions and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history spawning so many imitations not only in literature but also in film television and radio that its name is used to define a genre the Robinsonade 9 Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Characters 3 Religion 4 Sources and real life castaways 5 Reception and sequels 6 Interpretations of the novel 6 1 Economics and civilization 7 Legacy 7 1 Influence on language 7 2 Influence on literature 7 2 1 Inverted Crusoeism 8 Editions 9 See also 9 1 From real life 9 2 From television and films 9 3 Novels 9 4 Stage adaptations 10 Footnotes 11 References 12 Additional references 12 1 Literary criticism 13 External linksPlot summary edit nbsp Pictorial map of Crusoe s island the Island of Despair showing incidents from the bookRobinson Crusoe the family name corrupted from the German name Kreutznaer sets sail from Kingston upon Hull England on a sea voyage in August 1651 against the wishes of his parents who wanted him to pursue a career in law After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm his desire for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Sale pirates the Sale Rovers and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor Two years later he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him The ship is en route to Brazil Crusoe sells Xury to the captain With the captain s help Crusoe procures a plantation in Brazil Years later Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa but is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island off the Venezuelan coast which he calls the Island of Despair near the mouth of the Orinoco River on 30 September 1659 1 Chapter 23 He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north He sees penguins and seals on this island Only he the captain s dog and two cats survive the shipwreck Overcoming his despair he fetches arms tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks He builds a fenced in habitat near a cave which he excavates By making marks in a wooden cross he creates a calendar By using tools salvaged from the ship and some which he makes himself he hunts grows barley and rice dries grapes to make raisins learns to make pottery and raises goats He also adopts a small parrot He reads the Bible and becomes religious thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society More years pass and Crusoe discovers cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners He plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners when a prisoner escapes Crusoe helps him naming his new companion Friday after the day of the week he appeared Crusoe teaches Friday the English language and converts him to Christianity After more cannibals arrive to partake in a feast Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and save two prisoners One is Friday s father and the other is a Spaniard who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday s father and bring back the others build a ship and sail to a Spanish port Before the Spaniards return an English ship appears mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island Crusoe and the ship s captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship With their ringleader executed by the captain the mutineers take up Crusoe s offer to be marooned on the island rather than being returned to England as prisoners to be hanged Before embarking for England Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming nbsp The route taken by Robinson Crusoe over the Pyrenees mountains in chapters 19 amp 20 of Defoe s novel as envisaged by Joseph RibasCrusoe leaves the island on 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687 He learns that his family believed him dead as a result he was left nothing in his father s will Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil which has granted him much wealth In conclusion he transports his wealth overland to England from Portugal to avoid travelling by sea Friday accompanies him and en route they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees 10 Characters editRobinson Crusoe The narrator of the novel who gets shipwrecked Friday A native Caribbean whom Crusoe saves from cannibalism and subsequently named Friday He becomes a servant and friend to Crusoe Xury Servant to Crusoe after they escape slavery from the Captain of the Rover together He is later given to the Portuguese Sea Captain as an indentured servant The Widow Friend to Crusoe who looks over his assets while he is away Portuguese Sea Captain Rescues Crusoe after he escapes from slavery Later helps him with his money and plantation The Spaniard A man rescued by Crusoe and Friday from the cannibals who later helps them escape the island Friday s father rescued by Crusoe and Friday at the same time as the Spaniard Robinson Crusoe s father A merchant named Kreutznaer Captain of the Rover Moorish pirate of Sallee who captures and enslaves Crusoe Traitorous crew members members of a mutinied ship who appear towards the end of novel The Savages Cannibals that come to Crusoe s Island and who represent a threat to Crusoe s religious and moral convictions as well as his own safety Religion editRobinson Crusoe was published in 1719 during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century In the novel Crusoe sheds light on different aspects of Christianity and his beliefs The book can be considered a spiritual autobiography as Crusoe s views on religion change dramatically from the start of his story to the end 11 At the beginning of the book Crusoe is concerned with sailing away from home whereupon he meets violent storms at sea He promises to God that if he survived that storm he would be a dutiful Christian man and head home according to his parents wishes However when Crusoe survives the storm he decides to keep sailing and notes that he could not fulfill the promises he had made during his turmoil 1 6 After Robinson is shipwrecked on his island he begins to suffer from extreme isolation He turns to his animals such as his parrot to talk to but misses human contact He turns to God during his time of turmoil in search of solace and guidance He retrieves a Bible from a ship that was washed along the shore and begins to memorize verses In times of trouble he would open the Bible to a random page and read a verse that he believed God had made him open and read and that would ease his mind Therefore during the time in which Crusoe was shipwrecked he became very religious and often would turn to God for help When Crusoe meets his servant Friday he begins to teach him scripture and Christianity He tries to teach Friday to the best of his ability about God and what Heaven and Hell are His purpose is to convert Friday into being a Christian and to his values and beliefs During a long time that Friday has now been with me and that he began to speak to me and understand me I was not wanting to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind particularly I asked him one time who made him 1 158 Sources and real life castaways editSee also Castaway Real occurrences nbsp Statue of Robinson Crusoe at Alexander Selkirk s birthplace of Lower Largo by Thomas Stuart Burnett nbsp Book on Alexander SelkirkThere were many stories of real life castaways in Defoe s time Most famously Defoe s suspected inspiration for Robinson Crusoe is thought to be Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk who spent four years on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966 3 23 24 in the Juan Fernandez Islands off the Chilean coast Selkirk was rescued in 1709 by Woodes Rogers during an English expedition that led to the publication of Selkirk s adventures in both A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World and A Cruising Voyage Around the World in 1712 According to Tim Severin Daniel Defoe a secretive man neither confirmed nor denied that Selkirk was the model for the hero of his book Apparently written in six months or less Robinson Crusoe was a publishing phenomenon 12 According to Andrew Lambert author of Crusoe s Island it is a false premise to suppose that Defoe s novel was inspired by the experiences of a single person such as Selkirk because the story is a complex compound of all the other buccaneer survival stories 13 However Robinson Crusoe is far from a copy of Rogers account Becky Little argues three events that distinguish the two stories Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked while Selkirk decided to leave his ship thus marooning himself The island that Crusoe was shipwrecked on had already been inhabited unlike the solitary nature of Selkirk s adventures The last and most crucial difference between the two stories is that Selkirk was a privateer looting and raiding coastal cities during the War of Spanish Succession The economic and dynamic thrust of the book is completely alien to what the buccaneers are doing Lambert says The buccaneers just want to capture some loot and come home and drink it all and Crusoe isn t doing that at all He s an economic imperialist He s creating a world of trade and profit 13 Other possible sources for the narrative include Ibn Tufail s Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and Spanish sixteenth century sailor Pedro Serrano Ibn Tufail s Hayy ibn Yaqdhan is a twelfth century philosophical novel also set on a desert island and translated from Arabic into Latin and English a number of times in the half century preceding Defoe s novel 14 15 16 17 Pedro Luis Serrano was supposed to be a Spanish sailor who was marooned for seven or eight years on a small desert island after shipwrecking in the 1520s on a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua He had no access to fresh water and lived off the blood and flesh of sea turtles and birds He was quite a celebrity when he returned to Europe before passing away he recorded the hardships suffered in documents that show the endless anguish and suffering the product of absolute abandonment to his fate now held in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville citation needed There is some doubt of the historicity of the tale nonetheless it is possible that Defoe heard his story in one of his visits to Spain before becoming a writer 18 Yet another source for Defoe s novel may have been the Robert Knox account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon Rajasinha II of Kandy in 1659 in An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon 19 20 Severin 2002 3 unravels a much wider range of potential sources of inspiration and concludes by identifying castaway surgeon Henry Pitman as the most likely An employee of the Duke of Monmouth Pitman played a part in the Monmouth Rebellion His short book about his desperate escape from a Caribbean penal colony followed by his shipwrecking and subsequent desert island misadventures was published by John Taylor of Paternoster Row London whose son William Taylor later published Defoe s novel Severin argues that since Pitman appears to have lived in the lodgings above the father s publishing house and that Defoe himself was a mercer in the area at the time Defoe may have met Pitman in person and learned of his experiences first hand or possibly through submission of a draft 3 Severin also discusses another publicized case of a marooned man named only as Will of the Miskito people of Central America who may have led to the depiction of Friday 21 Secord 1963 22 analyses the composition of Robinson Crusoe and gives a list of possible sources of the story rejecting the common theory that the story of Selkirk is Defoe s only source Reception and sequels edit nbsp Plaque in Queen s Gardens Hull showing him on his islandThe book was published on 25 April 1719 Before the end of the year this first volume had run through four editions By the end of the nineteenth century no book in the history of Western literature had more editions spin offs and translations even into languages such as Inuktitut Coptic and Maltese than Robinson Crusoe with more than 700 such alternative versions including children s versions with pictures and no text 23 The term Robinsonade was coined to describe the genre of stories similar to Robinson Crusoe Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe 1719 It was intended to be the last part of his stories according to the original title page of the sequel s first edition but a third book was published 1720 Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe With his Vision of the Angelick World Interpretations of the novel edit nbsp Crusoe standing over Friday after he frees him from the cannibals He is the true prototype of the British colonist The whole Anglo Saxon spirit in Crusoe the manly independence the unconscious cruelty the persistence the slow yet efficient intelligence the sexual apathy the calculating taciturnity Irish novelist James Joyce 24 The novel has been subject to numerous analyses and interpretations since its publication In a sense Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island This is achieved through the use of European technology agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the king of the island whilst the captain describes him as the governor to the mutineers At the very end of the novel the island is referred to as a colony The idealized master servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural assimilation with Crusoe representing the enlightened European whilst Friday is the savage who can only be redeemed from his cultural manners through assimilation into Crusoe s culture Nonetheless Defoe used Friday to criticize the Spanish colonization of the Americas 25 According to J P Hunter Robinson is not a hero but an everyman He begins as a wanderer aimless on a sea he does not understand and ends as a pilgrim crossing a final mountain to enter the promised land The book tells the story of how Robinson becomes closer to God not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read Conversely cultural critic and literary scholar Michael Gurnow views the novel from a Rousseauian perspective The central character s movement from a primitive state to a more civilized one is interpreted as Crusoe s denial of humanity s state of nature 26 Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects Defoe was a Puritan moralist and normally worked in the guide tradition writing books on how to be a good Puritan Christian such as The New Family Instructor 1727 and Religious Courtship 1722 While Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide it shares many of the themes and theological and moral points of view Crusoe may have been taken from Timothy Cruso a classmate of Defoe s who had written guide books including God the Guide of Youth 1695 before dying at an early age just eight years before Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe Cruso would have been remembered by contemporaries and the association with guide books is clear It has even been speculated that God the Guide of Youth inspired Robinson Crusoe because of a number of passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel 27 A leitmotif of the novel is the Christian notion of providence penitence and redemption 28 Crusoe comes to repent of the follies of his youth Defoe also foregrounds this theme by arranging highly significant events in the novel to occur on Crusoe s birthday The denouement culminates not only in Crusoe s deliverance from the island but his spiritual deliverance his acceptance of Christian doctrine and in his intuition of his own salvation When confronted with the cannibals Crusoe wrestles with the problem of cultural relativism Despite his disgust he feels unjustified in holding the natives morally responsible for a practice so deeply ingrained in their culture Nevertheless he retains his belief in an absolute standard of morality he regards cannibalism as a national crime and forbids Friday from practising it Economics and civilization edit Main article Robinson Crusoe economy In classical neoclassical and Austrian economics Crusoe is regularly used to illustrate the theory of production and choice in the absence of trade money and prices 29 Crusoe must allocate effort between production and leisure and must choose between alternative production possibilities to meet his needs The arrival of Friday is then used to illustrate the possibility of trade and the gains that result One day about noon going towards my boat I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man s naked foot on the shore which was very plain to be seen on the sand Defoe s Robinson Crusoe 1719 The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilization as a manifesto of economic individualism and as an expression of European colonial desires Significantly it also shows the importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe s religious convictions Critic M E Novak supports the connection between the religious and economic themes within Robinson Crusoe citing Defoe s religious ideology as the influence for his portrayal of Crusoe s economic ideals and his support of the individual Novak cites Ian Watt s extensive research 30 which explores the impact that several Romantic Era novels had against economic individualism and the reversal of those ideals that takes place within Robinson Crusoe 31 In Tess Lewis s review The heroes we deserve of Ian Watt s article she furthers Watt s argument with a development on Defoe s intention as an author to use individualism to signify nonconformity in religion and the admirable qualities of self reliance 32 678 This further supports the belief that Defoe used aspects of spiritual autobiography to introduce the benefits of individualism to a not entirely convinced religious community 32 J Paul Hunter has written extensively on the subject of Robinson Crusoe as apparent spiritual autobiography tracing the influence of Defoe s Puritan ideology through Crusoe s narrative and his acknowledgement of human imperfection in pursuit of meaningful spiritual engagements the cycle of repentance and deliverance 33 This spiritual pattern and its episodic nature as well as the re discovery of earlier female novelists have kept Robinson Crusoe from being classified as a novel let alone the first novel written in English despite the blurbs on some book covers Early critics such as Robert Louis Stevenson admired it saying that the footprint scene in Crusoe was one of the four greatest in English literature and most unforgettable more prosaically Wesley Vernon has seen the origins of forensic podiatry in this episode 34 It has inspired a new genre the Robinsonade as works such as Johann David Wyss The Swiss Family Robinson 1812 adapt its premise and has provoked modern postcolonial responses including J M Coetzee s Foe 1986 and Michel Tournier s Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique in English Friday or The Other Island 1967 Two sequels followed Defoe s The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe 1719 and his Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe with his Vision of the angelick world 1720 Jonathan Swift s Gulliver s Travels 1726 is in part a parody of Defoe s adventure novel Legacy editThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed September 2010 Learn how and when to remove this template message Influence on language edit The book proved to be so popular that the names of the two main protagonists Crusoe and Friday have entered the language During World War II people who decided to stay and hide in the ruins of the German occupied city of Warsaw for a period of three winter months from October to January 1945 when they were rescued by the Red Army were later called Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw Robinsonowie warszawscy 35 Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as my man Friday from which the term Man Friday or Girl Friday originated Influence on literature edit Robinson Crusoe marked the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre 36 Its success led to many imitators and castaway novels written by Ambrose Evans Penelope Aubin and others became quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries 37 Most of these have fallen into obscurity but some became established including The Swiss Family Robinson which borrowed Crusoe s first name for its title Jonathan Swift s Gulliver s Travels published seven years after Robinson Crusoe may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe s optimistic account of human capability In The Unthinkable Swift The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned about refuting the notion that the individual precedes society as Defoe s novel seems to suggest In Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson parodies Crusoe with the character of Ben Gunn a friendly castaway who was marooned for many years has a wild appearance dresses entirely in goat skin and constantly talks about providence In Jean Jacques Rousseau s treatise on education Emile or on Education the one book the protagonist is allowed to read before the age of twelve is Robinson Crusoe Rousseau wants Emile to identify himself as Crusoe so he can rely upon himself for all of his needs In Rousseau s view Emile needs to imitate Crusoe s experience allowing necessity to determine what is to be learned and accomplished This is one of the main themes of Rousseau s educational model nbsp Robinson Crusoe bookstore on Istiklal Avenue IstanbulIn The Tale of Little Pig Robinson Beatrix Potter directs the reader to Robinson Crusoe for a detailed description of the island the land of the Bong tree to which her eponymous hero moves In Wilkie Collins most popular novel The Moonstone one of the chief characters and narrators Gabriel Betteredge has faith in all that Robinson Crusoe says and uses the book for a sort of divination He considers The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe the finest book ever written reads it over and over again and considers a man but poorly read if he had happened not to read the book French novelist Michel Tournier published Friday or The Other Island French Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique in 1967 His novel explores themes including civilization versus nature the psychology of solitude as well as death and sexuality in a retelling of Defoe s Robinson Crusoe story Tournier s Robinson chooses to remain on the island rejecting civilization when offered the chance to escape 28 years after being shipwrecked Likewise in 1963 J M G Le Clezio winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature published the novel Le Proces Verbal The book s epigraph is a quote from Robinson Crusoe and like Crusoe the novel s protagonist Adam Pollo suffers long periods of loneliness Crusoe in England a 183 line poem by Elizabeth Bishop imagines Crusoe near the end of his life recalling his time of exile with a mixture of bemusement and regret J M Coetzee s 1986 novel Foe recounts the tale of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of a woman named Susan Barton Other stories inspired by Robinson Crusoe include William Golding s Lord Of The Flies 1954 J G Ballard s Concrete Island 1974 and Andy Weir s The Martian 2011 citation needed Inverted Crusoeism edit The term inverted Crusoeism was coined by J G Ballard The paradigm of Robinson Crusoe has been a recurring topic in Ballard s work 38 Whereas the original Robinson Crusoe became a castaway against his own will Ballard s protagonists often choose to maroon themselves hence inverted Crusoeism e g Concrete Island The concept provides a reason as to why people would deliberately maroon themselves on a remote island in Ballard s work becoming a castaway is as much a healing and empowering process as an entrapping one enabling people to discover a more meaningful and vital existence Editions editThe life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York mariner who lived twenty eight years all alone in an un inhabited island on the coast of America near the mouth of the great river of Oroonoque Written by himself Early English Books Online 1719 Defoe Daniel January 2007 1719 text Oxford Text Archive hdl 20 500 12024 K061280 000 Robinson Crusoe Oneworld Classics 2008 ISBN 978 1 84749 012 4 Robinson Crusoe Penguin Classics 2003 ISBN 978 0 14 143982 2 Robinson Crusoe Oxford World s Classics 2007 ISBN 978 0 19 283342 6 Robinson Crusoe Bantam Classics Defoe Daniel Robinson Crusoe edited by Michael Shinagel New York Norton 1994 ISBN 978 0393964523 Includes a selection of critical essays Defoe Daniel Robinson Crusoe Dover Publications 1998 Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Rand McNally amp Company The Windermere Series 1916 No ISBN Includes 7 illustrations by Milo WinterSee also editFrom real life edit Leendert Hasenbosch Philip Ashton Crusoe Cave Alexander Selkirk Naso peopleFrom television and films edit Cast Away Gilligan s Island Swiss Family Robinson Robby 1968 film Lost Crusoe Seven Sea PiratesNovels edit Green Grass Running WaterStage adaptations edit Isaac Pocock 1782 1835 39 Footnotes edit Full title The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York Mariner Who lived Eight and Twenty Years all alone in an un inhabited Island on the Coast of America near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck wherein all the Men perished but himself With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver d by Pyrates Written by Himself 1 References edit a b c d Defoe Daniel 1998 06 10 1719 Robinson Crusoe Courier Corporation hdl 20 500 12024 K061280 000 ISBN 9780486404271 Magazine Smithsonian The Real Robinson Crusoe Smithsonian Magazine Retrieved 2023 11 05 a b c d Severin Tim 2002 In Search of Robinson Crusoe New York NY Basic Books ISBN 0 465 07698 X Rescue of Real Life Robinson Crusoe education nationalgeographic org Retrieved 2023 09 06 Pedro Serrano el naufrago espanol que sobrevivio 8 anos en una isla caribena inspiro a Robinson Crusoe El Espanol in Spanish 2021 06 28 Retrieved 2023 11 05 Brule Alvaro Van den 2019 09 07 El Robinson Crusoe espanol la increible peripecia del naufrago que inspiro a Defoe elconfidencial com in Spanish Retrieved 2023 11 05 Heitman Danny 2013 01 11 Fiction as authentic as fact Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on 2017 08 02 Retrieved 2017 08 08 Drabble Margaret ed 1996 Defoe The Oxford Companion to English Literature Oxford UK Oxford University Press p 265 UF Digital Collections ufdc ufl edu Retrieved 2023 11 05 Ribas Joseph 1995 Robinson Crusoe dans les Pyrenees Editions Loubatieres ISBN 2 86266 235 6 Robinson Crusoe faith in God ENGLISH 123 Introduction to Fiction 2018 10 03 Retrieved 2023 11 05 Severin Tim 2002 Marooned The Metamorphosis of Alexander Selkirk The American Scholar 71 3 73 82 JSTOR 41213335 a b Little Becky 2016 09 28 Debunking the myth of the real Robinson Crusoe National Geographic Archived from the original on 2017 12 08 Retrieved 2017 12 07 Hassan Nawal Muhammad 1980 Hayy bin Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe A study of an early Arabic impact on English literature Al Rashid House Glasse Cyril 2001 New Encyclopedia of Islam Rowman Altamira p 202 ISBN 0 7591 0190 6 Haque Amber 2004 Psychology from Islamic perspective Contributions of early Muslim scholars and challenges to contemporary Muslim psychologists Journal of Religion and Health 43 4 357 377 esp 369 doi 10 1007 s10943 004 4302 z S2CID 38740431 Wainwright Martin 2003 03 22 Desert island scripts The Guardian Review Archived from the original on 2008 07 24 La historia que inspiro a Robinson Crusoe espanola Pedro Serrano 1526 ABC Blogs in Spanish 2016 08 02 Retrieved 2023 11 05 Knox Robert 1911 An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon based on the 1659 original text Glasgow UK James MacLehose and Sons see Alan Filreis Dampier William 1697 A New Voyage round the World London James Knapton Secord Arthur Wellesley 1963 1924 Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe New York NY Russell amp Russell pp 21 111 Watt Ian April 1951 Robinson Crusoe as a myth Essays in Criticism Watt Ian 1994 Robinson Crusoe as a Myth Norton Critical Edition Second reprint ed Joyce James 1964 Translated by Prescott Joseph Daniel Defoe Buffalo Studies English translation of Italian manuscript ed 1 24 25 Colonial Representation in Robinson Crusoe Heart of Darkness and A Passage to India PDF Dspace bracu ac bd Retrieved 2018 10 27 Gurnow Michael Summer 2010 The folly of beginning a work before we count the cost Anarcho primitivism in Daniel Defoe s Robinson Crusoe Fifth Estate No 383 Archived from the original on 2014 03 17 Retrieved 2014 02 17 Hunter J Paul 1966 The Reluctant Pilgrim Norton Critical Edition Greif Martin J Summer 1966 The Conversion of Robinson Crusoe SEL Studies in English Literature 1500 1900 6 3 551 574 doi 10 2307 449560 JSTOR 449560 Varian Hal R 1990 Intermediate microeconomics A modern approach New York W W Norton ISBN 978 0 393 95924 6 Watt Ian Myths of Modern Individualism Faust Don Quixote Don Juan Robinson Crusoe full citation needed Novak Maximillian E Summer 1961 Robinson Crusoe s original sin SEL Studies in English Literature 1500 1900 Restoration and Eighteenth Century 1 3 19 29 doi 10 2307 449302 JSTOR 449302 a b Lewis Tess 1997 Watt Ian ed The heroes we deserve The Hudson Review 49 4 675 680 doi 10 2307 3851909 JSTOR 3851909 Halewood William H 1969 02 01 The Reluctant Pilgrim Defoe s emblematic method and quest for form in Robinson Crusoe J Paul Hunter Defoe and spiritual autobiography G A Starr Modern Philology 66 3 274 278 doi 10 1086 390091 West Richard 1998 Daniel Defoe The life and strange surprising adventures New York Carroll amp Graf ISBN 978 0 7867 0557 3 Engelking Barbara Libionka Dariusz 2009 Zydzi w Powstanczej Warszawie Warsaw PL Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badan nad Zaglada Zydow pp 260 293 ISBN 978 83 926831 1 7 Buss Kathleen Karnowski Lee 2000 Reading and Writing Literary Genres International Reading Association p 7 ISBN 978 0872072572 Brown Laura 2003 Ch 7 Oceans and Floods In Nussbaum Felicity A ed The Global Eighteenth Century Baltimore MD The Johns Hopkins University Press p 109 Sellars Simon 2012 Zones of Transition Micronationalism in the work of J G Ballard London Palgrave Macmillan pp 230 248 event notice ausstage edu au Archived from the original on 2019 11 19 Retrieved 2019 11 13 Additional references editBoz Charles Dickens 1853 Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi London G Routledge amp Co Findlater Richard 1955 Grimaldi King of Clowns London Magibbon amp Kee OCLC 558202542 Malabou Catherine To Quarantine from Quarantine Rousseau Robinson Crusoe and I Critical Inquiry vol 47 no S2 2021 https doi org 10 1086 711426 1 McConnell Stott Andrew 2009 The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi Edinburgh Canongate Books Ltd ISBN 978 1 84767 761 7 Ross Angus ed 1965 Robinson Crusoe Penguin Secord Arthur Wellesley 1963 Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe New York Russell amp Russell First published in 1924 Shinagel Michael ed 1994 Robinson Crusoe Norton Critical Edition ISBN 0 393 96452 3 Includes textual annotations contemporary and modern criticisms bibliography Severin Tim 2002 In search of Robinson Crusoe New York Basic Books ISBN 0 465 07698 X Hymer Stephen September 1971 Robinson Crusoe and the secret of primitive accumulation Monthly Review 23 4 11 doi 10 14452 MR 023 04 1971 08 2 Shinagel Michael ed 1994 Robinson Crusoe Norton Critical Edition ISBN 0 393 96452 3 By Kogul Mariapan Literary criticism edit Backscheider Paula Daniel Defoe His Life Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1989 ISBN 0801845122 Ewers Chris Mobility in the English Novel from Defoe to Austen Woodbridge Boydell and Brewer 2018 ISBN 978 1787442726 Includes a chapter on Robinson Crusoe Richetti John ed The Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2009 ISBN 978 0521675055 Casebook of critical essays Rogers Pat Robinson Crusoe London Allen and Unwin 1979 ISBN 0048000027 Watt Ian The Rise of the Novel London Pimlico 2000 ISBN 978 0712664271 External links edit nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe at Standard Ebooks Robinson Crusoe at Project Gutenberg Robinson Crusoe at Editions Marteau annotated text of the first edition nbsp Robinson Crusoe public domain audiobook at LibriVox Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin 1723 1764 hosted at Project Gutenberg Robinson Crusoe amp the Robinsonades a free online collection of editions of Robinson Crusoe from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children s Literature Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Robinson Crusoe amp oldid 1186789071, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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