Description

In the literature of South Seas exploration the violence, wonder, and nostalgia of voyaging are vivid. This volume charts the sensibilities of the lonely figures that encountered the new and exotic in terra incognita. Jonathan Lamb introduces us to the writings of South Seas explorers, and finds in them unexpected and poignant tales of selves alarmed and transformed. Lamb contends that European exploration ofthe South Seas was less confident and mindful than we have assumed. It was, instead, conducted in moods of distraction and infatuation that were hard to make sense of and difficult to narrate, and it prompted reactions among indigenous peoples that were equally passionate and irregular. "Preserving the Self in the South Seas" also examines these common crises of exploration in the context of a metropolitan audience that eagerly consumed narratives of the Pacific while doubting their truth. Lamb considers why these halting and incredible journals were so popular with the reading public, and suggests that they dramatized anxieties and bafflements rankling at the heart of commercial society.

Preserving the Self in the South Seas, 1680-1840

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Hardback by Jonathan Lamb

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In the literature of South Seas exploration the violence, wonder, and nostalgia of voyaging are vivid. This volume charts the... Read more

    Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
    Publication Date: 15/06/2001
    ISBN13: 9780226468488, 978-0226468488
    ISBN10: 0226468488

    Number of Pages: 328

    Non Fiction , ELT & Literary Studies , Education

    Description

    In the literature of South Seas exploration the violence, wonder, and nostalgia of voyaging are vivid. This volume charts the sensibilities of the lonely figures that encountered the new and exotic in terra incognita. Jonathan Lamb introduces us to the writings of South Seas explorers, and finds in them unexpected and poignant tales of selves alarmed and transformed. Lamb contends that European exploration ofthe South Seas was less confident and mindful than we have assumed. It was, instead, conducted in moods of distraction and infatuation that were hard to make sense of and difficult to narrate, and it prompted reactions among indigenous peoples that were equally passionate and irregular. "Preserving the Self in the South Seas" also examines these common crises of exploration in the context of a metropolitan audience that eagerly consumed narratives of the Pacific while doubting their truth. Lamb considers why these halting and incredible journals were so popular with the reading public, and suggests that they dramatized anxieties and bafflements rankling at the heart of commercial society.

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