daniel defoe (1660-1731). he was born in london in a puritan family he was educated at one of the...
TRANSCRIPT
Daniel Defoe(1660-1731)
• He was born in London in a Puritan family
• He was educated at one of the best
Dissenting Academies
• He changed a lot of jobs
• His political inclinations changed according
to hopes and achievements
Early Life and Education
• Robinson Crusoe, 1719
• Moll Flanders, 1722
• Captain Singleton, 1720
• A Journal of the Plague Year, 1722
• Memoirs of a Cavalier, 1724
The Novelist
• He wrote almost exclusively in prose
• Essays, pamphlets and travel books
• Articles for newspapers and magazines
• 1704 The Review
The Father of Modern Journalism
• It is the first English novel
• It has a first-person narrator
fake autobiography
• Places are described in detail
• Time is accounted for in a
precise manner
• Possible source A Cruising Voyage
Round the World
• Robinson is the celebration of the English mercantile hero
Robinson Crusoe
• He is the archetype of thecolonialist
• Robinson and Friday modern colonialism:
a. Name giving
b. European clothes
c. European language
d. New religion
e. Technical superiority
Robinson & Friday
• Robinson goes to sea despite his father’s advice
• During one of his trips he is shipwrecked on a desert island
• Gradually he manages to live a comfortable life
• He rescues Friday, the prisoner of a group of Indians
• The two live together on the island: Robinson is the master, Friday is
his servant
• Robison is rescued by a ship and sails back to England
The Story
• A fictitious autobiography
• She is the personification
of the modern woman
• The happy ending shows Defoe’s
didactic and moral concern
Moll Flanders
• An abandoned child, born in Newgate prison
• She realizes that to exploit her beauty and intelligence is the chance
to make her way in the world
• She marries several times
• She goes to jail and is sentenced to the penal colony of Virginia
• She becomes a rich and respectable woman
The Story