Cosmographical Glasses: Geographic Discourse, Gender, and Elizabethan FictionA fresh perspective on Elizabethan fiction In Cosmographical Glasses Constance Relihan examines the ways in which sixteenth-century English texts--traveler's reports, ethnographic studies, and geographic guides--provide the foundation for how fictional prose of the period envisions the locations in which its tales are set. Relihan suggests that this nonfictional discourse becomes central to how the fictional prose of the period imagines cultural identity, fictional purpose, and gender identity. Places and cultures were defined in opposition to each other in early modern romances. In the examples in Cosmographical Glasses, writers attempt to define the spaces of their texts in an effort to identify what it means to be male, English, and Elizabethan. Through these texts, Relihan considers the various ways in which fictional pieces seize the spirit of ethnographic and geographic texts, as well as the ways in which historically identifiable and overtly fictional places were used to complicate representations of utopian fantasies. A number of prose romances and novella collections and their use of historical and geographical facts are analyzed in order to explore the associations between the genre, the discourses of colonialism, and the construction of gender. These texts become "glasses" that reflect and refract the social and cultural realities of early modern England. Those interested in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature, the history of the novel, and the influence of travel literature on fictional texts will appreciate Cosmographical Glasses. |
From inside the book
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... knowledge of the growing group of scholars working on early modern prose fiction . In particular , I would like to thank Goran Stanivukovic , Lori Humphrey Newcomb , Derek Alwes , and Terry Prendergast for reading early portions of this ...
... knowledge that he has presumably obtained at sea . A second letter , " to my beloued Country - men , the curteous Readers " ( 4 ) , transfers the geographical connections into the text itself : Gentlemen , after many bloudy bickerings ...
... knowledge — both secular and divine — and for stories of marvels and of the everyday . Moreover , the tradition of such writings , dating back to Strabo and flourishing in the medieval period , combined the factual and the fictional ...
... knowledge of peoples , [ and ] of their maners and facions , so greate pleasure and profite , and euery man cannot , yea , fewe men will , go traveile the countries themselues : me thinkes gentill reader , thou oughtest with muche ...
... because that they haue not sene the places , and for the smal experience and knowledge that they had , did greatly erre " Thomas Coryate , TRAVAILER For the English wits , and. The Fiction of Ethnography / The Ethnography of Fiction 7.
Contents
1 | |
The Gendered and Geographic Glasses of the English Novella | 27 |
Full Works to Excellent Geographers | 45 |
Trapalonia Machilenta and the Uses of Fictional Glasses | 69 |
The Ethnographic Function of Latin | 86 |
Conclusion | 108 |
Notes | 113 |
Works Cited | 134 |
Index | 144 |