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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... 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 recogniz- able and ...
... male who lounges Against a rock in the sunlight , never doubting That for all his faults he is loved ; whose works are but Extensions of his power to charm ? From weathered outcrop To hill - top temple , from appearing waters to ...
... male and English and Elizabethan . Such an attempt , patriarchal in the strictest sense of the word , necessarily means engaging in discourse that controls and categorizes the objects against which it projects itself — foreign cultures ...
... male ) as a " Pilot . " His readers become , then , part of one of the cultures that the wandering Pheander visits , and as the text progresses and we are taken more and more into the narrator's confidence , we enjoy some vicarious ...
... male and female experi- ences of travel during the early modern period differ — women are less likely to be the traveler than the reader of the travel report , and women are more likely to stand in for the exotic location the male ...
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 |