This study attempts to resolve the question of Defoe's sincerity through examination of his life, his journalistic writings, and his major works or imagination.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

It is the purpose of this paper to illustrate from the novels themselves that Defoe's protagonists are essentially isolated individuals and that this isolation is the result of the circumstances of their births, the nature of their professions, their spiritually isolating religious beliefs, and their attitudes toward their fellow men.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Hispánica mención Literatura / [...] Ahora bien, la intención de este informe no es referir este amplio marco de estudio, sino centrarnos en una de sus manifestaciones más representativas durante el siglo XVIII, el Robinson Crusoe , escrito y publicado el año 1719 por Daniel Defoe en Inglaterra. La imagen del náufrago inglés es hoy casi universal, dada la fuerza de la metáfora de la sobrevivencia del hombre solo en una isla. Sin embargo, la lectura atenta de la novela y la investigación en torno a ella, han ido revelando cada vez con mayor detalle múltiples elementos dentro de ésta, que permiten identificar ciertas problemáticas que aquí queremos abordar. La primera motivación que fundamenta esta investigación es la de reconocer la obra de Daniel Defoe en un contexto de producción y dilucidar las redes que conectan al texto y su época. Sin embargo, esta resultaría una tarea demasiado extensa, dado que las posibilidades son múltiples: relación con un contexto religioso, relación con un contexto político, relación con un contexto social, económico, filosófico o incluso estrictamente literario. Pero la mejor solución para enfrentar este primer problema es simple: ceñirse a lo que la misma obra dice, a los elementos de la realidad que ésta desarrolla. Y el reconocimiento de estos, es el reconocimiento de la focalización. Los diccionarios de retórica consultados definen ésta fundamentalmente como el punto de vista desde el cual se narra. Ese es entonces nuestro primer objetivo: ¿quién y cómo narra Robinson Crusoe? ¿De qué herramientas se vale para ello? ¿Qué cosas son las que priman en esta relación? ¿Cómo se construye la perspectiva narrativa y de enunciación en la obra de Defoe?

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa

Themes of authorship in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe highlight locations in the stories that expose the author's concerns with their responsibilities and contributions to society. In order to frame a discussion of authorship in Oroonoko and Robinson Crusoe, it is essential to position Behn and Crusoe as travelers who write autobiographies of their involvement in exotic circumstances. Oroonoko and Robinson Crusoe betray the tensions that arise from the barriers separating travel and colonial objectives, individual agency and social action. Although the stories may incorporate truth and fiction, writing enables the authors to present, with symbolic images, concerns with their participation in situations that hinder the free expression of their will. I refer to Aphra Behn and Daniel Defoe as "geographers" of writing because they identify tenuous boundaries that organize social views concerning gender, responsibility and behavior in contrast to individual desires. Aphra Behn's narrative role in Oroonoko charts the tragic outcomes of Oroonoko's rejection of slavery and also draws attention to the reception of a female author. Behn's identity as an author, as it is constructed within Oroonoko, is intertwined with the murder of a slave prince, and with a woman's freedom to write and publish in the 1680s. Although Defoe is the author of the text, he manipulates the presentation of the story to convince readers that Crusoe wrote an authentic account of his years as a castaway on an unnamed island. In his journal, Crusoe discusses his position in his culture and the resulting circumstances that result from his rejection of family and economic position in search of adventure. With limited resources, Crusoe uses writing to redefine his agency in contrast to the threats of the island and his responsibilities to God, family and society. Although there may be discrepancies that blur the "true" identity and involvement of the author in autobiography, these narratives raise discourses concerning the balance between the individual's desires and society's expectations for behavior. Attention to authorship identifies the discourses and contradictions faced by Behn's and Crusoe's participation in travel and the subsequent translation, resolution and apology enabled by authorship. / Graduation date: 2002

No description available.