Everyone Knows Robinson Crusoe, the Man. Scholars Call

CHAPTER ONE READING ROBINSON CRUSOE Everyone knows Robinson Crusoe, the man. Scholars call Robinson Crusoe, the tale, a classic because it is a “work of literature that has left the book; it has become a defining part of those people’s minds to whom it is a classic”.1 Although the first volume is nearly three- hundred-years old, editions continue to be reprinted and read. It is one of the books adults assume every child can and should read; if they cannot read, their grandparents delight in telling the story out loud. The fictional hero, cast away alone on an island, is a character people enjoy imagining. They can use him in organizing their ideas, without referring to the specific details of Defoe’s narration. The fictional character Robinson Crusoe functions as a symbol according to Engler’s operational definition: “What does the symbol do? …. It creates community.”2 We see the enduring fascination of the theme and the power of the symbol in current pop culture: a Hollywood film, Cast Away, in 2000, a long-running American television series, Lost, and another television series called Robinson. Most readers see Robison Crusoe as a simple character, although they have interpreted this simple man in radically different ways: he can be a hero, or he can be a villain. Often people refer to Defoe’s character as “Crusoe” so it comes as a surprise to note that when he thought of himself, he called himself “Robin”. The narrator of the story, can serve as the archetype of the heroic European colonist who transforms desert islands into productive farms, and cannibals into Christians. Alternatively, he can serve as the archetype of the 1 Balz Engler, Poetry and Community, Tübingen, 1990, 55 (emphasis in the original). 2 Ibid., 31-32 (emphasis in the original). 4 A Spectacular Failure villainous imperial exploiter who seizes lands and enslaves people. In more complex treatments by authors such as Michel Tournier in Friday (1967), Derek Walcott in Pantomime (1980), and J.M. Coetzee in Foe (1986), the story becomes an investigation of the relationship between Robin and Friday. For these authors it serves as a vehicle for their examination of colonialism. The character Robinson Crusoe lives outside of Defoe’s text, but twenty-first-century readers have become interested in looking behind the text. Dana Souhami’s 2001 book Selkirk’s Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe does just that, and its popularity shows that the reading public wants to go behind Defoe’s imagined hero to imagine the privateering culture of the day. Souhami recounts how Alexander Selkirk was marooned on the Pacific Island Juan Fernandez in 1704, rescued in 1709, and celebrated in London in 1713.3 Defoe’s story was not simply an elaboration of Selkirk’s adventure, but a critique of its public account. By tracing the story of the Robinson Crusoe volumes we can see that current events also shaped the way his texts were read. Defoe’s story of an island castaway was immensely popular as soon as The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe ... appeared on 23 April 1719. Many editions and several pirated versions appeared even before the publication of the second volume on 17 August 1719. Modern editors count six editions published by William Taylor in 1719.4 The immediate translation of the first volume into German and French and the production of German and French imitation Robinson Crusoes indicate the wide 3 Dana Souhami’s Introduction makes Alexander Selkirk’s life the single source of Defoe’s book. She says, “The Island on which Alexander Selkirk was marooned, for four solitary years, lies in the eastern Pacific Ocean at latitude 34 [degrees] south, three hundred and sixty miles west of the coast of Chile. In 1966 the Chilean government named it Robinson Crusoe Island, in tribute to Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe, who inspired Daniel Defoe to write his famous novel in 1719” (Dana Souhami, Selkirk’s Island, New York, 2001, unpaged Introduction). 4 Taylor labeled the reprint editions two, three, and four, but produced two distinct printings of the third and fourth editions. In the Norton Critical Edition, editor Michael Shinagel says, “In this Norton Critical Edition I have followed the more recent bibliographical findings and speak of the six editions published by William Taylor in 1719” (Robinson Crusoe, New York, 1994, 222; Shinagel’s italics)..

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