Defoe's America

Resource Information

The work Defoe's America represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Defoe's America

Statement of responsibility

Dennis Todd

Creator

• Todd, Dennis, 1944-

Subject

• Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 -- Criticism and interpretation
• Imperialism in literature
• National characteristics, American, in literature

Language

eng

Summary

"The Americas appear as an evocative setting in more than half of Daniel Defoe's novels, and often offer a new beginning for his characters. In the first full-length study of Defoe and colonialism, Dennis Todd explores why the New World loomed so large in Defoe's imagination. By focusing on the historical contexts that informed Defoe's depiction of American Indians, African slaves, and white indentured servants, Dennis Todd investigates the colonial assumptions that shaped his novels and, at the same time, uncovers how Defoe used details of the American experience in complex, often figurative ways to explore the psychological bases of the profound conversions and transformations that his heroes and heroines undergo. And by examining what Defoe knew and did not know about America, what he falsely believed and what he knowingly falsified, Defoe's America probes the doubts, hesitancies, and contradictions he had about the colonial project he so fervently promoted"--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

823/.5

Index

index present

LC call number

PR3407

LC item number

.T56 2010

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography