Money, Guns, and God: The News According to Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe (1719) was not the only work of Daniel Defoe. In fact
Defoe, who published largely anonymously or under pseudonym, is credited
with between 250 and 570 titles. Writing was not Defoe’s only occupation
either – he owned a successful brick and tile factory and he imported wine and
sherry; he lost money on such unsuccessful ventures as breeding civet cats for
perfume and funding a diving bell project to raise sunken treasure; as a
successful popular journalist he operated both as a spy and government
propagandist and as a thorn in the authorities’ side; a Dissenter who dissented
from co-religionists, a Whig who worked for Tories and then worked for Whigs
while supposedly working for Tories, Defoe argued passionately for political
and social harmony. In a word, he maintained interest through controversy.
The sophister option situates Defoe’s fictional works amongst his
contemporaries as he exploits the possibilities of print culture and challenges
the popular genres of travel and pirate narrative, rogue biography, conduct
manuals and scandalous secret history. Robinson Crusoe will be read alongside
William Dampier’s buccaneering autobiography, A New Voyage Round the
World (1697). Moll Flanders (1720) and John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728)
dissect State corruption and portray criminal anti-heroes while Roxana (1724)
complements Eliza Haywood’s Love in Excess (1719), the main rival in sales to
Robinson Crusoe . The course will investigate Defoe’s engagement with the
political, economic and religious issues of early eighteenth-century England
when major changes in constitutional, financial and communication systems
were establishing the foundations for the modern state. Texts for study will
include his progressive An Essay Upon Projects (1697), The Shortest Way with
the Dissenters (1702), the tract that resulted in his manhunt, imprisonment,
pillory and bankruptcy, and his composite documentary, The Storm (1703). A
Journal of the Plague Year (1722) will be read as an extended metaphor for the
nature, dissemination and effects of official and clandestine news for, above
all, Defoe was an expert in the art of persuasion.
Political and sexual intrigue, pirates, plague and press freedom – come
and read all about it.
Dr. Christopher Borsing
2013