return. Harley was affiliated with the Tories who remained in power until the death of Queen Anne and were then replaced by the Whigs. Defoe changed his alliances along with whichever party was in power and ended up working for both sides. During this politically tumultuous time, he also started a periodical called the Review which he wrote singlehandedly for a period of nine years. The Review was, at first, a weekly but later became thrice-weekly; it discussed current events in England and Europe but also expatiated upon religion, trade, manners, morals etc.
Thus, after spending most of his life writing mostly non-fiction and some poetry, Defoe decided, at around the age of sixty, to write a novel. It is generally assumed that the character of Robinson Crusoe borrows much from the real-life adventures of one Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who was stranded on the island of Más a Tierra in the south Pacific after a quarrel with his captain. He stayed there for four years after which he was rescued and brought back to England where the account of his adventures was published. Like Crusoe, Selkirk strove to keep up his spirits in isolation and made the best use of the equipment available to him for survival. When Robinson Crusoe was published, it was an unabashedly commercial undertaking which made no effort to appeal to the elite segments of society. This might be the reason why its reputation did not, at first, survive its author's demise in 1731. However, there was a resurgence of interest in Defoe's works in the second half of the eighteenth century when several critics, including, notably, Sir Walter Scott and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, presented their commentary.
Since then, Robinson Crusoe has been interpreted in many ways. First and foremost, it is an adventure story in which a man marooned on an island must battle nature to continue to live. However, it also has economic implications because when resources are scarce, one must use them sparingly as well as cunningly. Politically as well, we see the development of a small society centered around Crusoe on the island, of which he designates himself the king. The development of social relations in human history is alluded to in the master/servant bond that springs up between Crusoe and Friday. In one of his moments of moral obtuseness, Crusoe teaches Friday the word "master" even before teaching him the words "yes" and "no." Given Crusoe's mastery over the island and some of its inhabitants, a colonial reading seems particularly apt and is echoed in the words of James Joyce who said, "The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity" (24-25).
The next few years were very productive ones for Defoe; he wrote Captain Singleton and Memoirs of a Cavalier in 1720, Moll Flanders in 1722 and Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress in 1724. Captain Singleton, like Robinson Crusoe, is an adventure story in which the protagonist journeys through Africa and becomes a pirate in the Indian Ocean. Despite the exciting premise, this novel doesn't lend itself to the same variety of interpretations as its predecessor, although Defoe's economic views are apparent in both. Colonel Jack is the story of the ups and downs of an orphan who wants to be a gentleman; as such, it presages works like Dickens' Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. The story of Moll Flanders can be summed up in its full title: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, etc. Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums. Both, Moll Flanders and Roxana are considered, to some extent, feminist narratives, for these women tend to use the men they sleep with for their own purposes and the natural bias of their characters is towards freedom.
Being one of the first novelists, Defoe's influence on posterity has been immense. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, published seven years after Robinson Crusoe was a re-writing of this story from Swift's satirical point of view; whereas Crusoe tries to establish his dominion wherever he goes, Gulliver frequently finds himself helpless to effect any change. Rousseau's Émile turns to Crusoe for a self-sufficient role model and Wilkie Collins' character Gabriel Betteredge, from The Moonstone, takes Robinson Crusoe as his bible. In 1957, Michel Tournier wrote his version of the adventure story, entitled Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique in which Robinson chooses to remain on the island even when he's given the chance to escape. Most notably, J. M. Coetzee wrote Foe in 1986 and was later awarded the Nobel Prize. In Foe, the situation is recast from the point of view of Susan Barton, a castaway who lands on the same island as Crusoe and Friday and later brings the story to Defoe's attention but is frustrated by Defoe's handling of the material. All in all, Defoe's masterpiece has excited both admiration and rebuttals over the years, making him a great deal more than "the fellow who was pilloried, I have forgot his name" (qtd. in Pancoast) as Jonathan Swift so disingenuously called him.
Ruhi Jiwani, 2011
SOURCES
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Illus. H. M. Brock. Project Gutenberg. 6 April 2010. Seeley, Service & Co., 1919. Web. 24 August 2011.
Joyce, James. "Daniel Defoe." Buffalo Studies. Trans. & Ed. Joseph Prescott. Buffalo: State U of New York P, 1964. Print.
Keymer, Thomas. Introduction. Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel Defoe. New York: Oxford U P, 2007. vii-xxxix. Print.
Pancoast, Henry S. "Daniel Defoe." An Introduction to English Literature. 3rd ed. Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature. 6 May 2007. Henry Holt & Co., 1907. Web. 24 August 2011.
A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR
By Daniel Defoe
being observations or memorials
of the most remarkable occurrences,
as well public as private, which happened in
London during the last great visitation in 1665.
Written by a Citizen who continued
all the while in London.
Never made public before
It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard in ordinary discourse that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.
We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumours and reports of things, and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since. But such things as these were gathered from the letters of merchants and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that the Government had a true account of it, and several councils were held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was kept very private. Hence it was that this rumour died off again, and people began to forget it as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November or the beginning of December 1664 when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long Acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible, but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbourhood, the Secretaries of State got knowledge of it; and concerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they did; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly that they died of the plague. Whereupon it was given
