Ships of State: Literature and the Seaman’s Labour in Proto-Imperial Britain
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- Synopsis
- The ideological roots of the British Empire have been widely discussed in early modern studies, as have maritime settings in the period’s imaginative writing. However, these perspectives have not adequately accounted for how literature’s evolving representations of the common British seaman shaped the early stages of public discourse about Britain’s imperial endeavours. Filling that gap in scholarship, Ships of State argues that literary representations of seaborne labour play a distinct and crucial role in the early formation of British imperial attitudes. The book analyses these representations across an array of popular genres: New World promotion tracts, civic pageantry, stage drama, and broadside ballads. These genres demonstrate how imaginative modes of discourse both reflected and influenced popular conceptions of the common seaman and, by extension, the national ambitions he represented. Placing these depictions into dialogue with the larger national conversation about maritime expansion, Ships of State sheds new light on the role of seaborne labour and its literary representations in creating and sustaining empire.
- Copyright:
- 2024
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781487529499
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781487529475, 9781487529482
- Publisher:
- University of Toronto Press
- Date of Addition:
- 03/06/24
- Copyrighted By:
- University of Toronto Press
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- History, Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
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