Travel Narratives, the New Science, and Literary Discourse, 1569-1750

The focus of this volume is the intersection and the cross-fertilization between the travel narrative, literary discourse, and the New Philosophy in the early modern to early eighteenth-century historical periods. Contributors examine how, in an historical era which realized an emphasis on nation and during a time when exploration was laying the foundation for empire, science and the literary discourse of the travel narrative become intrinsically linked. Together, the essays in this collection point out the way in which travel narratives reflect the anxiety from changes brought about through the discoveries of the 'new knowledge' and the way this knowledge in turn provided a new and more complex understanding of the expanding world in which the writers lived. The worlds in this text are many (for no 'world' is monomial), from the antipodes to the New World, from the heavens to the seas, and from fictional worlds to the world which contains and/or constructs one's nation and empire. All of these essays demonstrate the manner in which the New Philosophy dramatically changed literary discourse.

Judy Hayden is Associate Professor of English and Chair of English and Writing at the University of Tampa. She has published extensively on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British literature.

Contents: Intersections and cross-fertilization, Judy A. Hayden; Part 1 Inquiry and Fact: Directing the Course of Knowledge: Inquiries, heads and directions: orienting early modern travel, Daniel Carey; Forming knowledge: natural philosophy and English travel writing, Julia Schleck; Geography and authority in the Royal Society's instructions for travelers, Jason H. Pearl. Part 2 New Science, New Worlds: Traditions of the monstrous in William Dampier's New Holland, Geraldine Barnes; Writing 'science fiction' in the shadow of war: bodily transgressions in Cavendish's Blazing World, Holly Faith Nelson and Sharon Alker; 'As far as a woman's reasoning may go': Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, and the new science, Judy A. Hayden; Roger Phequewell, colonial man of science: re-reading imperial fantasy in Merryland, Marcia Nichols. Part 3 Charting Knowledge, Mapping Encounters: Telescopic voyages: Galileo and the invention of lunar cartography, Howard Marchitello; Defoe the geographer: redefining the wonderful in A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, Jesse Edwards. Part 4 The Curiosity of Travel: Spectating science in the early modern collection, Barbara M. Benedict; Selected works cited; Index.