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Of the admirable case of a Venetian sailor who was marooned on an island for two years, and of another Genoese marooned for eight years; and how these two and other castaways came together on an island; and how finally only the Venetian and the Genoese remained; and how later God brought them out of that tribulation. [358]

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo

in Misfortunes and Shipwrecks in the Seas of the Indies, Islands, and Mainland of the Ocean Sea (1513–1548): Book Fifty of the 'General and Natural History of the Indies'

This chapter describes the admirable case of a sailor from Venice who was marooned on an island for two years, and of another Genoese marooned for eight years. It indicates how these two and other ... More

This chapter describes the admirable case of a sailor from Venice who was marooned on an island for two years, and of another Genoese marooned for eight years. It indicates how these two and other castaways came together on an island; and how finally only the Venetian and the Genoese remained; and how later God brought them out of that tribulation.Less

Introduction: Desert Island Discs in context

Julie Brown, Nicholas Cook, and Stephen Cottrell

Julie Brown, Nicholas Cook, and Stephen Cottrell (eds)

in Defining the Discographic Self: Desert Island Discs in Context

This chapter provides an overview of the long-standing and highly popular British radio programme Desert Island Discs (DID). It sets out the historical contexts in which the programme was established ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the long-standing and highly popular British radio programme Desert Island Discs (DID). It sets out the historical contexts in which the programme was established and developed, and interrogates both its changing format and the meanings and values that have been associated with DID over time. Developments in the production process are also assessed, including the impact of various presenters and the selection of castaways, as well as the programme’s place in broader media culture and its relationship to particular national identities. Finally, it considers the potential value of DID to the world of scholarship, particularly following the establishment in 2011 of the programme’s online archive, and the contribution of chapter authors to the realisation of that potential.Less

Writing Congress: The Appeal of C. L. R. James’s American Studies

James Zeigler

in Red Scare Racism and Cold War Black Radicalism

This chapter examines Marxist C.L.R. James’s writings on Melville with a focus on the book he composed while detained on Ellis Island under the McCarran-Walter Act’s classification of alien ... More

This chapter examines Marxist C.L.R. James’s writings on Melville with a focus on the book he composed while detained on Ellis Island under the McCarran-Walter Act’s classification of alien subversives. Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways is James’s unorthodox petition for citizenship: a demonstration of his U.S. cultural literary through an expert rendering of American literature that also conveys his critique of the anticommunist ethos of American nationalism during the Cold War. The chapter addresses the controversy surrounding the conclusion of Mariners, in which James shifts from literary criticism to an autobiography of his detention. New insight into the debate over whether the prison memoir lapses into Red-baiting follows from interpretations of an overlooked letter James wrote to George Padmore in defense of Mariners, the autobiographical conclusion’s unexpectedly positive representation of classic liberalism, and the quite different reading of Moby-Dick in James’s earlier, unfinished manuscript “Notes on American Civilization.”Less

The Height of the Verne Cycle, 1960–1962

Brain Taves

in Hollywood Presents Jules Verne: The Father of Science Fiction on Screen

The peak year of the Verne cycle was 1961, when four Hollywood Verne movies were released as well as several imports, along with television originals; never again would so many adaptations be ... More

The peak year of the Verne cycle was 1961, when four Hollywood Verne movies were released as well as several imports, along with television originals; never again would so many adaptations be produced in such rapid order. Verne filmmaking was about to move beyond spectacle and entertainment for the whole family to aim at younger filmgoers drawn by modestly budgeted but no less inventive science fiction; as one producer commented, Verne was as important a name as the biggest stars of the day. Some of these films, most notably Ray Harryhausen’s new version of The Mysterious Island, incorporated monsters reminiscent of those in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), while themes echoed Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. This was apparent not only in the return of Captain Nemo in Mysterious Island but also especially in Master of the World, based on two Verne novels and scripted by science fiction writer Richard Matheson to transform the novels’ vague global threat into a highly topical disquisition on pacifism.Less

Robert Browning, Augusta Webster and the Role of Morality

Patrick Fessenbecker

in Reading Ideas in Victorian Literature: Literary Content as Artistic Experience

It has sometimes been asserted that a refusal of straightforward communication is definitive of literature as such, or at least definitive of poetry. Such a definition is however not neutral; it ... More

It has sometimes been asserted that a refusal of straightforward communication is definitive of literature as such, or at least definitive of poetry. Such a definition is however not neutral; it reflects instead a preference for certain poets and poetic styles over others. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues have occasionally been presented as his greatest poetic achievement, highlighting the ironic distancing supposedly central to poetics. However, a look at Augusta Webster’s contemporaneous dramatic monologues reveals that Browning’s irony does not define the genre: Webster uses the form not to create distance between the speaker and the reader but to highlight the intellectual problem she is addressing. Looking at how both poets addressed the role of morality in human life, the chapter contends Webster’s poetry demonstrates that many poetic traditions have emphasized content just as much as form.Less

Time Measurement on the Ground in Kaga Domain

Yulia Frumer

in Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan

Chapter 6 demonstrates how ideas about time measurement that originated in astronomical practice and spread in early nineteenth century Japanese society through surveying and navigation manifested in ... More

Chapter 6 demonstrates how ideas about time measurement that originated in astronomical practice and spread in early nineteenth century Japanese society through surveying and navigation manifested in individuals’ perceptions of time. The chapter does so by focusing on the work of one individual—Endō Takanori. Takanori was born into a high-ranking samurai family, in line to become an infrastructure minister of the Kaga domain, which roughly overlaps with present-day Kanazawa. In preparation for his vocation, he studied astronomy and surveying, and indirectly learned from another Kaga-born scholar: Honda Toshiaki. Takanori absorbed the notion of time as rooted in celestial motion and geographic location, and concluded that human measurement of time had to correspond with physical reality. Later in life he became interested in Western drawing methods and developed an aesthetic theory, according to which Western-style depiction offered a superior representation of physical reality because it was based on the same principles as astronomy and surveying. And finally, his interrogation of castaways who brought him a Russian clock led him to contemplate Japan’s place on the global map.Less