The Romance of the New World: Gender and the Literary Formations of English Colonialism

by Joan Pong Linton

Overview

This book explores the lively interplay between popular romances and colonial narratives during a crucial period of English and colonial history. Joan Pong Linton argues that while the emergent romance figure of the husband embodies a new ideal of productive masculinity, colonial narratives, in putting this masculinity to the test, often contradict and raise doubts about the ideal. Study of these texts in the context of colonial experience reveals not just the "romance of empire" but also the impact of the New World on English identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521594578
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2006
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture , #27
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Love's laborers: the busy heroes of romance and empire; 2. Sea-knights and royal virgins: American gold and its discontents in lodge's A Margarite of America (1596); 3. Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: domestic and colonial narratives of English cloth and manhood; 4. Eros and science: the discourses of magical consumerism; 5. Gender, savagery, tobacco: marketplaces for consumption; 6. Inconstancy: coming to Indians through Troilus and Cressida; 7. The Tempest, 'rape', the art and smart of Virginian husbandry; Coda: the masks of Pocahontas; Notes; Works cited; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"The book delivers on both terms of the series title, Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, balancing attention to both 'literature' and 'culture' evenhandedly and meticulously throughout." Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England

"Linton finds original angles to produce fresh illumination." Shakespeare Quarterly

From the Publisher