Colonial Writing and the New World, 1583–1671
Allegories of Desire

Looks at implications of colonialism for both English and Americans.

Thomas J. Scanlan (Author)

9780521643054, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 September 1999

264 pages, 11 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.54 kg

"a valuable book...Scanlan's Colonial Writings and the New World can provide useful starting ideas for various studies of colonialism." Early American Literture: Volume 36

Most scholars of Anglo-American colonial history have treated colonialism either as an exclusively American phenomenon or, conversely, as a European one. Colonial Writing and the New World 1583–1671 argues for a reading of the colonial period that attempts to render an account of both the European origins of colonial expansion and its specifically American consequences. The author offers an account of the simultaneous emergence of colonialism and nationalism during the early modern period, and of the role that English interactions with native populations played in attempts to articulate a coherent English identity. He draws on a wide variety of texts ranging from travel narratives and accounts of the colony in Virginia to sermons, conversion tracts and writings about the Algonquin language.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The allegorical structure of colonial desire
2. Fear and love: two versions of Protestant ambivalence
3. Forging the nation: the Irish problem
4. Preaching the nation: the sermon as promotion
5. Love and shame: Roger Williams and A Key into the Language of America
6. Fear and self-loathing: John Eliot's Indian Dialogues
Coda
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]