Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson : travel, narrative, and the colonial body / Oliver S. Buckton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Buckton, Oliver S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894--Criticism and interpretation.

Stevenson, Robert Louis.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894--Travel.

Travel in literature.

Colonies in literature.

Homosexuality in literature.

Men in literature.

South Pacific Ocean--In literature.

South Pacific Ocean.

Oceania--In literature.

Oceania.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (356 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, 2007.

Summary:

Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson: Travel, Narrative, and the Colonial Body is the first book-length study about the influence of travel on Robert Louis Stevenson's writings, both fiction and nonfiction. Within the contexts of late-Victorian imperialism and ethnographic discourse, the book offers original close readings of individual works by Stevenson while bringing new theoretical insights to bear on the relationship between travel, authorship, and gender identity. Oliver S. Buckton develops cruising as a critical term, linking Stevenson's leisurely mode of travel with the striking narrative motifs of disruption and fragmentation that characterize his writings. Buckton follows Stevenson's career from his early travel books to show how Stevenson's major works of fiction, such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Ebb-Tide, derive from the innovative techniques and materials Stevenson acquired on his global travels. nineteenth century, Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson highlights Stevenson's treatment of the human body as part of his resistance to realism, arguing that the energies and desires released by travel are often routed through resistant or comic corporeal figures. Buckton also focuses on Stevenson's writing about the South Seas, arguing that his groundbreaking critiques of European colonialism are formed in awareness of the fragility and desirability of Polynesian bodies and landscapes. Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson will be indispensable to all admirers of Stevenson as well as of great interest to readers of travel writing, Victorian ethnography, gender studies, and literary criticism.

Contents:

Reanimating Stevenson's corpus

The beast in the mountains: misusing the ass in Travels with a donkey

"Faithful to his map": profit, desire, and the ends of travel in Treasure Island

"Mr. Betwixt-and-between": history, travel, and narrative

Indeterminacy in Kidnapped

"A quarry of materials": the fictional history of Stevenson's South Seas cruises

"Buridan's donkey": the (para)texts of Samoan colonial history in David Balfour and A footnote to history

"The white man's quarrel": sexuality, travel, and colonialism in Stevenson's South Sea tales

"There's an end to it": disease and partnership in The ebb-tide.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-337) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Buckton, Oliver S. Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson

ISBN:

9780821442418

9780821442418 (electronic book)

OCLC:

608480418