Old worlds and new worlds : Renaissance voyages of discovery

Abstract

This study traces the ways in which the New World was incorporated by European - particularly English - fields of knowledge in the generations following Columbus's 'discovery' of America in 1492. Conceptualisations of America rapidly shifted from virtual incomprehension to a recognition and realisation of the continent's commercial potential. While English Western voyage narratives promoted the Protestant ethos of virtuous conversion, in practice, English commercial interests were determined to exploit American natural resources. Focusing on accounts of contemporary travel, exploration, and fantasy voyage narratives, the thesis charts the emergence of commercial competition between England and other European nation states for the possession of New World territories. Not all English writers, however, responded positively to these expansionist policies. Some writers - such as Phineas Fletcher and Joseph Hall - were concerned about the degenerative influence foreign contact had upon the English nation. Others - such as Richard Hakluyt, Andrew Marvel1, John Dryden and Thomas Sprat - confidently asserted the benifits of travel, trade and colonisation. Occupying an uneasy middle ground were a body of writers - including Sir Francis Bacon, Sir John Davies, John Donne, and John Milton - who debated the benefits of exploration and colonisation and formulated strategies to control their influence. As well as representing a view of 'England' within a concert of powers, voyage narratives voiced a variety of domestic issues. The idea of vnew worlds' captured the imagination of Renaissance writers. In England, the genre of the voyage narrative was a remarkably popular, diverse, and sophisticated literary form. This study demonstrates that Renaissance travel accounts were vehicles to express other social, political, religious, and cultural concerns. From Francis Bacon's empiricism to the proto-feminism of Margaret Cavendish, the thesis details the ways in which concepts of vnew worlds', literal and figurative, were important tropes which allowed English writers to explain, argue and disseminate their ideological positions. Indeed, by 1660, the voyage narrative had become one of the key discourses in which to address, with relative impunity from political repercussions, issues of the recent past.

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