Caught between Worlds: British Captivity Narratives in Fact and Fiction

by Joe Snader

Overview

The captivity narrative has always been a literary genre associated with America. Joe Snader argues, however, that captivity narratives emerged much earlier in Britain, coinciding with European colonial expansion, the development of anthropology, and the rise of liberal political thought. Stories of Europeans held captive in the Middle East, America, Africa, and Southeast Asia appeared in the British press from the late sixteenth through the late eighteenth centuries, and captivity narratives were frequently featured during the early development of the novel. Until the mid-eighteenth century, British examples of the genre outpaced their American cousins in length, frequency of publication, attention to anthropological detail, and subjective complexity. Using both new and canonical texts, Snader shows that foreign captivity was a favorite topic in eighteenth-century Britain. An adaptable and expansive genre, these narratives used set plots and stereotypes originating in Mediterranean power struggles and relocated in a variety of settings, particularly eastern lands. The narratives' rhetorical strategies and cultural assumptions often grew out of centuries of religious strife and coincided with Europe's early modern military ascendancy. Caught Between Worlds presents a broad, rich, and flexible definition of the captivity narrative, placing the American strain in its proper place within the tradition as a whole. Snader, having assembled the first bibliography of British captivity narratives, analyzes both factual texts and a large body of fictional works, revealing the ways they helped define British identity and challenged Britons to rethink the place of their nation in the larger world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813121642
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	07/27/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	viii
	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	1
Part 1	Narratives of Fact
1.	Travel, Travail, and the British Captivity Tradition	13
2.	The Captive as Hero	62
3.	The Perils and the Powers of Cultural Conversion	94
Part 2	Narratives of Fiction
4.	Mastering Captivity	127
5.	Resisting Americans in British Novels of American Captivity	172
6.	Utopian Captivities and other "African" Paradoxes	224
	Conclusion	270
	Notes	291
	Primary Bibliography	308
	Secondary Bibliography	320
	Index	329

Editorial Reviews

A fine companion to studies of Utopias, of American captivity narratives, of travel literature, and of eighteenth-century fiction in general.... Pleasingly well-written and organized.

Percy G. Adams

Seeks to place American captivity stories into a much broader context—that of an established culture getting knocked into a new perspective by contact with utter strangeness.

East-Central Intelligencer

A book about captivity narratives... showing that they are a genre with a much longer history than is commonly assumed by those who refer only to North American examples.

SEL (Studies in English Literature)

Snader makes a persuasive case that scholarship on American captivity narratives has suffered from a kind of tunnel-vision in looking too exclusively at material relating to North America.

Paul K. Alkon

Will be valuable for years to come to scholars working on life writing, colonial and post-colonial studies, and the history of transatlantic Anglophone literature.

Biography

A pioneering work in early-modern British and American studies.... The first extended study of the transatlantic relationship between the popular genres of the captivity narrative and the novel.

Vincent Carretta

His thought-provoking book will make a real contribution to the discussions of the captivity genre.

Choice

Should be valuable for years to come to scholars working on life-writing, travel writing, colonial and post-colonial studies, and the history of transatlantic Anglophone literature.

Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

Winner of the 2001 MLA Independent Scholars Prize.

From the Publisher

Shows that foreign captivity was a favorite topic in 18th-century Britain, and reveals that these narratives' rhetorical strategies and cultural assumptions often grew out of centuries of religious strife and coincided with Europe's early-modern military ascendancy.

Book News

Extremely well written.... Can truly claim to have brought the genre to light and to life.

Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Using both new and canonical texts, this study shows that foreign captivity was a favorite topic in 18th-century Britain, and reveals that these narratives' rhetorical strategies and cultural assumptions often grew out of centuries of religious strife and coincided with Europe's early-modern military ascendancy. Analyzes both factual texts and fictional works, revealing how they helped define British identity and challenged Britons to rethink the place of their nation in the larger world. The author is an independent scholar. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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