Literary Perils of Piracy: the Strange Case of Alexander Selkirk

Allison E. Francis

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Chapter 2 Literary Perils of Piracy: the Strange Case of Alexander Selkirk

In: Scottish Literature of the South Seas

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Allison E. Francis

Allison E. Francis
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 31–44

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004682177_004

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This chapter argues that Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish buccaneer who was marooned on the largest of the Juan Fernandez Islands, off the coast of Chile, was the progenitor to Daniel Defoe’s character, Robinson Crusoe. It explores the complications, or perils, of literary piracy (or adaptation), that occur when writers appropriate historical figures and real events. Selkirk’s story – real and fictional – fold neatly into later Scottish writing of both pirates and island adventures, most obviously those of Walter Scott, R. M. Ballantyne, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Also, using Crusoe as a primary cultural example, it briefly examines how the literary marketplace since the 18^th century pits together a fictional character and an historical figure, demanding the ascendancy of either literature or history through this strange case of a hotheaded, Scottish buccaneer marooned on the South Seas. As such, despite its English authorship, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe both feeds off, and feeds, a peculiarly Scottish cultural engagement with the Pacific, and Selkirk can be identified as the unwitting progenitor of this engagement.

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Scottish Literature of the South Seas

Critical Studies of Scotland and the Pacific

Series: SCROLL: Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature, Volume: 35 and SCROLL: Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature Online, Volume: 35

Cover Scottish Literature of the South Seas

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004682177

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 25 Dec 2024

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 2 Literary Perils of Piracy: the Strange Case of Alexander Selkirk

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Scottish Literature of the South Seas

Critical Studies of Scotland and the Pacific

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