The classic English novel Robinson Crusoe was published by Daniel Defoe 290 years ago on April 25, 1719. While not the first English novel, it has certainly been one of the most influential in all of literature.
The protagonist is thought to have been named for Defoe's friend, Puritan Timothy Cruso. The story is also thought by many to be a fictional rendering of a shipwreck account concerning Alexander Selkirk (of whom William Cowper famously wrote, "I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute," in The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk), although Tim Severin argues convincingly that the real model for Crusoe was a castaway named Henry Pitman (In Search of Robinson Crusoe). Robert Knox is another candidate for the honors, and Severin has proposed that a Miskito Indian named Will may have served as the model for Crusoe's Man Friday. There is also controversy over the location of the island on which Crusoe was said to be marooned. These make for fascinating historical questions which continue to be discussed centuries after Defoe lived and wrote. The island is key to the story, of course, but the novel actually spans the whole globe. Crusoe spends 28 years on the island but the entire adventure recounted by Defoe spans a period of time from 1651 to 1705. The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, to which is added a map of his voyages, covers, geographically, England, Crusoe's island, Brazil, Madagascar, a great deal of southeast Asia, and even Siberia and eastern Europe.
Delving into the history and geography of the book is a worthy exercise, but I especially commend the spiritual aspects of this novel. It is the story of a prodigal son, and the spiritual lessons learned are meant to be of profit to the reader. Defoe was a devout Presbyterian, and the book is filled with themes of Providence, human nature, sin, redemption and the like, and the Bible and Christian Sabbath are given much weight -- in the unabridged editions. If it has been a while since you read this story, or if you read an abridged version, consider taking up this novel once again, or perhaps for the first time. You will not be disappointed -- although written 290 years ago, it is a timeless classic.
Showing posts with label Timothy Cruso. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Timothy Cruso. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Puritan Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe, English writer and jack-of-all trades, is known primarily today for being the author Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders and A Journal of the Plague Year, among other literary works. Students of church history and/or literary history may be interested to learn that he was a Puritan, or Dissenter, and that his life and writings intersected with many other Puritans.
He was born into a Nonconformist Presbyterian family and remained a Presbyterian throughout his life. His Presbyterian convictions permeate the whole of his body of literary works.
He was taught as a young man by Puritan Charles Morton, head of an academy for Dissenters at Newington (later vice-President of Harvard University), who was among the signatories of the 1673 Puritan Preface to the Scottish Metrical Psalter.
Defoe wrote the preface to Baptist Dissenter Thomas Delaune's Plea for the Nonconformists. Delaune served time at Newgate Prison where he and, as Defoe notes, his fellow-prisoner, William Jenkyn, noted Puritan minister and biblical expositor, died. Jenkyn was also a signer of the 1673 Puritan Preface to the Scottish Metrical Psalter.
Defoe's lifelong friend was the Puritan Timothy Cruso who, like Defoe, wrote religious guide books. It is believed that he named the protagonist in Robinson Crusoe after him.
He was the author of Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, which is in large measure a tribute to the Protestant martyrs and Scottish Covenanters who suffered religious persecution by the British Crown and Anglican Church.
Anonymously, he wrote The Shortest Way With Dissenters, a masterpiece of satire calling for the Anglican authorities to deal harshly with Dissenters and in so doing making a laughingstock of them. Ironically, he was arrested and pilloried for this, and then served time at the same aforementioned Newgate Prison.
Charles Drelincourt, French Huguenot, wrote Consolations de l'âme fidèle contre les frayeurs de la mort (Christians Defense against the Fears of Death). Defoe later wrote A True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal, who came from the other world to recommend the perusal of Drelincourt on death, it is said, for the express purpose of promoting the sale of an English translation of the Consolations.
There was a bit of controversy between Defoe and Presbyterian Puritan John Howe over the subject of Occasional Conformity, Defoe's tract against the practice of requiring a measure of religious conformity to the Anglican Church on the part of officeholders. The two men addressed the issue from different angles and it was a lamentable controversy.
Defoe is buried at Bunhill Fields, the Dissenters' Cemetery, where other noted Puritans such as John Owen and John Bunyan, are likewise interred.
He was born into a Nonconformist Presbyterian family and remained a Presbyterian throughout his life. His Presbyterian convictions permeate the whole of his body of literary works.
He was taught as a young man by Puritan Charles Morton, head of an academy for Dissenters at Newington (later vice-President of Harvard University), who was among the signatories of the 1673 Puritan Preface to the Scottish Metrical Psalter.
Defoe wrote the preface to Baptist Dissenter Thomas Delaune's Plea for the Nonconformists. Delaune served time at Newgate Prison where he and, as Defoe notes, his fellow-prisoner, William Jenkyn, noted Puritan minister and biblical expositor, died. Jenkyn was also a signer of the 1673 Puritan Preface to the Scottish Metrical Psalter.
Defoe's lifelong friend was the Puritan Timothy Cruso who, like Defoe, wrote religious guide books. It is believed that he named the protagonist in Robinson Crusoe after him.
He was the author of Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, which is in large measure a tribute to the Protestant martyrs and Scottish Covenanters who suffered religious persecution by the British Crown and Anglican Church.
Anonymously, he wrote The Shortest Way With Dissenters, a masterpiece of satire calling for the Anglican authorities to deal harshly with Dissenters and in so doing making a laughingstock of them. Ironically, he was arrested and pilloried for this, and then served time at the same aforementioned Newgate Prison.
Charles Drelincourt, French Huguenot, wrote Consolations de l'âme fidèle contre les frayeurs de la mort (Christians Defense against the Fears of Death). Defoe later wrote A True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal, who came from the other world to recommend the perusal of Drelincourt on death, it is said, for the express purpose of promoting the sale of an English translation of the Consolations.
There was a bit of controversy between Defoe and Presbyterian Puritan John Howe over the subject of Occasional Conformity, Defoe's tract against the practice of requiring a measure of religious conformity to the Anglican Church on the part of officeholders. The two men addressed the issue from different angles and it was a lamentable controversy.
Defoe is buried at Bunhill Fields, the Dissenters' Cemetery, where other noted Puritans such as John Owen and John Bunyan, are likewise interred.
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