The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics PDF
Preview The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi The Aesthetics of Island Space OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi ElaineTreharne GregWalker OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi The Aesthetics of Island Space Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics JOHANNES RIQUET 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©JohannesRiquet Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin Impression: Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber: ISBN ––––(hpk.) 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ThisworkwasoriginallyacceptedasaPhDthesisbytheFacultyofArtsandSocialSciences, UniversityofZurichintheautumnsemesterontherecommendationoftheDoctoralCommittee consistingofElisabethBronfen(mainsupervisor)andChristinaLjungberg OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi Tomyparents,GillesandJulianeRiquet, fortheirendlesssupport OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi PREFACE ‘Ready,IthinkIseesomething,butIcanhardlytellwhatitis;itappears tobeintheair,andyetitisnotclouds....’ ‘You’reright,sir’,repliedReady,‘thereissomething;itisnottheland whichyousee,butitisthetreesuponthelandwhicharereflected, as theycallit,soastoappear,asyousay,asiftheywereintheair.Thatis anisland,sir,dependuponit....’(Marryat,) After the wreck of the Pacific in Frederick Marryat’s island novel Masterman Ready (), the Seagrave family are desperately hoping ‘to gain some island’ (); their expectations are shaped by popular castaway narratives like Robinson Crusoe, which is discussed on deck shortly before the shipwreck. Their hopes are soon gratified: after its entirelyimaginaryappearanceinthecastaways’desires,theislandfirst emerges as an uncertain visual phenomenon on the horizon. Looking neither like solid land nor like insubstantial clouds, it refuses to be classified. Ready’s convoluted syntax reinforces the visual confusion expressed by Mr. Seagrave; the delayed declarative ‘That is an island, sir’sitsuneasilywiththecomplicatedexplanationprecedingit. This example from Masterman Ready is one of countless fictional and non-fictional descriptions of islands marked by perceptual, geo- graphical,andlinguisticuncertaintyanddisorientation.Inmanyways, agrowingfascinationwiththeseuncertaintieswasthestartingpointfor this book. When I began this project, I was strongly influenced by a traditionofscholarshipthatviewedliteraryislands—especiallyliterary islands from the English-speaking world—as supreme figures of boundedspaceandthefictionsofmodernindividualism,nationalism, and colonialism that accompanied it. These valuable analyses alerted me to the ongoing importance of islands in the Western imagination, andtotheideologicalfunctionstheyhaveserved.ButIhavegradually come tounderstandthat British andAmerican island narratives chal- lengetheseideologiesasfrequentlyastheyconsolidatethem,andthat theymobilizeanddestabilizespaceasmuchastheyrenderitstaticand controllable.ItisthisneglectedstoryofislandsthatIwishtotellinthis book,whichaimstoreconsiderthecentralroleislandshaveplayedin OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi viii | rethinkingspacesincethe‘insularmoment’(Conley,–)of earlymodernity. The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics dis- cusses islands as central figures in the modern experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in literary texts, journals of explorers and scientists, and Hollywood cinema. It differs from and complements accounts of fictional islands as tropes for enclosed, autonomous, and static spaces by tracing the ways in which literary and cinematic islands have functioned as malleable spatial figures of geo(morpho)logical instability and poetic production. In different ways,theislandnarrativesexaminedinthisstudygenerateperceptual struggles and mental cartographies, and stage aesthetic experiences of space that take their protagonists and readers to the limits of human perception.Inadditiontorethinkingislandfiction,then,thisbookisa contributiontorecenttheoreticalapproachestospacethatexplorethe intersection of lived experience, perception, culture, and physical geography. The works examined span several centuries, ranging from early modern texts to contemporary representations. Each chapter is atten- tive to the ways in which different conceptualizations of islands have travelled through time as well as space. Terrence Malick’s The New World offers a representative example of this textual wandering of islands. At the beginning of the extended version, we see a quotation from John Smith’s A Description of New England (): ‘Howmuchtheyerr,/thatthinkeveryonewhichhasbeenatVirginia/ understandsorknowswhatVirginiais.’AswehearPocahontasinvok- ingthespiritoftheland,thecameraseemstomoveforwardintoapart ofthewaterlitteredwithfloraldebrisfromthetrees,creatinganimage ofarrival.However,theunchangingreflectionofthetreesrevealsthat themovementisillusory,andthatthewaterisactuallymovingtowards thecamera.WethenseethecameramovingoveramapbyJohnWhite, engraved by Theodor de Bry (‘The Arriual of the Englishemen in Virginia’, ), approaching an island (FigureP.). Before the shot fadesout,agroupoftreesreminiscentofthosereflectedinthewateris superimposed on the map. Like the John Smith quote, which is ‘extractedfromitscontext’inapassagewhereSmithisreally‘venting his frustration about amateurish map-makers’(Nicol par. ), the map has been tampered with. In the original engraving (which appears, in OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,2/12/2019,SPi | ix . StillfromTheNewWorld(TerrenceMalick,USA/UK) fact,oneminutelaterinthefilm),severalhalf-sunkshipsarevisiblein front of the islands of the Outer Banks, with two large ships sailing towards them (see Chapter, Figure.). In the version shown in the film, no sinking ships are visible, but one of the larger ships has been movedandappears(back-to-front)veryclosetotheisland,inthesame positionasoneoftheshipwrecksontheoriginalmap. The Smith quotation, the forward movement of the water, and the map jointly create an image of hopeful landfall. The superimposition of trees on the map and the seemingly repeated camera movement (acrossthewater,overthemap)constructamultilayeredislandarrival betweentext,image,andmaterialspace.Butthemanipulationsoftext and map as well as the trompe l’oeil-shot also point to shipwrecks, frustratedhopes,andarrestedmovementattheislandgatewaysofthe New World. In this, Malick’s film repeats the rhetorical operations at work in many of the texts written by the early colonizers. It also conflates various island beginnings: although it recounts the early history of Jamestown, the map shows the islands in front of Roanoke Island,thesiteofEngland’sfirst,failedcolonialexperimentsinAmer- ica.Mostimportantly,Malick’sfilmdemonstratesthecontinuedafter- lifeofearlierislandrepresentations;indeed,theremediationofwritten texts,maps,anddrawingsinitsfirstminutespointstotheintersection of these texts in the cultural imaginary, spanning the period and the rangeoftexttypescoveredinthisbook. * * *
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