Table Of ContentSHIPWRECK MODERNITY
This page intentionally left blank
Shipwreck Modernity
. . . .
Ecologies of Globalization, 1550– 1719
Steve Mentz
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Portions of chapter 1 were published as “God’s Storms: Shipwreck and the Meanings of Ocean in
Early Modern England and America,” in Shipwreck in Art and Literature: Images and Interpretations
from Antiquity to the Present Day, ed. Carl Thompson, 77–9 1 (London: Routledge, 2014); reprinted
by permission of Taylor and Francis Group, a division of Informa.
Portions of chapters 5 and 7 were published as “ ‘Making the Green One Red’: Dynamic Ecolo-
gies in Macbeth, Edward Barlow’s Journal, and Robinson Crusoe,” JEMCS 13, no. 3 (Summer 2013):
66– 83.
Portions of chapter 6 were published as “Donne at Sea: The Islands Voyage and Poetic Form,”
Forum for Modern Language Studies 49, no. 4 (2013): 355– 68.
Portions of chapter 7 were published as “Shipwreck,” in Inhuman Nature, ed. Jeffrey Jerome
Cohen, 1– 15 (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Punctum Books, 2014).
William Carlos Williams, “The Seafarer,” from The Collected Poems, Volume II: 1939–1 962 (New
York: New Directions Publishing, 1948). Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.
George Oppen, “Of Being Numerous,” from New Collected Poems (New York: New Directions
Publishing, 1968). Copyright 1968 by George Oppen. Reprinted by permission of New Directions
Publishing.
Copyright 2015 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2 520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mentz, Steve.
Shipwreck modernity: ecologies of globalization, 1550–1719 / Steve Mentz.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8166-9103-6 (hc)
ISBN 978-0-8166-9106-7 (pb)
1. Shipwrecks in literature. 2. Literature and society—History. 3. Ecology in literature.
4. Civilization, Modern, in literature. 5. Shipwreck survival in literature. I. Title.
PN56.S54M46 2015
809'.93355—dc23 2014049432
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Alinor, Ian, Olivia,
and the global ocean
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Two Prefaces
Theoretical Preface: Epochal Claims and the Age of Shipwreck ix
Narrative Preface: Ulysses and the Global Ecology xxiii
1. The Wet and the Dry: Shipwreck Hermeneutics 1
2. Angry Gods: Theologies of the Ocean 25
3. Isle of Tempests: Bermuda in the Early Modern Imagination 51
Interchapter: Pearls That Were His Eyes 75
4. Metis: Jeremy Roch 77
5. Metis: Edward Barlow 103
Interchapter: Philosopher at the Masthead 129
6. “We Split”: Sea Poetry and Maritime Crisis 131
7. Castaways: Surviving Disaster 161
Three Short Epilogues
The Bright Light of Shipwreck 177
The Bookfish 178
Seven Shipwrecked Ecological Truths 180
Acknowledgments 183
Notes 185
Index 215
This page intentionally left blank
Two Prefaces
This book about disaster starts with a theoretical preface
and a narrative preface.
Theory and story together assemble errancy into form. Theory
gazes down at catastrophe from above, rearranging chaos into order.
Story reassembles the broken pieces through the friction of proximity,
piling events upon events. This book’s response to disaster employs the
perspective of theory and the continuity of story.
If it were possible, I would ask you to read both prefaces at the same
time, combining theory and story. It takes the resources of both modes
to explain shipwreck’s global modernity. But since full simultaneity is
not possible, since reading of necessity involves the linear act of moving
forward from word to word and page to page, I offer these twin prefaces
as Pillars of Hercules framing the entrance into rough seas.
By way of invitation: nec plus ultra.
Theoretical Preface: Epochal Claims and the Age of Shipwreck
The big fish at which the theoretical preface gives up its spear is an eco-
logical theory of historical change. Shipwreck sits at the center of this
theory creating disorderly rupture. Crafting a flexible historical lan-
guage to make sense of continuity and change requires complex, un-
stable, semipredictable systems. I start with two mutually implicated
models for how historical systems alter: theft and composture. I em-
phasize the second but start with the first.
Theft characterizes the key transaction hidden inside familiar just- so
stories about historical breaks. These events are often imagined as pro-
ductive ruptures out of which some brand- new thing springs, armed
and ready for combat. My polemical description of “break history” as
theft recalls a long-l ived caricature of a modernity that gives birth to
itself by stealing from classical antiquity. This familiar story undergirds
· ix ·
