LITERATURE QUESTIONS
CULTURAL AND LITERARY (18TH 19TH) CENTURIES
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Where Oroonoko foregrounds supernatural agents, Robinson Crusoe avoids religion completely.
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Both are largely set in South America, reflecting the relationship between empire and the early English novel.
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Oroonoko seems to defend the aristocracy, where Robinson Crusoe elaborates the struggles of the middle class.
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Both make claims to historical veracity.
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Detailed explanation-1: -Robinson Crusoe masqueraded as a ‘true history’-‘history’ was the term used for such fiction until the word ‘novel’ came into use towards the end of the eighteenth century. Thus Robinson Crusoe was published to appear not as fiction, but as a chronicle of real events.
Detailed explanation-2: -Defoe was said to have based Robinson Crusoe on the real-life experiences of a Scottish privateer, Alexander Selkirk, on the island of Juan Fernández off the coast of Chile in the Pacific. In 1704 Selkirk asked to be dropped off on the island after a dispute with his ship’s captain.
Detailed explanation-3: -Robinson Crusoe, in fact, is usually recognized as the first English novel since this book breaks with the writing standards fixed by past literary tradition.
Detailed explanation-4: -Robinson Crusoe occupies an important place in literary history as the first English novel and the forerunner of the realist tradition continued by Fielding and Dickens. There had, of course, been works of fiction prior to 1719 but these were not novels as we would recognise them today.