Literature, Travel, and Colonial Writing in the English Renaissance 1545-1625 by Andrew Hadfield (review)

Abstract

Reviews 800 Literature, Eravel, and Colonial Wrzting inthe English Renaissance I545-I625. ByANDREW HADFIELD. Oxford: Clarendon Press.I998. XiV + 305 PP£4°. Theimpact ofpostcolonial theory uponRenaissance literary studies hasbeen,as oneofitsmost notorious practitioners, HomiBhabha, would bepleased tolearn, deeply ambivalent. Whilst attempts tohistoricize travel, colonization, race, slavery, andemerging concepts ofimperial authority aretobewelcomed, theapplication of thetheoretical arguments ofcritics suchas Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, andEdward Saidtotheliterature ofthesixteenth andearly seventeenth centuries hasoften led toglaring anachronisms andimpositions ofconceptual models upontheliterature ofthe period that issimply unsustainable. It is therefore a great relief tofind that Andrew Hadfield's study ofLiterature, Eravel, and Colonial Writing inthe English Renaissance I545-I625 eschews this approach inoffiering a historically rigorous butalsotheoretically nuanced account ofthe rapid growth oftravel writing andtherepresentation ofoverseas territories andpeoples intheEnglish Renaissance. From theoutset Hadfield emphasizes thathisbook makes noattempt ata comprehensive survey ofEnglish travel writing. Hisargument israther, 'that much early modern travel writing andcolonial writirlg waswritten, inwholeorinpart, inorder toparticipate incurrent pressing debates aboutthe nature ofsociety' (p. I 2). Theseincluded 'the limitations ofthe existing constitution, themeans ofrepresenting thepopulace atlarge, therelative distribution ofpower within thebodypolitic, fearofforeign influences undermining English/British independence, theneedto combat thesuccess ofother rivalnations, religious toleration andpersecution, andthe protection ofindividual liberty' (p. I 2). With great analytical skill andprecision Hadfield teases these issues outofthe texts heproceeds toanalyse. Beginning with English travellers inEurope, Hadfield explores theriseofthegenre oftravel writing inearly-sixteenth-century England, arguing thatitsvery instability as a genre madeita particularly useful medium through which todebate, andoften critique, English political authority. Starting with ThomasStarkey's A Dialogue between PoleandLupset, which Hadfield seesas deploying themyth ofVenice as theperfect constitution 'as a stick with which to beat the comparatively flawedconstitution of the Englishmonarch' (p.22) Henry VIII,a similar line istraced through William Thomas's Historie of Italie, Lewis Lewkenor's translation ofContarini's 7heCommonwealth andGovernmentof Venice, Robert Dallington's TheView of France and,perhaps most controversially, Thomas Coryat's Crudities. Hadfield thengoeson toconsider English colonial literature, focusing primarily on Richard Eden'stranslation ofPeter Martyr's De Orbe JWovo Decades, published inEnglish in I555, Richard Hakluyt's 'Discourse ofWestern Planting', andThomasHariot's A Briefe andTrue Reporte ofthe J%ew Found Landof Virginia. ForHadfield, these texts offiered a spacetoreflect uponpolitical issues at home,as wellas theemerging ethics ofempire, a pointmadeperhaps most persuasively inhisdiscussion ofthe career ofEden.Moving ontothe representation oftravel inEnglish fiction, Hadfield traces theways inwhich suchdiverse texts as Painter's 7he Palace of Pleasure, Fenton's Certaine Tragicall Discourses, Lodge's Rosainde, Nashe's7heUnfortunate Eraveller andparadigmatically, Lyly's influential Euphues and his England, 'like somany sixteenth-century English literary texts, attempts tomould andfix a national identity and,inevitably, becomes entangled inthelogicofthat slippery problem' (p. I 80),particularly inrelation totheintense religious conflict of theperiod.Hadfield concludes witha discussion of the significance of the geographical and cultural locations ofa rangeofRenaissance plays, including Marlowe's IheMassacre atParis, Othello, and 171e Wempest. Marlowe's playisseenas 'perhaps lessanobviously Protestant polemic, orattack onsectarianism per se,than MLR,96.3,200I 80I an indictment ofthefailures ofa central manifestly unrepresentative ruling elite' (P. 2I2), readincloseproximity toMarlowe's unfinished translation ofLucan's Pharsalia. However, Othello israther lessconvincingly seenaspossessing 'a (ghostly) Irishcontext' (p.226),despite Hadfield's fascinating account ofthepresence of Ireland inElizabethan drama. Whatemerges from Hadfield's admirable bookistheways inwhich notions of 'home'werequestioned through literary representations of'abroad',and how TudorandStuart ideology 'wascontinually interrogated, challenged, andundermined bythemanifold writings ofthegrowing literate populace'(p.266).This approach offers persuasive newreadings offamiliar texts byNashe, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, whilst alsobringing more unfamiliar texts tothe fore, such asWilliam Baldwin's AMarvelous Hystoty Intitulede, Beware the Cat. Whilst Hadfield isatpainsto stress that hisapproach doesnotforeclose other accounts oftherepresentation of travel andcolonization intheliterature oftheperiod, thebookdoesprovoke the question ofhow, inthe process ofdefining national identity, texts such asOthello and Raleigh's Discoverze ofGuiana shapedsubsequent English discourses ofempire, slavery, andracism, andhowdifferent geographical locations affiected political reflection; didtheEnglish reachthesameconclusions when they travelled eastas they didwhentravelling westwards intotheNewWorld? Nevertheless, Literature, Eravel, andColonial Wr?ting inthe English Renaissance isa distinguished andimportant addition tothe critical debate ontravel andcolonization inthe early modern period. ROYAL HOLLOWAY, LONDON JERRY BROTTON 7he Arts of Empire. 7hePoetics ofColonialism from Ralegh to Milton. ByWALTER S. H. LIM. Cranbury, NJ:University of DelawarePress;London:Associated UniversityPresses. I998 275PP £35 Walter Lim'sstudy follows inthefootsteps ofsomehighly distinguished scholars whohavebeenconcerned toemphasize theoften neglected colonial andimperial dimensions...