Land-Seizing Language: Rhetoric's Claim to Territory in English Writing of the New World
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Date
2016-06
Authors
Weaver, Erin
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
England sent its first party of settlers to New World Virginia in 1585, but it
wasn't until 1607 that the budding empire founded Jamestown - the first lasting colony
on the continent, following 22 years of failure to occupy the territory. In absence of
physical ownership of the land, how to do the narratives that emerge out of the New
World during this period attempt to assert a rhetorical claim to it? To answer this
question, this thesis analyzes the writing of New World authors Smith, White, Lane,
and Harlot. I've investigated the existence of the following through close reading
analysis in order to pinpoint rhetorical strategies that assert possession: a) the binding of
space in the New World into definable place through the theory of space and place and
the practice of"narrational cartography''; b) Edenic tropes to assert a God-given right to
cultivate the landscape and mark it as claimed, as explored in ecocritical theory; c)
syntactical structures that infantilize native improvements and project English structures
(or signs of ownership) onto the land. In combining the studies of travel writing's
rhetoric and language's ability to bound space, this thesis will discern ways in which
English colonists are able to claim the territory solely through their use of narrative.
Description
50 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of English and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2016.
Keywords
English, Literature, Travel writing, Pre-modernism, John Smith, Claim, Rhetoric, Colonialism