Overview

The ideological roots of the British Empire have been widely discussed in early modern studies, as have maritime settings in the period's imaginative writing. However, these perspectives have not adequately accounted for how literature's evolving representations of the common British seaman shaped the early stages of public discourse about Britain's imperial endeavours. Filling that gap in scholarship, Ships of State argues that literary representations of seaborne labour play a distinct and crucial role in the early formation of British imperial attitudes. The book analyses these representations across an array of popular genres: New World promotion tracts, civic pageantry, stage drama, and broadside ballads. These genres demonstrate how imaginative modes of discourse both reflected and influenced popular conceptions of the common seaman and, by extension, the national ambitions he represented. Placing these depictions into dialogue with the larger national conversation about maritime expansion, Ships of State sheds new light on the role of seaborne labour and its literary representations in creating and sustaining empire.

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9781487529475

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Reviews

"""Ships of State is a gift to anyone interested in the cultural history of the early modern sea. In these meticulously researched and highly readable chapters, Ellinghausen offers a series of early modern nautical exhibits that frame the emergence of Britain as a nation-state and then as an empire. Readers will find the attentive discussions of maritime labourers in early modern literary culture (plays, tracts, pageants, broadsides) highly engaging. Seamen, scholars, professional mariners, and armchair navigators alike will appreciate the depth and nuance with which the author negotiates a host of topics central to the oceanic turn.""--Daniel Brayton, Julian W. Abernethy Professor of Literature, Middlebury College "" 'All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor, ' according to the jolly old naval song, but Laurie Ellinghausen's new study has much to tell us about why early modern men of the sea - from merchant, naval, and fishing vessels - are culturally important. Focusing on a period in British history of maritime and mercantile expansion, Ships of State reveals the seaman as a key figure through which writers imaginatively thought about, and hotly debated, the implications of these equally rapid and massive economic and social changes.""--Claire Jowitt, Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of East Anglia and author of The Culture of Piracy ""Ships of State draws attention to the multiplicity of genres in which figures of the seaman appeared in early modern English literature, broadly understood. Laurie Ellinghausen deftly brings together colonial propaganda, ballads, lord mayor's shows, and staged drama to exemplify the quite different ways that the labour of the seaman is represented at a time in which England's status as a colonial and naval power were still in formation. Scholars and students with interests in the history of literatures of labour, imperialism, oceanic travel, and ideological struggle will find much to ponder and fascinate in this book.""--Crystal Bartolovich, Associate Professor of English, Syracuse University"

Author Information

Laurie Ellinghausen is a professor of English at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

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