Hakluyt, Richard. (ca 1552 - 1616).
L i f e
- an English geographer, scholar, lecturer of geography and cosmography at Christ Church College (Oxford), and promoter of the exploration of the New World
- an unofficial publicist for early British navigation
W o r k
Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America (1582):
- his first work, a result of his research
- dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589):
- his major work, a widely-read collection of travel writing showing the heroic spirit of colonisation
=> ‘the prose epic of the modern English nation’
- an account of the circumnavigation of Sir Francis Drake [= an English navigator, arrived on the Golden Hinde at today’s Drake's Bay, explored California, and called it ‘Nova Albion’]
- uses eye-witnesses as far as possible
Quote
"'O Fox, what have I deserved of thee that thou shouldest seek my death?' 'Thou villain', quoth Fox, 'hast been a bloodsucker of many a Christian's blood, and now thou shalt know what thou hast deserved at my hands', wherewith he lift up his bright shining sword of ten years' rust, and stroke him so main a blow, as therewithal his head clave asunder so that he fell stark dead to the ground".
From "The Worthy Enterprise of John Fox, an Englishman, in Delivering 266 Christians out of the Captivity of the Turks at Alexandria" in Voyager's Tales.
Basics
(Stained glass window in Bristol Cathedral: Charles Eamer Kempe. Source: Wikipedia).
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Author
Richard Hakluyt. (ca 1552 - 1616). British. -
Work
Explorer. Geographer. Unofficial publicist for British navigation. -
Genres
Travel writing. Adventurous writing.
Literature
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. London: Penguin, 1991.
Ruland, Richard, Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.
Vančura, Zdeněk, ed. Slovník spisovatelů: Spojené státy americké. Praha: Odeon, 1979.