Rifled Sanctuaries: Some Views of the Pacific Islands in Western Literature to 1900

Rifled Sanctuaries: Some Views of the Pacific Islands in Western Literature to 1900
ISBN-10
1775581438
ISBN-13
9781775581437
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
96
Language
English
Published
2013-11-01
Publisher
Auckland University Press
Author
Bill Pearson

Description

The Pacific Islands began to appear in Western literature soon after European navigators made landfall there. From the first, there was seldom a statement of plain facts. Explorers brought their own viewpoints while editors, poets and novelists went on to interpret and moralise the first accounts. Portraying Pacific peoples as sensual, indolent, childlike and &– frequently &– wicked, such stories implied the duty of Europeans to rule and of the natives to be grateful. Modified though it sometimes was by the more accepting attitudes of beachcombers, by the exploitative activities of traders, and throgh the romantic eyes of erotic novelists, this conception of Pacific Islanders persisted through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth.

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