Daniel Defoe (1660-1731). He was born in London in a Puritan family He was educated at one of the best Dissenting Academies He changed a lot of jobs His.

Daniel Defoe(1660-1731)

• He was born in London in a Puritan family

• He was educated at one of the best

Dissenting Academies

• He changed a lot of jobs

• His political inclinations changed according

to hopes and achievements

Early Life and Education

• Robinson Crusoe, 1719

• Moll Flanders, 1722

• Captain Singleton, 1720

• A Journal of the Plague Year, 1722

• Memoirs of a Cavalier, 1724

The Novelist

• He wrote almost exclusively in prose

• Essays, pamphlets and travel books

• Articles for newspapers and magazines

• 1704 The Review

The Father of Modern Journalism

• It is the first English novel

• It has a first-person narrator

fake autobiography

• Places are described in detail

• Time is accounted for in a

precise manner

• Possible source A Cruising Voyage

Round the World

• Robinson is the celebration of the English mercantile hero

Robinson Crusoe

• He is the archetype of thecolonialist

• Robinson and Friday modern colonialism:

a. Name giving

b. European clothes

c. European language

d. New religion

e. Technical superiority

Robinson & Friday

• Robinson goes to sea despite his father’s advice

• During one of his trips he is shipwrecked on a desert island

• Gradually he manages to live a comfortable life

• He rescues Friday, the prisoner of a group of Indians

• The two live together on the island: Robinson is the master, Friday is

his servant

• Robison is rescued by a ship and sails back to England

The Story

• A fictitious autobiography

• She is the personification

of the modern woman

• The happy ending shows Defoe’s

didactic and moral concern

Moll Flanders

• An abandoned child, born in Newgate prison

• She realizes that to exploit her beauty and intelligence is the chance

to make her way in the world

• She marries several times

• She goes to jail and is sentenced to the penal colony of Virginia

• She becomes a rich and respectable woman

The Story