Daniel Defoe and His Novel Robinson Crusoe

As time passed, Crusoe became a skilled craftsman, able to construct many useful things, and thus furnished himself with diverse comforts. He also learned about farming, as a result of some seeds which he brought with him. An illness prompted some prophetic dreams, and Crusoe began to reappraise his duty to God. Crusoe explored his island and discovered another part of the island much richer and more fertile, and he built a summer home there.

One of the first tasks he undertook was to build himself a canoe in case an escape became possible, but the canoe was too heavy to get to the water. He then constructed a small boat and journeyed around the island. Crusoe reflected on his earlier, wicked life, disobeying his parents, and wondered if it might be related to his isolation on this island.

After spending about fifteen years on the island, Crusoe found a man's naked footprint, and he was sorely beset by apprehensions, which kept him awake many nights. He considered many possibilities to account for the footprint and he began to take extra precautions against a possible intruder. Sometime later, Crusoe was horrified to find human bones scattered about the shore, evidently the remains of a savage feast. He was plagued again with new fears. He explored the nature of cannibalism and debated his right to interfere with the customs of another race.

Crusoe was cautious for several years, but encountered nothing more to alarm him. He found a cave, which he used as a storage room, and in December of the same year, he spied cannibals sitting around a campfire. He did not see them again for quite some time.

Later, Crusoe saw a ship in distress, but everyone was already drowned on the ship and Crusoe remained companionless. However, he was able to take many provisions from this newly wrecked ship. Sometime later, cannibals landed on the island and a victim escaped. Crusoe saved his life, named him Friday, and taught him English. Friday soon became Crusoe's humble and devoted slave.

Crusoe and Friday made plans to leave the island and, accordingly, they built another boat. Crusoe also undertook Friday's religious education, converting the savage into a Protestant. Their voyage was postponed due to the return of the savages. This time it was necessary to attack the cannibals in order to save two prisoners since one was a white man. The white man was a Spaniard and the other was Friday's father. Later the four of them planned a voyage to the mainland to rescue sixteen compatriots of the Spaniard. First, however, they built up their food supply to assure enough food for the extra people. Crusoe and Friday agreed to wait on the island while the Spaniard and Friday's father brought back the other men. Daniel Defoe in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature.txt pp.3-7

A week later, they spied a ship but they quickly learned that there had been a mutiny on board. By devious means, Crusoe and Friday rescued the captain and two other men, and after much scheming, regained control of the ship. The grateful captain gave Crusoe many gifts and took him and Friday back to England. Some of the rebel crewmen were left marooned on the island.

Crusoe returned to England and found that in his absence he had become a wealthy man. After going to Lisbon to handle some of his affairs, Crusoe began an overland journey back to England. Crusoe and his company encountered many hardships in crossing the mountains, but they finally arrived safely in England. Crusoe sold his plantation in Brazil for a good price, married, and had three children. Finally, however, he was persuaded to go on yet another voyage, and he visited his old island, where there were promises of new adventures to be found in a later account.

Some words about the translation of the novel

Many sides of his worldview can be found in his Diary. The except of if we shall try to analyze. And this put me in mind that I wanted many things, not with standing all that I had amassed together, and of this ink was one, as also spade pickaxe, and shovel, to dies or remove the earth, needless, pins and thread, as for liner I soon learned to want “These lines are translated into Russian by M. A. Shishmoreva thus.

Conclusion

Robinson Crusoe, the narrator of the story, tells us that he was born in 1632 in the city of York, England. His father, a German immigrant, married a woman whose name was Robinson, and his real name was Robinson Kreutznaer, but due to the natural corruption of languages, the family now writes their name "Crusoe." He was the third son; his oldest brother was killed in a war, and the next son simply disappeared.

When Robinson Crusoe first had an urge to go to sea, his father lectured him upon the importance of staying home and being content with his "middle station" in life. His father maintained that the "middle station had the fewest disasters and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind." After his father expressly forbade him to go to sea, and, furthermore, promised to do good things for him if he stayed home, for another whole year, Robinson Crusoe stayed at home, but he constantly thought of adventures upon the high sea. He tried to enlist the aid of his mother, pointing out that he was now eighteen years old and if he did not like the sea, he could work diligently and make up for the time he might lose while at sea. She refused to help him, even though she did report his strong feelings to her husband.

When Robinson was nineteen, on the first of September, in 1651, he joined a friend on a ship bound for London, without consulting either his father or mother. Almost immediately, "the wind began to blow, and the sea to rise in a most frightful manner." Robinson Crusoe, who had never been to sea before, saw this as a sign that he was justly "overtaken by the judgment of Heaven" for his wicked leaving of his father's house without letting anyone know. He was so frightened that he made the promise: "If it would please God here to spare my life in this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived." The wind soon abated, and the next morning the sea was so calm and so beautiful that he entirely forgot the vows and promises that he had made in his distress, and joined the other sailors in a drinking bout.

As they neared a place called Yarmouth Roads, the winds ceased to blow and thus they were stilled for eight days, and when the winds did begin to blow, the ship immediately encountered a storm much more violent than the earlier one. Even the most experienced sailors were down on their knees praying. The storm continued with such fury that the seamen acknowledged that they had never known a worse one.

When the boat sprung a leak, Robinson was ordered below to help pump the water. It soon became apparent that they would not be able to save the ship and the captain fired several volleys of distress signals. A lighter ship in the vicinity made it up to their ship and was able to take the crew away from the sinking ship, which foundered soon after they left.

The crew finally got to shore, where Robinson Crusoe met his friend's father, who owned the ship. When the captain heard Robinson Crusoe's story, he felt strongly that it was the "hand of Providence" instructing Robinson Crusoe never to go to sea any more. He told the young man: "You ought to take this for a plain and visible token that you are not to be a seafaring man." He even wondered if he had done something wrong that such a person as Robinson Crusoe should "come onto his ship," and he warned Crusoe again that "you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments" if he did not go back to his father's house.

The impetus for the idea for Robinson Crusoe came to Defoe from his reading of the account of a man named Alexander Selkirk who, in a fit of anger, had himself put ashore on a deserted island. Earlier, Selkirk had gotten into a fight with a fellow crewman and had himself and his effects put ashore on an island outside of Chili. When he realized the effect of his actions, he pleaded with his shipmates to come back for him, but it was too late. He was marooned on the island for four and a half years. When he was later rescued, the report states that he could hardly speak any more, but he did apparently quickly regain his speech.

The account of Alexander Selkirk was published widely throughout England; he was the subject of an article by Richard Steele in the Englishman, and an account of his adventures appeared in many other papers. Consequently, Defoe was quite familiar with Selkirk's adventures, and some biographers maintain that Defoe interviewed Selkirk personally, but this is debatable.

Many of Selkirk's activities on his island are paralleled by Robinson Crusoe on his island; for example, Selkirk fed on turnips, fish, and goat's meat; he became overrun with cats, and he had to use his ingenuity to survive, all reflected in Defoe's novel. In addition, Alexander Selkirk's original name had been Alexander Sclera, just as Robinson Crusoe's real name had been Robinson Kreutznaer.

A clue to one of the basic ideas of the novel is given in the first chapter, when Crusoe's father admonished his son to stay "in the middle station" of life--this station being the one which "had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind." Crusoe's pride would not allow him to remain in this "middle station." So Crusoe, like the protagonists in many Greek myths and dramas, suffers from the sin of hubris and is accordingly punished. Often during his confinement on the island, Crusoe is reminded of his father's advice and rues his own impulsiveness. Furthermore, the father's pronouncement that his "boy might be happy if he would stay at home, but if he goes abroad, he will be the most miserable wretch that was ever born" becomes a prophetic statement which foreshadows Crusoe's later predicament.

The father's prediction comes true sooner than even Crusoe could expect. His first boat founders and Crusoe makes solemn vows in a time of trouble, but as soon as the trouble is over, he forgets his vows. Thus, we have his first reneging on his word to God. Throughout the rest of the novel, he will constantly contemplate his relationship with God and how much God is punishing him for his "wicked ways."

Literature is the second part of a language study. It was always included in studying any foreign languages. Teaching literature is very difficult process, not simultaneous in its structure and it requires the set of literary sources, which would be mostly appropriate to better understanding of the language studied. That is why modern teachers should not only teach grammar and oral practice materials, but also pay attention to learning the best examples of the literary works created by the best representatives of the foreign language bearers, beginning from the classical authors, and continuing to the modern writers and poets.

When speaking about the English language and literature we also take into consideration all the trends featuring England for the whole period of written language existence, beginning from “Beowulf” and not finishing by someone. That is we must take into consideration the historic aspect when studying English.

Without knowing the history of the language, without perfect knowledge all the major milestones in development of the English literature, the teacher will not be able to prove his students the majesty and beauty of the language studied. Frankly speaking, if we ask foreign learners of English, whom do they know amongst the most significant English poets and writers, the most obvious answer will be: Shakespeare, Wilde, and Defoe. Of course, as literary Greek is the language of Homer, Spanish is the language of Cervantes; German is that of Goethe, Russian is that of Pushkin, the English language is the language of William Shakespeare. So we are sure that even the worst graded student of English will undoubtedly name Shakespeare as the best language bearer of English, together with naming some of the most popular of his works, like “Romeo and Juliet”, “Hamlet”, and “Midsummer Night's dream”. But, nevertheless, the English literature is not Shakespeare only, (though the English literature without Shakespeare is not the English literature as well), the English language is also the language of Chaucer, Byron, Swift, Stevenson, and many others. That is why we think of the general characteristics and analysis of the way the English literature has passed in its development, and of educational value of the latter as the major task of this chapter.

Studying English literature and acquaintance with it begins with the appearance of the first modern languages. Without getting acquaintance the students with this period of development of English a teacher will not be able to demonstrate from what sources the English words which we are learning nowadays have appeared. The teacher as a “Dawn of Modern English” should characterize this period of time. The studied period in teaching process must be observed through the history of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic languages. Here a teacher is recommended to devote one language to the first Anglo-Saxon epic “Beowulf” (700's) - the elegiac history of the last hero of a dying Germanic people. A brief revision of the later epics is also strongly recommended: “Dream of the Rood”, Widsith” (the oldest Anglo-Saxon fragment), “Deor”, the “Wanderer”, and “Seafarer”. The educational aspect of this period concludes the idea of the first written sources of the literature of the British Isles. Teacher should also underline that the peculiarity of this literature is that it has no concrete author: all this epic novels are of collected folk authorship, based on the life experience of the people and the aural retelling from fathers to sons.

The next literary milestone of English, which must be observed and taught by teachers, is the period of 1300's - the period of rediscovering of the English literature from its Norman influence. Teacher should underline for his students that the language of this period was far cry from the Anglo-Saxon tongue spoken before 1066. It was greatly expanded and strengthened by the addition of thousands of new words from the Norman French; - especially abstract words from intellectual use. Yet, it was not French at all; its grammar and its homely everyday words were of German origin. Teaching aspect of this period is that this combination we call the Middle English, but it is recognizable as the basis for the language we speak today. This period should be taught on the basis of the works as “the Owl and the Nightingale”, “Ancren Riwle” (guide for women on meditation) and others. But the most significant milestone, which ought to be mentioned when teaching the English literature, is the preparation of the first Bible in English by John Wicliffe's.

The third milestone of the English literature, which is to be analyzed when teaching English, is pre-Renaissance time. This epoch is the epoch of Geoffrey Chaucer - the founder of the English poetry. The most famous work of him is “Canterbury Tales” - a series of stories linked together by their story-teller. Chaucer' work is rather poetry than prose, however, and his story-tellers are still recognizable through 600 years later. That is why teaching English is impossible without thorough studying of “Canterbury Tales”.

The next period in the history of the English literature which should be taught is the literature of 1500's. In this period the first lyrics appeared: John Scelton wrote it. Here created Sir Thomas Wyatt. A greater writer still was William Tyndale. His translations of the Bible, made under a ban, greatly influenced the later King James's version (1611). The statesman who most wanted Tyndale silenced and yet the leading humanists of his age, Sir Thomas More, like his friend Erasmus, unable to break to Catholicism, turned pay for his consciousness. Thomas More's circle, which included John Colet, Thomas Lynacre, Desiderius Erasmus and Sir Thomas Elyot, was responsible for important translations from Greek, Latin, and Italian. So the teaching of this period must be looked through the history of translation. Sir Thomas More rested in literary history for his» Utopia” non-existing land where everything is good and prosperous. Amongst the other educationally valued authors of that period were Christopher Marlowe and Sir Francis Bacon, Edmund Spencer and Philip Sydney. This period is also significant for studying because of the reason that it was the last period before Shakespeare. All that existed referred to pre-Shakespearean language.

No one doubts that Shakespeare is the most mysterious figure in the world medieval literature. Born in 1594, he stood alone amongst the English writers. The greatest poet and dramatist, Shakespeare left nothing similar to the database of his life. Throughout Shakespeare worked with the simplest of principles, writing at the mind's own speed, using everything he read, but reworking it first, and depending for character upon the defining trait of flaw. Having written 37 plays and more than 250 sonnets and little poems, Shakespeare up to nowadays rested misunderstood and the argues around his works and his authorship do not become calmer. However, it was Shakespearean language, on the basis of which we teach our students literary English.

The literature of the XVII century has its “i-dots” on John Milton - the author of the poem “Lycidas”. After becoming blind, he wrote one of the most English epic - “Paradise Lost” which retold the story of Adam and Eve and of their temptation by the Satan and fall from God's favor. The story of Satan's rebellion can be read in the life of the actual rebellion in which Milton had taken part. In fact, generations of readers have found Satan the most attractive and sympathetic character in the great poem. The educational value for what it is worth teaching is that it was the first call to the traditional preferences of the society.

The 1670's were the beginning point in the appearing of the new genre in literature - entertaining novel. And the founder of this was Daniel Defoe - a journalist who used to be both the King's favorite and hostile. In his “Robinson Crusoe”, “Moll Flanders”, and “The Journal of the Plague Year” he turned, as many a journalist before and since, to simulated facts, without bothering to inform the public of its technique. The educational value of Defoe's works is that his racy and essentially nonliterary efforts stand one of the major building blocks of the English novel. “Robinson Crusoe” was seemingly the most read book since 1700's up to nowadays. For learning process it is important by the following reason: having written in the plain literary English, it affords to a foreign learner to cognate the English language through entertained reading. This book is also important for us for its being first adventure novel.

The same period is also interesting from the educational viewpoint for the first appearing the magazine language of English. The founders of it were Joseph Addison with his “Tatler” and Richard Steel with his “Spectator”.

The appearance of the first dictionaries is also the education peculiarity of 1770's. Samuel Johnson edited the first English dictionary. Among the other important literary figures significant for modern teaching process was Alexander Pope - the most admired poet of 1700's with his own sense of the words. Many English poets tried to imitate Pope's language but couldn't. Among the writers the most significant after Defoe was Jonathan Swift. His educational value was in foundation of the English satire. According to the opinions of modern critics, Swift is the best satirist of England now and then. В.Г. Белинский Робинзон Крузо. Собр.соч. в 45тт. Т.44 стр.478-483

The second half of the 1700's is also noticeable for teaching as its poetic significance The first near Romantic, the poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), spoke as a voice of reviving nationalism (Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1786). Burns drew from the Scots' traditions and folklore and proved that a Scot need no longer be Anglicized to write great poetry in English. The educational value of Burns is in enlarging the English language with the words of Scotch origin. The second significant poet, whose “Songs of Innocence” are worth teaching the students is William Blake. The works of William Blake (1757-1827), whose Songs of Innocence appeared in 1789, contained a special kind of visionary indepen-dence. Its roots were partly in a tradition of religious mysticism of a deeply individual kind. Blake's later Prophetic Books (1793-1804) anticipated the mixture of politics, religion, and individualism that make up much of modern literature. His "high" lyric style had not been heard in England since the age of Milton. But Blake remained all but unheard in his lifetime. And now we understand that Blake's poetry is the Example of “pure English” we learn at schools. So that is why his works can serve as an example of literary English which is to be taught by teachers.

The next period of literature which is to be basic for teaching English is the period of Romanticism and its best English representatives - Wordsworth and Coleridge. The real beginning of English Romanticism was the publication of the Lyri-cal Ballads (1798) by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) World Book Encyclopedia Vol 4 New York 1993 pp.146-148 and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) ”Robinson Crusoe and his adventure“ М. Prosveshcheniye 1973 pp.59,64. We must teach students to it because Wordsworth, the greatest poet of the age, combined a Miltonic dignity with the plain speech and direct feeling of the English country folk among whom he had grown up. Coleridge's more polite and more inhibited poems often provided the trigger to Wordsworth's deeper, but slower response and, what is more important, his works were written on simply understood language, which students can use for improving lexical skills. The other famous poet whose works must be studied is George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1738-1824), whose popularity, political involvement, and frequent lapses of taste made him the chief literary celebrity of his day, is perhaps best known for his Don Juan (1819-1824), a brilliant comic assertion of wit, sex-uality, and physical self-confidence. Byron showed in The Vision of Judgment (1822 Z. N. Shuravskaya About Daniel Defoe and his novel “Robinson Crusoe” L. Art Literature Publishing House. 1974 pp.56-59) and a half-dozen lyrics even more concentrated instances of a prodigious and prodigal talent. John Keats, the other romantic poet, (1795-1821) is probably the best loved lyric poet in the language. The great poems of the end of his life (among them, "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "To Autumn," and "La Belle Dame sans Merci") show a faith in the imagination far in advance of the symbolists. His best poems, along with those of Wordsworth, Byron, and Blake are with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope the center of English literary achievement. So learning English without learning his works seems as impossible.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is a possible addition to the other four Romantic masters. Other writers continue to rediscover him, admiring his heroic intellectual conceptions and his mastery of propulsive rhythmic force.

Almost as swiftly as the Romantic movement began, it ended. With the death of Keats, the high lyric style disappeared. Lesser writers were not of the same inspiration, and the succeeding generation seemed to hear other voices, abandoning the lyric or writing it without conviction.

The 1800's became a new age of novelists' approaching. Jane Austen wrote three of her novels in the 1790's but published only after 1810 (Pride and Prejudice, 1813; Mansfield Park, 1814; Emma, 1816). She is meaningful for teaching for she went to Keats's imaginative church of the open heart but sat at the pew of keen observation and careful structure, and her language was the same as beautiful as Keats's but written in prose.

Sir Walter Scott, a Scotsman, be-came a model for intelligent commercial success all over Europe (Waverley, 1814; Ivanhoe, 1820). Mary Shelley Frankenstein, 1818) and Maria Edge-worth (Castle Rackrent, 1800) extended the daring of women in literature to the portrayal of psychological and social nightmares. In mid-century, an extraordinary trio, Charlotte and Emily Bronte and Elizabeth Gaskell, widened this range still further. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) also became a major English novelist (The Mill on the Floss, I860; Middlemarch, 1871-1872).

There were to be no English moral giants on the scale of the great French and Russian novelists. Charles Dickens, however (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, 1836-1837; David Copperfield, 1850; Bleak House, 1853; Our Mutual Friend, 1865; among many others), attained to something at least as great. He wrote, like the early Wordsworth, with the courage of the decent lower middle class, though of city rather than country folk. We teach it for every writer in Europe learned from his broad sympathies, skillful characterizations, and shrewd sense of pace. If he lacked philosophic vision, he made up for it with a stage nearly as broad and all-encompassing as Shakespeare's.

William Makepeace Thackeray, Dickens' contemporary, continued the tradition of 18th-century social satire with a new vitality and a deft hand at well turned and swift moving prose (Vanity Fair, 1848; Henry Esmond, 1852).

As the century progressed, English writers of fiction who worked at a very high level and should be taught include George Meredith (The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, 1859), Anthony Trollope (the "Barsetshire" novels, 1855-1867), Samuel Butler (The Way of All Flesh, 1903), and the remarkable Thomas Hardy (Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 1891; Jude the Obscure, 1896), also recognized as among the most enduring of English poets.

Next noticeable period for teaching was the period of Victorian poetry which underwent a difficult time after the death of Keats. The large voices among the Victorians belonged to Alfred Tennyson (Poems, 1832; In Memoriam, 1851; Idylls of the King, 1859-1885) and Robert Browning (Men and Women, 1855; The Ring and the Book, 1868). Both were so preoccupied with the responsibilities of national greatness that their considerable gifts were ultimately betrayed. Educational value of them is that Tennyson's saving grace is his occasional flight of sober lyric; Browning's is his delight in the sheer variety of life's ironies.

Other interesting, intelligent poets seemed unable to find a sense of identity. They include Matthew Arnold and the gifted friend, whose premature elegy he was to write,-Arthur Hugh Clough; and the "Pre-Raphaelites," a group seeking a supposed medieval spiritual unity; the group included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Coventry Patmore. Even a few of great promise seemed somehow blocked from fully realizing their gifts. These include Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850) and Christina Rossetti (Goblin Market, 1862 ;) Thus these poets had no any meaningful educational significance.

Thus we can draw the following conclusions:

· Teaching English is impossible without treating to the literary sources of this beautiful language.

· Every period of the English literature had its significant language peculiarities which must be observed when learning English.

· One who knows the English literature well owes the conversation partners of any rank and position!

Bibliography:

1. Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe McMillan Publishers 1997 pp.34-39, 45-49, 59-63, 128, 214-226

2. ”Robinson Crusoe and his adventure“ М. Prosveshcheniye 1973 pp.59,64, 78-79

3. M. A. Shishmoreva About the translation of “Robinson Crusoe” M. “Knowledge” 1987 pp.55-58, 99, 114

4. Z. N. Shuravskaya About Daniel Defoe and his novel “Robinson Crusoe” L. Art Literature Publishing House. 1974 pp.56-59

5. J.Priestley Novel School in Britain Washington University Press W.2002 pp.17-46

6.Readings on the English Literature M. High School 1978 pp.161-165

7. History of the English Literature M. Prosveshcheniye 1971 pp.204-212

8. G.H.Healey The history of writing of “Robinson Crusoe” London University Press London 2001 pp.329-330

9. I.Turgenev Collection of works in 27 volumes Vol.26 pp.311-312

10. В.Г. Белинский Робинзон Крузо. Собр.соч. в 45тт. Т.44 стр.478-483

11. П.А.Корсаков Л.Н.Толстой о Даниэле Дефо М. Просвещение 1967 стр.63

12. П. Кончаловский

Among many publish and bad translations we may mansion. P. A. Korsakov and P. Konchalovsky's translation.

13. Даниэль Дефо Робинзон Крузо М. ИХЛ 1986 стр. 45-46, 90-93, 101-107, 27б, 298

14. World Book Encyclopedia Vol 4 New York 1993 pp.146-148

15. Internet: www.online-literature.com/defoe./ Extensive Biography of Daniel Defoe and a searchable collection of works.pmp. pp.1-9

16. Internet:http://www.academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/

defoe/ Daniel Defoe in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature.txt pp.3-7

17. Internet: http//www.cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/defoe. / Texts of classic literature, drama, and poetry together with detailed literature study guides.html pp.45-47.

18. Internet: http//www.bibliomania.com/0/0/17/31/frameset./ The selected works of Daniel Defoe .htm pp.14-15

19. Internet: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/defoe.htm / Daniel Defoe:A depth look at the author's life and his impact on the world of literature.htm pp.2-9

20. Internet: http ://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jdefoe.htm/Short biography of Daniel Defoe.html pp. 4-8

21. Internet: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe/ The Letters of Daniel Defoe edited by GH Healey.htm. pp. 45-49

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