Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Daniel Defoe inspiration (18th C)

Where did Robinson Crusoe come from? How did Defoewho held a number of interesting professions, including a trader, writer, and spyharness the elements of the story and mold them into this classic English novel? Theories abound on the origins of the novel and the source material Defoe had at his disposal. Even today, nearly 300 years after its initial publication, academics and scholars still quibble over the search for the real Robinson Crusoe and the story behind the story.  
 

Theory #1: Alexander Selkirk



A Scottish sailor and notorious hothead, Alexander Selkirk’s story was long-held to be the inspiration for Defoe’s Crusoe. Selkirk worked as a naval officer aboard the Cinque Ports under Captain Thomas Stradling. In September 1704 after expressing doubts about the ship's seaworthiness, Selkirk was marooned on the Juan Fernandez Islands off the coast of Chile. Selkirk lived on the desert island before being rescued in 1709 and receiving a hero’s welcome upon his return home. Word of his story spread throughout Europe, particularly in England, Defoe’s home turf.
 
Engraving of Selkirk sitting in the doorway of a hut reading a Bible
Selkirk reading his Bible in one of two huts that he built on a mountainside
Some scholars argue the timeline of Selkirk’s story would not allow it to be the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, which was published in 1719 and completed a good amount of time prior. But others argue Selkirk’s exploits had a direct impact on Crusoe and choices Defoe made in composing the story.

Selkirk, seated in a ship's boat, being taken aboard Duke.
The rescued Selkirk, seated at right, being taken aboard Duke.

A tongue-twister though it may be, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan was a 12th Century philosophical novel by Ibn Tufail, an Arabic writer, philosopher, physician, and court official. Loosely translated as Philosophus Autodidactus, the novel explores the themes and ideas of a feral child raised by animals on a desert island. Initially conceived as something of a thought-experiment, the novel is concerned with what happens to human beings in the absence of other human beings, and how curiosity and the pursuit of answers and truth are innate human qualities.

As with the Selkirk theory, some scholars argue the central conceit of Tufail’s text was an important influence on Defoe’s novel, while others contend it’s the themes and ideas of Tufail’s work that Defoe took as a source of inspiration.

Theory #3: Robert Knox


Its direct influence on Crusoe notwithstanding, the story of English sea captain Robert Knox and his nearly two decades-long tenure on an island near what is today Sri Lanka is one of the most compelling true-life action-adventures stories ever. Knox set sail for Persia on behalf of the British East India Company in January 1658, but his ship was severely damaged during a storm about one year later, and he and his crew were taken captive and held for 19 years by the inhabitants of the Island of Ceylon. Though held in relatively livable conditionsKnox and his crew were given jobs and responsibilities in the village in exchange for lodging, food, and other provisionsKnox finally escaped and fled to a nearby island controlled by the Dutch before being returned home to England.

Captain Robert Knox (1642-1720), by P Trampon.jpg

Accounts of his time on Ceylon were published in a 1681 book called An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, (link to the book provided, thanks to archive.org) a text that featured detailed illustrations and descriptions of the island and its inhabitants and which served as the only recorded information about the island during that age. Until recently, the story of Knox, his captivity, and eventual escape was thought to be the most direct influence on the story of Crusoe.


Theory #4: Henry Pitman


Stemming from intensive research and investigation as detailed in the 2002 Tim Severin book Seeking Robinson Crusoe, a growing number of literary scholars and historians now believe Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was written in response to the story of Henry Pitman, a former surgeon to the Duke of Monmouth, who was stranded on a desert island in the Caribbean following a shipwreck. Upon his escape from the island and return home, Pitman’s story was published by English publisher J. Taylor of Paternoster StreetTaylor’s son would later publish Defoe’s masterwork, Robinson Crusoe.

In addition, Severin’s research uncovered Pitman lived in an apartment above Taylor’s publishing house, which Severin argues is fertile ground for a meeting between Pitman and Defoe. While word of Pitman’s exploits did circulate through England, Severin contends several face-to-face meetings between Pitman and Defoe may have taken place in which Pitman may have recounted his story to Defoe, who then interwove bits and pieces of Pitman’s experience into his own narrative.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Curia Filipica (Spaniard text as origin of US Commercial laws), 17th C

Curia Filipica, 1700
for Yale University experts/jurists/alumns: Juan de Hevia Bolaños WAS the author of this relevant treatise for US :: no questions about this

Curia filipica by the Asturian Juan de Hevia Bolaños was for over two centuries the essential handbook for legal procedure in Spain and in its New World colonies. Since its first printing in Lima, Peru, in 1603, the Curia filipica (and)  enjoyed an extraordinary success, appearing in 40 different editions, until its final publication in Paris, 1864

Editions of the Curia filipica were present in virtually any collection of law books in Spain’s colonies. It was owned and consulted not only by lawyers and judges, but also by a wide range of local officials with legal responsibilities, including city officials, garrison commanders, priests, and merchants. It was one of the first law books present in modern-day Texas, listed in the 1800 will of a military chaplain in San Antonio, then a Spanish frontier outpost. It is cited in over a dozen early cases in Louisiana, Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court, as an authoritative source on Spanish procedure.

The “second part” is another work by Hevia Bolaños that was originally published separately, Labyrintho de comercio terrestre y naval, which was for decades the only available work in print on Spanish commercial law. Begining in 1644 it was published as the second part of the Curia filipica.

Juan de Hevia Bolaños was born in Oviedo, Spain around 1570, and came to the New World in 1594, spending several years working as court official in Quito before moving to Lima. 

The Curia filipica - a Spaniard text- is an indispensible source for study of the early legal history of the U.S.

Contents and printing license for part 1 of Juan de Hevia Bolaños, Curia filipica, primera y segunda parte (Madrid, 1700).

Thursday, January 21, 2016

The Gift of King Charles III of Spain...

... (to James Harris, later First Earl of Malmesbury)

Juan de Iriarte y Cisneros (1702-1771) was able to complete only one substantial volume of his bibliography of Greek manuscripts in the Spanish Royal Library in Madrid. When curator Bruce Swann decided to transfer the Classics Library’s copy of Regiae bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci mss. (Madrid, 1769) to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, he noticed a Latin inscription on the fly-leaf (see image below).




Translated, the inscription reads:
James Harris
Salisbury, 1771
My son gave this scholarly catalogue of manuscripts to me as a gift upon his return following an absence of three years abroad. Moreover, Charles III, the Catholic king, a noted promoter and patron of the arts and literature, gave it to him while he was employed at the embassy in Madrid in 1771.
James Harris (1709-1780) was an important English scholar and politician, the author of a number of works on grammar, music and criticism, copies of which may be found in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. He was a great acquaintance of Georg Frideric Handel, many of whose operatic manuscripts he came to possess. In 1760 he was elected member of parliament for Christchurch, Hampshire, he later served as a commissioner of the Admiralty and of the Treasury, and from 1774 was the secretary of Queen Charlotte.


                  
One of the younger Harris’s first postings was in Spain, where he was instrumental in averting a war over the Falkland Islands, and where he received this book as a gift from King Charles III. Young Harris recorded the following impressions of the Spanish monarch:
“He has a most clear head, comprehends with great alacrity, and answers with unparalleled accuracy. His heart, also, is excellent; the best of fathers and of masters, and although despotic, yet never a tyrant. … Such are his good qualities; his faults are, a false idea of the glory and power of his monarchy; a temper, when once irritated, irreconcileable; a bland submission to whatever happens, which, whether it is to himself or others, he calls the will of Providence; and such a determined attachment to his favourite amusement, the chace [i.e., hunting], as to make him slothful and negligent in his more important avocations” (Diaries and correspondence of James Harris, first Earl of Malmesbury. London, 1844, I, 50-51)
The younger Harris could be sure his father would be interested in this sumptuous catalog of Greek manuscripts. While in Spain, he also helped further his father’s researches in other ways:
“It having often been asserted, that an entire and complete copy of Livy was extant in the Escurial library, I requested my son in the year 1771, (he being at that timeminister plenipotentiary to the court of Madrid,) to inquire for me, what manuscripts of that author were there to be found” (The works of James Harris, Esq. London, 1841, p. 544).
Regiae bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci mss. (Q.A.481.75 M26r) may now be consulted in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.