Sederi Yearbook 28



Sederi 28
Sederi 28 — 2018
EDITOR
Ana Sáez-Hidalgo
MANAGING EDITOR
Francisco J. Borge López
REVIEW EDITOR
María José Mora
ISSN 1135-7789

 


Violetta Trofimova, “First Encounters of Europeans and Africans with Native Americans in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko: white woman, black prince and noble savages.” SEDERI 28 (2018): 119–28.

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34136/sederi.2018.6                                                                 Download PDF

 

Abstract

A curious episode of the first encounter with Native Americans out of Aphra Behn’s novel Oroonoko, or the History of the Royal Slave (1688) is reconsidered, using various types of interpretation, such as the structural, philosophical and historical. Special attention is paid to the position and configuration of the episode: all the participants are others to each other. This episode may be interpreted as a model of the first contact between different folks, as well as a story of the origins of religion. In the context of seventeenth-century colonial policy it may be seen as a non-violent way of colonizing America.

Keywords: Aphra Behn; Oroonoko; colonial policy; Edward Winslow; Indians.

 

References

Behn, Aphra. 1997. Oroonoko: An Authoritative Text. Historical Backgrounds. Criticism. Edited by Joanna Lipking. New York, London: Norton.

O’Donnell, Mary Ann. 2012. “Questions and more questions.” Paper presented at the Conference Aphra Behn in her Seventeenth-Century Contexts, Loughborough.

Richards, Cyntia, and Mary Ann O’Donnell, eds. 2014. Approaches to Teaching Behn’s Oroonoko. New York: Modern Language Association.

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. 1998. Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi.

Trofimova, Violetta. 2015. “Russian Formalism and Reading.” In Linguistic and Literary Theories in Reading, edited by Feryal Cubukcu and Leyla Harputlu, 77–85. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Winslow, Edward. 1865. “Letter sent from New England to a friend in these parts, setting forth a briefe and true Declaration of the worth of that Plantation; as also certaine useful Directions for such as intend a Voyage into those Parts.” In Mourt’s Relation or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth, introduction and notes by H.M. Dexter, 131–42. Boston: John Kimball Wiggin.