Criminal Conversations: Rogues, Words and the World in the Work of Daniel Defoe

Adam Hansen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    5 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Even as Daniel Defoe's roguish protagonists notably Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack try to separate themselves from illicit itinerants, they are implicated further in deviance. Moll and Jack both embody and exploit ambiguous moral and spatial arrangements, and use hybrid linguistic formulations, all of which collocate the roguish and the reputable. By brilliantly realizing this interpenetration of words and worlds, Defoe problematises eighteenth-century efforts to demarcate the illicit and itinerant along the lines of space, rank, gender and language. Such efforts facilitated deviant mobility as much as they demonised it. Much scholarship has attended to Defoe's representations of criminality and poverty. This article develops such research to re-position him in a tradition of rogue-writing that stylishly problematises normative discriminatory practices.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)26-48
    Number of pages23
    JournalLiterature and History
    Volume13 (2)
    Issue number2
    Publication statusPublished - Oct 2004

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • History
    • Literature and Literary Theory

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