Behn, Aphra: Oroonoko | Michael McKeon (essay date 1987)
Michael McKeon (essay date 1987)
SOURCE: "Histories of the Individual," in The Origins of the English Novel, 1600–1740, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, pp. 90–128.
[In the following excerpt, McKeon explores the issue of authenticity in Oroonoko, arguing that Behn idolizes Surinam.]
No mode of discourse is more likely to avail itself of the "strange, therefore true" paradox than the travel narrative, one of whose cardinal conventions is to expect the unexpected.47 And many of the travel narratives of this period have recourse to this most daring, and most dangerous, claim to historicity. Vairasse d'Allais has his publisher remark that
the Histories of Peru, Mexico, China, &c. were at first taken for Romances by many, but time has shewed since that they are verities not to be doubted of.
It is an idle humour in any of us to despise or reject strange Discoveries … If any...
[The entire page is 1810 words long]
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