Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe (1660—1731), was an English novelist and jour­nalist. He wrote «Robinson Crusoe», one of the first English nov­els and one of the most popular adventure stories in Western litera­ture. Some critics have called Defoe the father of the English novel. Others rate him as much less important. But he was one of the great masters of realistic narrative long before such writers as Theodore Dreiser and Ernest Hemingway.

His life. Defoe was bom in London, the son of a butcher and candle merchant. He started a business career, but he went bank­rupt and turned to writing. His earliest writings dealt with such controversial subjects as politics and religion. A political pamphlet led to his imprisonment in 1703 lor about 4 months.

For about 25 years, Defoe earned his living writing for newspa­pers. He produced his own periodical, «The Review», single- handedly from 1704 to 1713. Many politicians hired him to write for newspapers. At times he was secretly writing for the Whig Party in one paper and the Tories in another. Not much is known about his last years, but he continued to write much political journalism, as well as other kinds of work.

His writings. Defoe is unique in the quantity and variety of his works. It is difficult to tell how many works he produced, bccause most were published anonymously. The latest estimate is almost 550, including works of poetry, theology, economics, and geography.

For most readers today, Defoe is known primarily as a novelist. However, this was really a minor part of his writing, and not the part that gave him the most pride. Defoe's two most famous novels arc «Robinson Crusoe» (1719) and «Moll Flanders» (1722).

Defoe's novels reflect the growing power and wealth the new English middle class developed through new business opportuni- lies at home and abroad. Many of this new class were Puritans and they tended to believe in the glory of hard work and getting ahead through one's own efforts. The Puritans also stressed education, and therefore became a large part of (he reading public. So for the first time, Defoe and other writers treated trade, capitalism, and individualism favorably.

«Robinson Crusoe» is the story of a man marooned on an is­land. It is a memorable adventure story and a study of what it is like to be truly alone. It is also a success story, bccause Crusoe's hard work, inventiveness, and ability to take advantage of others turns his island into a successful colony.

«Moll Flanders» has been generally accepted as Defoe's best example of a genuine novel. Moll Flanders, the heroine, is a thief and a prostitute. Although her surroundings differ from those of Robinson Crusoe, there are basic similarities between the two char­acters. They both seem like real persons determined to get ahead and gain security. And eventually they both repent of their sins, and end very prosperously.

Defoe's novels marked an important break with the fiction of the past. He offered the ordinary lives of real people who were the normal products of their social and economic surroundings. Defoe makes us believe in the reality of what we arc reading as we are hurried from scene to scene by his breathless prose. Only after we have finished do we realize that we have not really been given much psychological insight into the characters.