Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Note
- Introduction
- Virtual Voyages
- Chapter 1 Real and Imaginary Voyages
- Chapter 2 Blank Spaces for the Imagination
- Chapter 3 Exoticism and Romanticism
- Chapter 4 Finding Paradise and Utopia in the Pacific
- Chapter 5 Australia's Mythic Inland
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
Chapter 3 - Exoticism and Romanticism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Note
- Introduction
- Virtual Voyages
- Chapter 1 Real and Imaginary Voyages
- Chapter 2 Blank Spaces for the Imagination
- Chapter 3 Exoticism and Romanticism
- Chapter 4 Finding Paradise and Utopia in the Pacific
- Chapter 5 Australia's Mythic Inland
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The greatest liar has his believers, as well as the basest writer his readers; and it often happens that a lie only needs to be believed for an hour, in order to reach its purpose…Falseness flies, and truth limps behind; thus when men realize the deception, it is already too late: the hit has already gone home, and the lie has achieved its effect.
–Jonathan Swift, in the Examiner (1710)Proposals for colonization, put forward by interested nations in the seventeenth century, laid the groundwork for exploration through voyages of discovery, and yet, in the first half of the eighteenth century, the fraction of the total area of the antipodes explored was relatively small. Maps featured blank spaces spreading from the western coast of the Americas right across the Pacific to the western coast of the Australian landmass, and the search was on to find the elusive Northwest Passage to the South Seas. Major Pacific island groups such as the Hawaiian, Samoan and Society Islands, New Caledonia and New Zealand, remained unknown or practically unexplored, and the eastern coast of the Australian continent had not yet been discovered. The technical challenges of sea travel were an ongoing obstacle and there were also financial and political barriers to overcome. The extent of uncharted space understandably raised hopes of finding an abundance of natural resources for trade as well as room for colonies on a scale unheard of in the Portuguese, Dutch, British and French empires.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Virtual VoyagesTravel Writing and the Antipodes 1605–1837, pp. 47 - 78Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2010