National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea
This essay investigates the Arctic as an important, if unlikely, location for the formation of a British national and imperial masculinity in the early nineteenth century. Robert Southey's Life of Nelson (1813) established the national naval hero's heroic masculinity as Arctic in origin, r...
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University of California Press
2007
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crunicaliforniap:10.1525/ncl.2007.61.4.417 2023-08-27T04:07:01+02:00 National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea Hill, Jen 2007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2007.61.4.417 http://online.ucpress.edu/ncl/article-pdf/61/4/417/347297/ncl_2007_61_4_417.pdf en eng University of California Press Nineteenth-Century Literature volume 61, issue 4, page 417-448 ISSN 0891-9356 1067-8352 Literature and Literary Theory journal-article 2007 crunicaliforniap https://doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2007.61.4.417 2023-08-04T13:09:06Z This essay investigates the Arctic as an important, if unlikely, location for the formation of a British national and imperial masculinity in the early nineteenth century. Robert Southey's Life of Nelson (1813) established the national naval hero's heroic masculinity as Arctic in origin, revealing the utility of the Arctic in making British character legible. Perceived as unpopulated and "blank," Arctic geography stood in stark contrast to populated,torrid regions of the colonized tropics. The essay concludes with an examination of John Franklin's best-selling Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea(1823). This account of hardship, imperiled bodies, and cannibalism in an uncertain geography would appear to contradict Southey's claims. Yet despite the expedition's failures, Franklin's narrative only augments public perception of the Arctic as a proving ground for a British masculinity uniquely suited to imperial projects. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic University of California Press (via Crossref) Arctic Nineteenth-Century Literature 61 4 417 448 |
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Open Polar |
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University of California Press (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crunicaliforniap |
language |
English |
topic |
Literature and Literary Theory |
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Literature and Literary Theory Hill, Jen National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea |
topic_facet |
Literature and Literary Theory |
description |
This essay investigates the Arctic as an important, if unlikely, location for the formation of a British national and imperial masculinity in the early nineteenth century. Robert Southey's Life of Nelson (1813) established the national naval hero's heroic masculinity as Arctic in origin, revealing the utility of the Arctic in making British character legible. Perceived as unpopulated and "blank," Arctic geography stood in stark contrast to populated,torrid regions of the colonized tropics. The essay concludes with an examination of John Franklin's best-selling Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea(1823). This account of hardship, imperiled bodies, and cannibalism in an uncertain geography would appear to contradict Southey's claims. Yet despite the expedition's failures, Franklin's narrative only augments public perception of the Arctic as a proving ground for a British masculinity uniquely suited to imperial projects. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Hill, Jen |
author_facet |
Hill, Jen |
author_sort |
Hill, Jen |
title |
National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea |
title_short |
National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea |
title_full |
National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea |
title_fullStr |
National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea |
title_full_unstemmed |
National Bodies: Robert Southey's Life of Nelson and John Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea |
title_sort |
national bodies: robert southey's life of nelson and john franklin's narrative of a journey to the shores of the polar sea |
publisher |
University of California Press |
publishDate |
2007 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2007.61.4.417 http://online.ucpress.edu/ncl/article-pdf/61/4/417/347297/ncl_2007_61_4_417.pdf |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Nineteenth-Century Literature volume 61, issue 4, page 417-448 ISSN 0891-9356 1067-8352 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2007.61.4.417 |
container_title |
Nineteenth-Century Literature |
container_volume |
61 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
417 |
op_container_end_page |
448 |
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1775347740292677632 |