Originally commissioned as the libretto for a work by composer John Psathas for the 50th birthday celebration of the Orpheus Choir, this book-length poem offers fresh perspectives on the familiar story of Cook's Pacific explorations. Employing a broad bicultural approach to reinterpret the Orpheus myth for the South Pacific, Sullivan uses a wide range of styles—from 18th-century dialogue to 21st-century hip hop cadences—to create a revisionist Cook who must accept responsibility for the damage his expeditions have inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the Pacific.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. “Sides has mastered the art of you-are-there historical narrative. A thrilling and necessary update to one of history’s most consequential cultural collisions." —John Vaillant, New York Times bestselling author of Fire Weather and The Tiger On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter. At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.
The ultimate reference work on Britain's greatest navigator and explorer. The book aims to provide answers on all aspects of the life and voyages of Captain James Cook, and the people, places, events and ships associated with the great explorer.
Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook, No. 29: With a Non-argument that’s Actually an Argument. Captain Cook? It’s all so very complex. I’m going to sit on the fence. (Whose fence? On whose land? Dividing what from what? You only have a fence when you fear something or when you’re trying to keep something in. Or, as a renovation show on TV informed me, when you want to upgrade your street appeal.) Alice Te Punga Somerville employs her deep research and dark humour to skilfully channel her response to Cook’s global colonial legacy in this revealing and defiant BWB Text.
"Captain Cook's enduring claim to fame is that in three extraordinary voyages to the Pacific he redrew the map of the world. The news that reached London in 1780 of his death on a beach in Hawai'i the previous year was shocking, and the details of that bloody and chaotic fracas had to be turned into something nobler as befitted a martyr-hero." "This new interpretation of Cook's life and death argues that the circumstances and reporting of his death are the key to his reputation. For many years this seaman of humble origins enjoyed unparalleled status as 'the pride of his century', and in the white settlement colonies in the Pacific he became 'father of the nation'. By contrast, first in Hawai'i and then in the postcolonial world, a different view emerged of a destructive invader, more anti-hero than hero. Captain Cook's progress from obscurity to fame and then, for some, to infamy, is a story that has never been fully told."--BOOK JACKET.
In View from Mount Diablo, Class and racial privilege and the resentments they provoke underscore both turmoil in wider society and the relationships at the heart of the narrative, between Adam Cole, a dreamy white boy driven by personal tragedy to crusading journalism, squint-eyed Nellie Simpson, once a servant, then a political enforcer, and stuttering Nathan, gardener and groom turned cocaine baron. Beyond this trio is a dazzling array of real and fictitious characters. The annotated edition by John Lennard, Professor of British and American Literature at UWI - Mona in Kingston, allows the full scope of the verse-novel to emerge for readers unfamiliar with Jamaican history since the 1930s.
Poetry and astronomy often travel together in the political sphere, from Milton's meeting with Galileo under house arrest to NASA's practice of launching poems into space. Anchored in the post-war period but drawing on a long history of poetry and science, Lyric Poetry and Space Exploration from Einstein to the Present charts the surprising connection between poetry and extra-terrestrial space. In an era defined by the vast scales of globalization, environmental disaster, and space travel, poets bring the small scales of lyric intimacy to bear on cosmic immensity. While outer space might seem the domain of more popular genres, lyric poetry has ancient and enduring associations with cosmic inquiry that have made it central to post-war space culture. As the Cold War played out in space, American institutions and media - from NASA to Star Trek - enlisted poetry to present space exploration as a peaceful mission on behalf of humankind. Meanwhile, poets from across the globe have turned to the cosmos to contest American imperialism, challenging conventional ideas about lyric poetry in the process. Poets including Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Agha Shahid Ali, and Tracy K. Smith invoke the extra-terrestrial to interrogate national histories alongside their craft. Dazzled by the aesthetics of astronomy but wary of its imperial uses, poets employ astronomical figures and methods to imagine how we might care for both ourselves and others on a shared planet.
Whether they focus on the bewitching song of the Sirens, his cunning escape from the cave of the terrifying one-eyed Cyclops, or the vengeful slaying of the suitors of his beautiful wife Penelope, the stirring adventures of Ulysses/Odysseus are amongst the most durable in human culture. The picaresque return of the wandering pirate-king is one of the most popular texts of all time, crossing East-West divides and inspiring poets and film-makers worldwide. But why, over three thousand years, has the Odyssey's appeal proved so remarkably resilient and long-lasting? In her much-praised book Edith Hall explains the enduring fascination of Homer's epic in terms of its extraordinary susceptibility to adaptation. Not only has the story reflected a myriad of different agendas, but - from the tragedies of classical Athens to modern detective fiction, film, travelogue and opera - it has seemed perhaps uniquely fertile in generating new artistic forms. Cultural texts as diverse as Joyce's Ulysses, Suzanne Vega's Calypso, Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, the Coen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou?, Daniel Vigne's Le Retour de Martin Guerre and Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain all show that Odysseus is truly a versatile hero. His travels across the wine-dark Aegean are journeys not just into the mind of one of the most brilliantly creative of all the ancient Greek writers. They are as much a voyage beyond the boundaries of a narrative which can plausibly lay claim to being the quintessential global phenomenon.
Leading and emerging, early career scholars in Classical Reception Studies come together in this volume to explore the under-represented area of the Australasian Classical Tradition. They interrogate the interactions between Mediterranean Antiquity and the antipodean worlds of New Zealand and Australia through the lenses of literature, film, theatre and fine art. Of interest to scholars across the globe who research the influence of antiquity on modern literature, film, theatre and fine art, this volume fills a decisive gap in the literature by bringing antipodean research into the spotlight. Following a contextual introduction to the field, the six parts of the volume explore the latest research on subjects that range from the Lord of the Rings and Xena: Warrior Princess franchises to important artists such as Sidney Nolan and local authors whose work offers opportunities for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary analysis with well-known Western authors and artists.
