Moorings : Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa.
Title:
Moorings : Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa.
Author:
Blackmore, Josiah.
ISBN:
9780816666300
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (230 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Note to the Reader -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Into Africa -- 1. Encountering the African -- Some Medieval Formulations -- The African In-Between -- 2. Expansion and the Contours of Africa -- Routes, Histories, and Chronicles -- Strangeness under the Imperial Sun -- Africa and the Imagination -- 3. The Monster of Melancholy -- Adamastor melancholicus -- The Masculine Ship -- The Devil's Map -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Z.
Abstract:
In this first book to study Portuguese texts about Africa, Moorings brings an important but little-known body of European writings to bear on contemporary colonial thought. Images of Africa as monstrous, dangerous, and lush were created in early Portuguese imperial writings and dominated its representation in European literature. Moorings establishes these key works in their proper place: foundational to Western imperial discourse. Attentive to history as well as the nuances of language, Josiah Blackmore leads readers from the formation of the "Moor" in medieval Iberia to the construction of a full colonial imaginary, as found in the works of two writers: the royal chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara and the epic poet Luís de Camões. Blackmore's original work helps to explain how concepts and myths-such as the "otherness" of Africa and Africans-originated, functioned, and were perpetuated. Delving into the Portuguese imperial experience, Moorings enriches our understanding of historical and literary imagination during a significant period of Western expansion.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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