Fictions of the Sea: Critical Perspectives on the Ocean in British Literature and Culture

This timely collection brings together twelve original essays on the cultural meaning of the sea in British literature and history, from early modern times to the present. Interdisciplinary in conception, it charts metaphorical and material links between the idea of the sea in the cultural imagination and its significance for the social and political history of Britain. Writers considered include Shakespeare, Milton, Coleridge, Scott, Conrad, du Maurier, Unsworth, O'Brian, and others. These literary 'fictions of the sea' are discussed in relation to paintings, shanties, films, and wider issues relevant to maritime history and the historical experience of seafaring: problems of navigation and orientation, piracy, empire, colonialism, slavery, multi-ethnic shipboard communities, masculinity, gender relations. Addressing a wide range of historical, social and literary contexts, Fictions of the Sea offers a fresh analysis of the impact of the ocean on the formation of British cultural identities.