The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics (Oxford Textual Perspectives)

The Aesthetics of Island Space discusses islands as central figures in the modern experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in literary texts (from The Tempest to The Hungry Tide), journals of explorers and scientists (such as Cook and Darwin), and Hollywood cinema (e.g. The Hurricane and King Kong), tracing how islands have offered vivid perceptual experiences as well as a geopoetic oscillation between the poetic energies of words and images and the material energies of the physical world. Its chapters focus on America’s island gateways (e.g. Roanoke and Ellis Island), tropical islands (e.g. Tahiti and imagined South Sea islands), the islands of the Pacific Northwest, and mutable islands (e.g. the volcanic and coral islands in Wells’s fiction). The book argues that the modern voyages of discovery posed considerable perceptual challenges to spatial experience, and that these challenges were negotiated via the poetic engagement with islands. Postcolonial theorists maintain that islands have been imagined as geometrical abstractions subjected to the colonial gaze. There is, however, a second story of islands in the Western imagination which runs parallel to this colonial story: the experience of islands in the age of discovery also went hand in hand with a disintegration of received models of global space. Rethinking (post-)phenomenological, geocritical, and geopoetic theories, The Aesthetics of Island Space suggests that the modern encounters with islands as mobile and shifting territories implied a diversification of spatial experience, and explores how this disruption is registered and negotiated by non-fictional and fictional responses. Cover 1 The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Preface 8 Contents 14 List of Figures 16 Introduction: Towards a Poetics of (the) Island(s) 18 Making and Perceiving Islands: Poiesis and Aisthesis 19 Production, Destruction, Sedimentation: Islands between Geography and Text 21 Spatial Disorientations: Islands and Modern Exploration 24 The Poetics of Watery Land: From Insularity to Islandness and Archipelagicity 25 The Meaning of Islands: From Geometrical Abstraction to Material Interference 33 Theoretical Perspectives on (Island) Space: Phenomenology, Geopoetics, Geocriticism 36 Navigating a Sea of Literary and Cinematic Islands 39 Overview of Chapters 42 1: From Island to Island, and Beyond: Arrivals in the New World 47 Interrupted Journeys and Island Prisons: The Angel Island Poems 54 Through the Golden Door: Imagining America from Ellis Island 58 On the Cusp of Modernity: The Islands of Columbus and His Predecessors 64 Floating Islands and Spouting Volcanoes: The Voyage of Saint Brendan 69 Emergence and Submergence in Modern Space: Multisensory Exposure in The Tempest 75 ‘The mere worck of god flottynge of’: The Tempest and the Roanoke Voyages 81 Immigration with a Detour: Cecil B. DeMille’s Male and Female () 90 Americans before They Arrive: Male and Female, Hollywood, and the Island 100 Conclusion: Multiple Paths, Precarious Arrivals, Migrant Islands 106 2: Islands on the Horizon: The Camera at the Borders of the Tropical Island 110 Reading the Pacific Island through Myth: The Case of Pitcairn 110 Islands in the American Imaginary: Tourism, Cinema, Fantasy 117 Islands on the Horizon: The Journals of the Early Explorers in the Pacific 120 American Re-vision of the Island: From David Porter to 1920s Hollywood Cinema 125 The Island as Image: White Shadowsin the South Seas (1928) 129 Eroding the Island-Image 138 The Tourist Gaze and Hollywood’s Rediscoveryof the Pacific: The Hurricane (1937) 150 Navigating a Sea of Islands: Challenging the Western Gaze 158 The Hurricane and the Problem of American Imperialism 165 Invading the Island: Ethnography, Film, and the Death of King Kong 175 The Other Island: Skull Island and Mannahatta 184 Conclusion: The Resilience and Fragility of the Island-Image 190 3: From Insularity to Islandness: Fractals, Fuzzy Borders, and the Fourth Dimension 194 Contested Islands, Windows to History: The San Juans 200 Fuzzy Zones: Phenomenology and the Fractal Aesthetics of George Vancouver’s Islands 209 Open Spaces: Northwest Islands after Vancouver 218 ‘These island waters’: Pacific Northwest Memoirs and the Poetics of Land and Sea 223 How Hilltops Became Islands: Geology and Local Cosmogonies 231 Islands and the Drift of History: 100 Days in the San Juans (1946) 237 An Island of Memory: The Light on the Island (1951) 240 The Island in an Ocean of Becoming: Folly (2001) 245 Islands in Four Dimensions 252 Conclusion: Expansive Islandscapes and Ambivalent Ecologies 259 4: From Islands to Archipelagos: Volcanism, Coral, and Geopoetics 262 Material Islands, Figurative Islands: Geocriticism and Geopoetics 265 Darwin’s Other Islands: The Aesthetics of Geology 274 Island Life: Wallace’s World of Islands 279 Dust on the Island-Stage: Volcanism and The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) 282 Living Fossils: Bones and Coral in ‘Aepyornis Island’ (1894) 292 The Ecology of Islands 302 Islands Made and Unmade in Days: The Hungry Tide (2004) 304 Beyond the Island: The Geopoetic Archipelago 313 Conclusion: Archipelagic Struggle, Difference, and Discontinuity 319 Epilogue: The Life on/of Islands 322 References 330 INDEX 360 Oxford Textual Perspectives is a series of informative and provocative studies focused upon literary texts (conceived of in the broadest sense of that term) and the technologies, cultures, and communities that produce, inform, and receive them. It provides fresh interpretations of fundamental works and of the vital and challenging issues emerging in English literary studies. By engaging with the materiality of the literary text, its production, and reception history, and frequently testing and exploring the boundaries of the notion of text itself, the volumes in the series question familiar frameworks and provide innovative interpretations of both canonical and less well-known works. The Aesthetics of Island Space discusses islands as central figures in the modern experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in literary texts, from Shakespeare's The Tempest to Ghosh's The Hungry Tide , in the journals of explorers and scientists such as James Cook and Charles Darwin, and in Hollywood cinema. It traces the ways in which literary and cinematic islands have functioned as malleable spatial figures that offer vivid perceptual experiences as well as a geopoetic oscillation between the material energies of words and images and the energies of the physical world. The chapters focus on America's island gateways (Roanoke and Ellis Island), visions of tropical islands (Tahiti and imagined South Sea islands), the islands of the US-Canadian border region in the Pacific Northwest, and the imaginative appeal of mutable islands. It argues that modern voyages of discovery posed considerable perceptual and cognitive challenges to the experience of space, and that these challenges were negotiated in complex and contradictory ways via poetic engagement with islands. Discussions of island narratives in postcolonial theory have broadened understanding of how islands have been imagined as geometrical abstractions, bounded spaces easily subjected to the colonial gaze. There is, however, a second story of islands in the Western imagination which runs parallel to this colonial story. In this alternative account, the modern experience of islands in the age of discovery went hand in hand with a disintegration of received models of understanding global space. Drawing on and rethinking (post-)phenomenological, geocritical, and geopoetic theories, The Aesthetics of Island Space argues that the modern experience of islands as mobile and shifting territories implied a dispersal, fragmentation, and diversification of spatial experience, and it explores how this disruption is registered and negotiated by both non-fictional and fictional responses. The Aesthetics of Island Space discusses islands as central figures in the modern experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in literary texts, from Shakespeare's The Tempest to Ghosh's The Hungry Tide, in the journals of explorers and scientists such as James Cook and Charles Darwin, and in Hollywood cinema. It traces the ways in which literary and cinematic islands have functioned as malleable spatial figures that offer vivid perceptual experiences as well as a geopoetic oscillation between the material energies of words and images and the energies of the physical world. The chapters focus on America's island gateways (Roanoke and Ellis Island), visions of tropical islands (Tahiti and imagined South Sea islands), the islands of the US-Canadian border region in the Pacific Northwest, and the imaginative appeal of mutable islands. It argues that modern voyages of discovery posed considerable perceptual and cognitive challenges to the experience of space, and that these challenges were negotiated in complex and contradictory ways via poetic engagement with islands. Discussions of island narratives in postcolonial theory have broadened understanding of how islands have been imagined as geometrical abstractions, bounded spaces easily subjected to the colonial gaze. There is, however, a second story of islands in the Western imagination which runs parallel to this colonial story. In this alternative account, the modern experience of islands in the age of discovery went hand in hand with a disintegration of received models of understanding global space.0Drawing on and rethinking (post- )phenomenological, geocritical, and geopoetic theories, The Aesthetics of Island Space argues that the modern experience of islands as mobile and shifting territories implied a dispersal, fragmentation, and diversification of spatial experience, and it explores how this disruption is registered and negotiated by both non-fictional and fictional responses This volume studies the spatial poetics of islands as depicted in literature, the journals of explorers and scientists, and in film. It shows how voyages of discovery posed challenges to the experience of space and how such challenges were negotiated via poetic engagement with islands