Piracy Mythmaking in the Eighteenth Century: Criminality, Human Nature, and Civil Government

Piracy Mythmaking in the Eighteenth Century: Criminality, Human Nature, and Civil Government focuses on the figure of the pirate as a literary phenomenon in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Taking a cultural studies approach, it complements historical studies of piracy by examining the pirate as a powerful and important literary and cultural trope. Piracy Mythmaking offers new insights into piracy literature by analyzing ways in which the pirate served as a contested figure of conversation in relation to imperialist violence, gender, race, and topical philosophical matters related to human nature and the formation and governance of civil societies. Through analysis of a multitude of pirate narratives in diverse genres, Piracy Mythmaking emphasizes and illustrates the wide range of viewpoints found in pirate literature, from militant nationalism to satirical critique of domestic politics and British imperialism, particularly in the Americas.

About the Author

Richard Frohock is a Professor of Literature and the Associate Dean of the Honors College at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. He specializes in early American literature and culture, particularly British colonization of the Caribbean in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.