Emma Fingerle1 Ms. Leishman CHY4U0-C1 January 10th, 2019 The Ultimate Escape Artist: Is Daniel DeFoe Still Relevant Centuries After his Death? Humanity has loved literature for millenniums, the first printed work was recorded over 3000 years ago, and while the genre of preference has been constantly evolving, the flame has never come near to dying. From ancient tragedies to modern day dystopian novels, this evolution has allowed for authors to explore the flexibility of writing, enabling a collection of fact and fictional works to build a world view from. In 18th century Europe, the enlightenment was instilling a thirst for knowledge and literature was largely composed of the realism genre, consisting of stories that were relatable on a literal level; their content was reflective of the day-to-day events that were occuring at the time. Daniel DeFoe was confined within this genre for the first six decades of his life, barely venturing into fiction and mostly writing controversial and therefore unpopular essay and works such as An Essay upon Projects and The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. His writing focused on the dysfunctional society he was living in and the truths that he presented resulted im Defoe being arrested and locked up in a pillory1. Such act was not protested by historians of the time as they were critical of his work with Abel Boyer, a French-English lexicographer, journalist and miscellaneous writer commenting his work was identifiable by “his abundance of words, his false thoughts, and his false english” 2in October of 1715. With no one to vouch for his release, he negotiated to be liberated on the condition that he would spy for the Crown and influence the public to support of the Union. After this, he went on to write his 1A wooden framework with holes for the head and hands, in which an offender was imprisoned and exposed to public abuse. 2Defoe, Daniel, The Works of Daniel Defoe.,W.P. Nimmo, Web, 1870,
Fingerle 2 revolutionary novel, Robinson Crusoe. This was his most successful and widespread piece, establishing
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