![]() ![]() The English writer and journalist Robert McCrum has argued that, like Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Defoe’s novel “follows an almost biblical pattern of transgression (youthful rebellion), retribution (successive shipwrecks), repentance (the painful lessons of isolation) and finally redemption (Crusoe’s return home). While it has also inspired stage plays, operas and many films, it is its literary legacy that is the subject of this discussion. Its enormous popularity is not in doubt, and probably continues to some extent, but what might not be so widely realised is just how extensive and enduring its literary legacy has been. It is often regarded as the first novel in English, although this has been disputed, and is generally accepted as initiating the genre of realistic fiction. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is 300 years old on April 25th. ![]()
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