Moorings
Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Minnesota Press
Published:26th Dec '08
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£62.00(9780816648320)
How Africa was perceived in the early modern imaginary
In this first book to study Portuguese texts about Africa, Moorings brings an important but little-known body of European writings to bear on contemporary colonial thought. Images of Africa as monstrous, dangerous, and lush were created in early Portuguese imperial writings and dominated its representation in European literature. Moorings establishes these key works in their proper place: foundational to Western imperial discourse.
Attentive to history as well as the nuances of language, Josiah Blackmore leads readers from the formation of the “Moor” in medieval Iberia to the construction of a full colonial imaginary, as found in the works of two writers: the royal chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara and the epic poet Luís de Camões. Blackmore’s original work helps to explain how concepts and myths—such as the “otherness” of Africa and Africans—originated, functioned, and were perpetuated.Delving into the Portuguese imperial experience, Moorings enriches our understanding of historical and literary imagination during a significant period of Western expansion.ISBN: 9780816648337
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 15mm
Weight: unknown
224 pages