The Curious Eye: Optics and Imaginative Literature in Seventeenth-Century England by Erin Webster (review)

Abstract

Crusoe is horrified by the twisted justice of the Inquisition and saves a family from its grip. He is again horrified by the slaughter of the natives of Madagascar by his compatriots. Yet Defoe also shows us Robinson’s irrational actions, such as his unrelenting urge to wander and his persistent failures of reason: in short, “Led by his passion, Crusoe causes trouble” (179). Andreas K.E. Mueller closes out the volume by returning to Robinson Crusoe’s staggering cultural influence, from virtual reality video games to note-taking software to observations of how the name “Robinson Crusoe” has become iconic in ways that bear only a minimal relationship to Defoe’s novel. Mueller’s essay caps off this outstanding collection of essays that demonstrates the enduring significance of literature’s most famous castaway.