Identifier
etd-04102008-154852
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Focusing on historical accounts (1684-1734) by English, French, and Spanish witnesses, this dissertation establishes a continuity in fictionalized representations of anti-heroic pirates from the buccaneering period to the Golden Age of Piracy. Informed by history, literary, myth, and performance theory, the analysis identifies significant distortions in reports by observers and participants. The distortions that pertain to mythmaking patterns are classified and analyzed further. Conflicting and ambivalent representations of the pirate as an anti-hero are resolved through the positing of a literary scapegoat hypothesis drawing from René Girard and Joseph Roach. While demonstrating mythical archetypes at work in the construction of the colonial pirate figure, the analysis also takes into account the effects of confluent early modern processes such as the rise of colonial capitalism, print culture, and the middle class in Britain.
Date
2008
Document Availability at the Time of Submission
Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.
Recommended Citation
Arnaudov, Plamen Ivanov, "Elements of mythmaking in witness accounts of colonial piracy" (2008). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2713.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2713
Committee Chair
Sandiford, Keith
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.2713