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- Title
The Poetics of Talk in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
- Authors
WONG, AMY R.
- Abstract
This essay considers the relationship between Robert Louis Stevenson’s well-loved adventure classic Treasure Island and his philosophical commitments to talk. For Stevenson, talking and adventuring share an experiential poetics that emphasizes responsiveness to unpredictable interactions. By examining several of Stevenson’s prose pieces, including “Talk an d Talkers an d My First Book” a s well a s Treasure Island, this essay argues that the novel aspires to translate the poetics of talk into a print medium. Treasure Island imagines itself a s a form of "living print,” a work that, like Long John Silver’s parrot, seems more dynamic than print typically is, yet is still ultimately incapable of talk’s interactivity.
- Subjects
TREASURE Island (Book : Stevenson); STEVENSON, Robert Louis, 1850-1894; HISTORY of poetics; CONVERSATION in literature; SCOTTISH fiction; PARROTS in literature; LITERARY criticism; FICTION; NINETEENTH century
- Publication
SEL: Studies in English Literature (Johns Hopkins), 2014, Vol 54, Issue 4, p901
- ISSN
0039-3657
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1353/sel.2014.0048