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Re: genre "robinsonade"

From: Ralf Tauchmann <320051971077-0001~at~t-online.de>
Date: 08 Jul 2005 11:22 GMT
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

"thomas mccormick" <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com> schrieb:
> In Defoe's novel, the first mention of the hero's given name Robinson is
> accompanied by an explanation that it was bestowed on him because it was his
> mother's maiden name, her folks being "a good family from York". QUESTION:
> Does this name, which got attached to a whole genre and was customarily used
> at least once in most examples of that genre, have any particular symbolic
> meaning or association which would have been apparent to the original
> late-19th century readers, and lost to us nowadays?

Dear Tom,

Robinson means "Robin's son", and as a family name of (Anglo-)Norman origin
(having come over to Britain with Guillaume the Conqueror in 1066), it refers
to nobility. As the English language was quite a long time the language of
peasants and serfs, what is noble Norman may still have been felt in 1719.
In any case, Robinson is not actually a first name and that may have been
contributed to Robinson's being felt as a less common Christian name, just
chosen in an ambition to refer to noble origin.

But of course, I cannot be sure of how the name Robinson was felt at the
time the novel was published. It is just speculation (except for the
Norman origin).

Kind regards,

Ralf Tauchmann
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mailto:ralf.tauchmann~at~t-online.de
tel: +49-351-8336141 fax: -8336142
http://www.ratau.de ; http://tauchmann.ratau.de
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Received on Sun 10 Jul 2005 - 14:55:30 IDT

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