Mr Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theater on H. M. Armed Vessel Bounty - Hardcover

Dening, Greg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521383706 ISBN 13: 9780521383707

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1992

Synopsis

"Captain Bligh" is a cliche of our times for the extravagant and violent misuse of power. In fact, William Bligh was one of the least physically violent disciplinarians in the British navy. That paradox inspires the author to ask why, then, did Bligh have a mutiny? Its answer is to display the theatricality of naval institutions and the mythologizing power of history. Mr Bligh's Bad Language is an anthropological and historical study of the mutiny on the Bounty, and its role in society and culture. Throughout the book, Greg Dening draws on a wide range of intellectual influences, ending with the cinematic versions of the mutiny in the twentieth century.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Captain Bligh and the voyage of the Bounty are the starting point of this new study of the famous mutiny in history, literature and film. By juxtaposing an account of the mutiny with an analysis of its evolving place in history and culture, Mr. Bligh's Bad Language offers a new interpretation of the mutiny in the context of its historical and cultural representations. Beginning with an analysis of naval life and ritual aboard the Bounty, Greg Dening argues that the famous mutiny did not take place due to punitive violence, as Captain Bligh is shown to be one of the least violent of British Navy captains. Instead, he argues, Captain Bligh misunderstood the theatrical nature of shipboard life, especially his role as captain. Moving to a larger stage, the scope of the book shifts to the reception of the mutiny in England in the eighteenth century. Connecting the voyage of the Bounty with the cultural exploration and revolutions of the age, Greg Dening shows that a mythology arose almost immediately around the participants of the mutiny and their actions, a mythology that has been continually reinterpreted into twentieth century literature and film. Gracefully written, Mr. Bligh's Bad Language is an anthropological history of a new order, weaving the history of the Bounty with its role in our culture. Using a range of influences from Diderot to Foucault, Greg Dening reconstructs the voyage of the Bounty as moving between history and mythology, circumventing a dozen discourses.

Reviews

A learned, humane, provocative ``creative reading'' of the mutiny on the Bounty--the events; their meaning and representation in native lore, British life, the theater, and cinema; and their historical value. An engaging style and familiarity with political, naval, theater and film history, with anthropology, and with thinkers such as Foucault, Barthes, and L‚vi-Strauss enrich this ``celebratory narrative,'' as Dening (History/Univ. of Melbourne) calls it. The story is familiar but, Dening says, the emphasis, meaning, explanation, and value change depending on the point of view, the period, culture, and medium in which one represents the character of Bligh (a perfectionist who preferred to avoid physical punishment) and the sailors; the idea of discipline in the navy; the participants' various expectations; the natives they encountered; the brutality and brutalization, abandonment and retribution; and the survivors' colony on Pitcairn Island. In the theatrical terms Dening employs, the mutiny becomes an enactment of roles, a ritual representing universal experiences of sacrifice, deification, resurrection, possession, encounters between natives and strangers, and the ranging iconography of power as it appears among natives and seamen. Dening's ``cliometrics'' (the statistics on corporeal punishment in the navy); his discussions of Jonas Hanway, of Captain Cook's adventures among the Polynesians, of the British popular theater, of the five films based on the Bounty (including the moral one in the 30's, the political one in the 60's, and the psychological one in the 80's); the encyclopedic knowledge he brings--all add conviction to his imaginative interpretations and demonstrate his proposition that ``history is something we make rather than something we learn.'' A fascinating, essential chapter in the history of the Bounty. (Fifty halftones, three maps--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Mutiny on the Bounty summons to the popular mind images of violence and power on the high seas. Dening restores a sense of perspective in this fascinating study of the Bounty through images of space, language, and ceremony in Britain's Royal Navy of the late 18th century. Portraying Bligh as one of the least physically violent captains in the Royal Navy, he demonstrates the peculiarities on the Bounty that led to mutiny: ambiguous language, public vs. private space, the lack of ceremony, and the role of authority and power. Dening provides excellent details of the daily life of seamen and officers from the perspectives of history and anthropology. Readers will want to compare Leonard F. Guttridge's Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection ( LJ 9/1/92) for a legal/political perspective. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
- Harold N. Boyer, Marple P.L., Broomall, Pa.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521383706
• ISBN 13: 9780521383707
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 459