The Frozen Ship: The Histories and Tales of Polar Exploration - Hardcover

Moss, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1933346035 ISBN 13: 9781933346038

Publisher: Bluebridge, 2006

Synopsis

This thought-provoking examination of the most influential and popular accounts of polar exploration—from Viking settlers and Renaissance conquerors to expeditions led by such famous explorers as Ernest Shackleton, Richard Byrd, and Roald Amundsen—emphasizes themes of endurance, greed, obsession, and self-sacrifice in tales that have captured the popular imagination for centuries. The stories that consider the life-threatening risks of polar exploration, the enduring appeal of romanticized frozen landscapes, and issues of national identity that are linked with exploration, also include descriptions of indigenous communities, forgotten stories of women at the poles, Robert Falcon Scott’s meticulous account of his own dying, and purely imaginary approaches to polar travel such as Frankenstein and Winnie the Pooh.

About this title

About the Author

Sarah Moss is a lecturer in American and English literature at the University of Kent and holds a PhD from Oxford.

Reviews

Moss's book is primarily a literary historical examination of the myth and reality of Antarctica and the Arctic from the point of view of European settlers and explorers, including the history of Norse settlements in Greenland; the expeditions of Parry, Nansen, Franklin and others; and Arctic myth and imagery in literature from the likes of Donne, Mary Shelley and Lewis Carroll. Well-written and interesting in terms of cultural criticism, Moss's work suffers from a number of factual and bibliographic omissions. Part V, on the experience of European women in the Arctic and their interactions with Inuit women, presents new material and a point of view entirely absent from the writings of male explorers. But, when discussing the Norse in Greenland, she relies on ambiguous archaeological data from the 1920's and 1930's, ignoring newer, more conclusive research. University of Alberta research on the Franklin expedition is also ignored, and her discussion of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner fails to note that Coleridge met Samuel Hearne and had knowledge of his experiences in Northern Canada. Further, Moss admits that her own northernmost visits were to Tromsø, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, all markedly different in landscape and climate from the Siberian Coast, Greenland, and northern Canada; yet she writes as if her perceptions of these relatively benign places is correlative. Though worth reading for the casual historian, readers should bear in mind that the record here is far from complete.
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This book is a chronicle of journeys--from the Vikings to such adventurers as Byrd, Amundsen, Scott, Peary, and Shackleton--to the Arctic and the Antarctic. Moss also relates the adventures of little-known explorers, missionaries, and archaeologists from Europe and North America. The book, Moss writes, is primarily concerned with ways of imagining the polar region as alien and remote but also covers the^B "Arctic as part of Canada's present and future national identity." Moss delves into such topics as medieval Norse sagas, women explorers, arctic imagery in English poetry and novels (there is much here about the literature of polar travel), and descriptions of indigenous communities. This remarkable book offers the most vivid account yet of polar exploration. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Bluebridge
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1933346035
• ISBN 13: 9781933346038
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272