ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how creative writers made use of the vogue to explore the Jacobean zeitgeist and thereby articulated a particular phase of the early-modern transition: one in which the anxieties of the new century were uppermost in their minds and temporarily eclipsed the optimism that can be found in humanist uses of the fantastic voyage in early Tudor times, and which was to be rediscovered in scientific fictions of extraordinary travel later in the seventeenth century. The Jacobean years saw the greatest elaboration of the travel exploit, making it a ready vehicle for satire and the critical fictions of writers like Jonson and Joseph Hall, but the promoters and executants of many a stunt would not have shared their scepticism, nor would the crowds that we know were drawn to these exploits have automatically tailored their responses to a particular cultural mood.
