ABSTRACT
The strongest piece of evidence for Crusoe’s insensitivity to natural scenery can be found when Robinson climbs a hill to view the environs. The visible palisade, an element of Robinson’s fortifications, foregrounds idea of enclosure, possession and conquest over the natural world, thus corresponding to Crusoe’s shifting attention, from the presence of surrounding wilderness to his own survival and civilising ventures. Rousseau’s appreciation of Robinson Crusoe revived and reoriented the interest in the myth of Robinson, especially on the Continent. The classical iconography of figura serpentinata is used to emphasise the harmonious co-presence of man and nature, the serpentine postures of Robinson and Friday imitating as it were, the shapes of the bended trees. Two of Stothard’s engravings sketch a wider panorama of the island. In the scene showing Crusoe retrieving goods from the shipwreck, the background offers skilfully composed and sentimentally biased scenery, which, as Blewett argues, brings to mind the qualities of a “beautifully landscaped English park”.
