Biography of Daniel Defoe

The novel and its mounting

3 April 1660
24 April 1731
Son of James Foe, merchant of London candles whig, Liberal, a native of Flanders, Daniel Defoe was born in London on 3 April 1660. He was educated at a dissenting Academy "": a polytechnic school founded by Protestant Cromwell ´ s men "and not" those Anglicans who were banned from traditional universities, and that would become a little later the makers of the industrial revolution. Waiver to become a Presbyterian Minister and soon you throw in trade traveling on the continent. From time to time face brick, newly invented products merchant, shipowner, loses considerable fortunes that repeatedly earn. At the height of the success adds to the surname originating Foe a "De" to identify it as a Flemish Protestant refugee Elizabethan.
Around the year 1683 Daniel Defoe opens a store of goods and marries Mary Tuffley, daughter of a wealthy merchant who has a dowry of £ 3,700 well: you will have six children. In 1692 comes the meltdown: Defoe goes to prison for bankruptcy with 17 thousand pounds in debt, after getting distracted from the business to start writing about economics. In these writings, moreover, Defoe recommends the creation of a National Bank (later born in 1694), insurance companies (Lloyd's will be born soon after), savings, pensions, mental hospitals, the hope-of course-the reform of bankruptcy laws. The harsh experience of prison him away from reckless speculation. Whig convinced, Daniel Defoe fight alongside the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, Protestant and illegitimate son of Charles II, against the accession of James, the brother of Charles and openly Catholic heir apparent.
Take part in the revolution (the so-called "Glorious Revolution") of 1688 enlisting in the army; join the Ireland expedition and puts his talents as a pamphleteer in the service of William III of Orange, when he was called to overthrow the Catholic father Giacomo which threatened to introduce absolute State in England, mimicking his cousin Louis XIV in "cleaning" of Protestants. With his paper "The English of proud lineage" (The True-Born-Englishman, 1701) defends the King and his policies. Fights in favour of press freedom and freedom of conscience, of literary property and religious freedom. With the death of his patron, King William of Orange, Defoe was arrested for defaming the Church of England in "the shortest way to the dissenters" (The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, 1702). These pages would later inspired the "modest proposal" (1729) by Jonathan Swift for a solution to the Irish problem: it is a satirical pamphlet entitled "A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick" (a modest proposal: for preventing the children of poor Irish are a burden to their parents or Country , and to make them a benefit to the community), where Swift suggests provocatively to eat Irish children. Defoe suggests ironically to the Anglicans of treating the dissenters as Louis XIV had treated his subjects Protestants.
The anger of the upper echelons of the Church of England is such that the House of Commons the judge at the Old Bailey, sends him to the stake, the book-brilliant-and condemns Defoe to three exhibitions in the stocks among the crowd support cries that she loved, and imprisonment in Newgate, which would later become the background of his great novel "Moll Flanders". With a wife and six children to support, lost the brick factory, Daniel Defoe gives birth in prison to the magazine "The Review" (1703-1713) which comes out three times a week and that will become a cornerstone of English journalism.
Defoe writes alone, on any topic, all issues of the magazine; While slicing an attitude from independent political sector was in fact-in Exchange for a promise of release-on the payroll of the tory (conservative) Prime Minister Robert Harley, his supposed enemy and persecutor; will be at your service for about eleven years. After the 1715 moves away permanently from the political struggle. With sixty springs on the shoulders is dedicated to romance works: publishes "Robinson Crusoe" in 1718, novel inspired by the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, Scottish sailor of German origin ended up on a desert island after a shipwreck, and that, with makeshift and with the aid of his wits, he manages to build from scratch the World English and middle-class from which he had fled to impatience of his own condition (borghese). The success was immediate, now appears immense, so much so that it will last to the present day. The second part of the story appears in the following year.
This is followed by several novels such as "the life, adventures and piracies of Captain Singleton" (The life, Adventures and Pyracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, 1720); "Fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders" (The fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 1722); "Colonel Jack (1722); "Journal of the plague year" (A journal of the Plague Year, 1722) and "Lady Roxana (Lady Roxana or the Fortunate Mistress, 1724). Forerunner of the imaginary realism, Daniel Defoe is considered in all respects the first modern writer "serial". Defoe was not actually interested in creating or developing novel literary purposes. He was first a journalist and essayist, and at the same time also a professional pen ready to put his talents at the service of the highest bidder.
Defoe was seen repeatedly by literary criticism as the father of the modern novel, in particular of that form in prose in which the figure of a single character or group of characters and their fate is at the Centre of the affair, in which we try to respect certain criteria of coherence and verisimilitude. Defoe did not invent a genre but was in fact the first to use this type of literary form for a systematic production. After an existence characterized by numerous disappointments and misfortunes, Daniel Defoe dies at Moorfields, near London, on 24 April 1731, abandoned by a son who had plundered from all good leaving him in misery.
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