Reviews for Chivalry and Exploration, 1298-1630

The average rating for Chivalry and Exploration, 1298-1630 based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-12-01 00:00:00 Les Dotson Before reading this book, probably you want to imagine that Columbus voyage to the New World was caused by his imagination and fantasies that he, probably, read in late medieval chivalric romance. Goodman's Chivalry and Exploration is based on two premises: life is a work of the imagination and art (imaginative literature) shapes human self-perception, vision and behavior. This book departs from a phenomenon of chivalry as it intersects exploration. In this comparative analysis work, Goodman reinterprets two literatures, the chivalric literature of the fourteenth through the sixteenth century, and the exploration narratives of the same period. Her goal is to explore the role of imagination in human experience and in the history of that experience by reconsidering exploration as a product of the late medieval chivalric imagination. Goodman presents six case studies on specific connections between chivalric literature and particular exploration narratives throughout the later middle ages and renaissance, and discloses identical ideas and obsessions. She depicts this with the histories of a series of explorers and their connections with chivalry from Marco Polo, Gadifer de la Salle who went on the expedition to Canary islands, Prince Henry the Navigator, Hernan Cortes in his quest for Montezuma, Hakluyt and Sir Walter Raleigh to Captain John Smith. All Goodman's case studies suggest that we can better understand European explorers and conquerors by understanding their fantasies. However, she admits that the contribution of later medieval chivalric romance has remained "largely unexplored" (p.219).

Review # 2 was written on 2017-01-11 00:00:00 Tom Williamson Informative, interesting, and well-structured. Every textbook writer could stand to learn a thing or two from Whitmarsh.