Wilderness in 19th Century South Seas Literature: An Ecocritical Search for Seascapes

In Western thought and literature, a terrestrial bias is considered phenomenological primacy for notions such as wilderness. This ecocritical review draws on nineteenth-century South Seas literature with its influences from frontierism the literary movements of romanticism, realism naturism to consider more fluid appreciation reconceptualisation wilderness non-terrestrial an oceanic touchstone freedom. American frontierism, that drove colonial settlement North continent, used both counterpoint important embarkation point ventures into Pacific Ocean following ‘fulfilment’ ‘manifest destiny’ overspread continent. For American, British Australian writers, represented opportunity apply techniques capture new encounters. works by Melville, Stevenson, Becke Conrad offer glimpses seascapes provide perceptions heterotopias, archetypes depictions dispossessed itinerants at moral frontier sublime liberating, liminal phenomenological.