Daniel Defoe (1661—1731)

Robinson Crusoe (1719) 1. The hero 1). an embodiment of the Spirit of individual enterprise and colonial expansion; 2). an empire-builder, colonizer, a foreign trader; 3) a man against nature and living through different stages of human civilization in a seemingly primitive environment; 4)later, an exploiter, colonizer.

2.The book a glorification of bourgeois qualities of individualism, private enterprise, and even of labor.

3.The skill of the novel its detail in the semblance of the authentic told in a simple, straightforward style, adding to the realistic effect of the story.

4.significance of the novel starting the tradition of realistic description and presenting authentic details which are important for the later development of the novel.

5. Defoe’s illusory view the existence of the individual, not that of the collective mass, was the starting point of human history.