Daniel Defoe on Naturalization

Abstract

This essay explores the connection in Daniel Defoe’s writing between naturalization as a civic concept and naturalization as an epistemological or literary-critical process. For Defoe, the incorporation of new subjects was a moral project that entailed the literary interpellation of a more productive, tolerant and empowered populace. A history of his efforts to encourage immigration by broadening access to legal citizenship provides, then, not just crucial insight into his view of the national political community but points to the role his satire, journalism and novels might play in bringing subjects together in its formation. In pursuit of this history, I trace Defoe’s approach to naturaliz..