Chapter 2 - Defoe’s Connections

Summary

Defoe was unusual for a man of his time. He was remarkably individualistic in his relationships with others, and his relationships tended to be more transactional and ‘weak’ than those of contemporaries with less expansive, but more intensive, social networks built on ‘strong ties’. In this way, Defoe’s connections were much more modern than was customary for his contemporaries. Defoe was also singular in his energies, his self-confidence, and, of course, his literary talents. Defoe’s relative ‘modernity’ and his personal distinctiveness surely accounts for the enduring interest his writings have held ever since he began to publish, but they also set him apart from his contemporaries, and these qualities (along with his well-known pugnaciousness and love for duplicity) help to explain why he was such a controversial figure in his lifetime.