Seven Types of Adventure Tale: An Etiology of a Major Genre

by Martin Burgess Green

From Alexandre Dumas to Raymond Chandler, Martin Green examines adventure stories and their role in spreading the ideology of the modern nation-state. Seven Types of Adventure Tale studies widely read and influential adventure tales of the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries in the respectable literary forms. Some of the authors considered are Dumas, Scott, Defoe, Cooper, Verne, Buchan, Kipling, Twain, and Chandler. These stories, though adapted and copied innumerable times and read in their native languages and in translation throughout the Western world, have been largely neglected by literary theorists. Green offers a way to take the adventure tale seriously by positioning these stories within a new theoretical framework. Green places the tales in seven categories organized according to the type of central character in each story. The first category is the Robinson Crusoe story, which portrays the myth of entrepreneurial capitalism and "modern" or postfeudal politics. This story has appeared in one hundred well-known versions, including The Swiss Family Robinson and Lord of the Flies , since Defoe published his version. The second category is the Three Musketeers story, mythifying the birth of the French state and, by extension, the birth of other nation-states. The third is the Frontiersman story, originally about American history but a powerful myth far beyond U.S. borders. The fourth, the Avenger story, is tied to the myth of an avenging return by Napoleon to France, but more generally to a threat to the bourgeois ruling classes of the nineteenth-century Europe. The fifth is the Wanderer story, which relates to escaping from social discipline but also to spying and disguises and crossing frontiers of all kinds. The sixth, the Saga story, is a revision of the Icelandic and Teutonic sagas and reflects the myth of resurgent Germany after its unification in 1870. And the seventh category, more specific to the twentieth century, is the Hunted Man story, in which an individual hero is pitted against social juggernaut, such as the state, the Mafia, or a giant corporation. Seven Types of Adventure Tale is the second volume of a three-volume study of adventure by Green that began with The Robinson Crusoe Story.

Genres: Adventure

260 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Rebecca Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty interesting book. I didn't read it straight through, but I read sections of each chapter. Despite being written a long time ago and containing some annoying sexists ideas, it does show a clear picture of how adventure fiction began and developed, what its characteristics are and what kinds it was separated into historically.

Currently we have very different classifications for adventure fiction, but I think this book highlights some of the interesting aspects that have been lost in the recent understanding of the genre. For example, not all adventure fiction is fast paced with liberally "action" scenes. In fact, much of it is slow, introspective and character based. There is a misconception that adventure fiction is synonymous with action fiction that I find hideously annoying.

This would be a great book for fans of tradtional adventure fiction like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Moby-Dick, and Robinson Crusoe who want to understand how and why the genre developed.

[Nathanael Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is nowhere nearly so helpful as Cawelti’s Adventure, Mystery, and Romance for a couple of reasons. The first is that Green’s seven types are admittedly more artificial than those examined by Cawelti; they flow together in various ways and several authors (Cooper, Dumas, or Scott, for instance) wrote in each of the types. Second, Green attempts to tie the types to different national experiences, but even he admits in the end that this effort is largely futile; instead, he says, the popularity of these forms is tied to the expansion of “the white empire.” Finally, Green’s analysis is not as far-reaching nor yet as deep as it could be.

Nevertheless, as a general survey of Green’s self-created major types of adventure story, the book is helpful; it’s just a pity that it didn’t go farther.

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting academic analysis of the development of the adventure genre over the past several centuries. But way too dry and boring -- if you're writing about adventure, shouldn't you write like your life depends on it?!