Atalantis Major — Key Ideas to Explore

Theatrical Framing and the Language of Performance

From the outset, Defoe presents the election as a “Farce” requiring a cast of actors. The narrator’s insistence that the characters must be described before the plot unfolds suggests a deliberate structural choice: the pamphlet is organized as a dramatis personae followed by a narrative of events. This theatrical framing is reinforced by verbs like “acted,” “played,” and “performed.” For instance, the Lord of the Isles is said to have “acted his usual Flattery on both Sides,” while Greeniccio and Marereskine are described as “Instruments” who “acted one Part” and “another.” The repeated use of theatrical language turns political manipulation into a scripted performance, inviting the reader to view the election as a staged spectacle rather than a genuine contest.

Geographical Movement and Allegorical Layering

The pamphlet’s geography is deliberately unstable. Real locations like “Reeky” (Edinburgh) are placed within the fictional “Atalantis Major,” while the island’s “North” and “South” parts correspond to Scotland and England. This movement between real and invented spaces allows Defoe to comment on the Union of 1707 and the separate election of Scottish peers. The narrative shifts from the “City Reeky” to the “Isles” and back to the court, creating a sense of political terrain that is both familiar and estranged. The allegory is not consistent: sometimes the “Tartarian Emperor” stands for the Jacobite pretender, sometimes for the French king. This fluidity forces the reader to constantly re-evaluate the referents, mirroring the confusion Defoe attributes to the election itself.

Recurring Images of Duplicity and Self-Interest

Defoe returns again and again to the image of the self-interested politician who “run with every Stream” and “kept fair with every Side.” The Lord of the Isles is the prime example: he “spoke smoothly to all, meant Service to none, his dear Self excepted.” This portrait is built through a series of parallel phrases that emphasize his insincerity. The same pattern appears in descriptions of other figures, such as the unnamed courtiers who “talked of him, and Party and Queen, as one Knot.” The repetition of such images creates a cumulative effect: the reader is left with the impression that duplicity is not an individual failing but the system’s operating principle. The pamphlet’s structure—moving from one double-dealing character to another—reinforces this theme.

The Role of the Narrator and the Reader’s Position

Defoe’s narrator frequently addresses the reader directly, using phrases like “I cannot better describe them to you” and “let you into a true Notion.” This rhetorical strategy positions the reader as an outsider being initiated into the secrets of the election. The narrator claims to reveal hidden motives and backroom dealings, but the revelations are often partial or ambiguous. For example, when describing the Lord of the Isles’s encounter with the “North Atalantis Ministers,” the narrator adds “whether designedly or no it matters not,” leaving the reader to judge. This technique creates a sense of complicity: the reader is invited to see through the farce, but the narrator’s own reliability is never fully established. The pamphlet thus becomes a performance of exposure that may itself be part of the political game.

Readers approaching Atalantis Major should attend to the way Defoe uses allegorical names and shifting geographies to create a layered critique. The pamphlet rewards those who track the movement between the fictional and the real, and who notice how the theatrical language undercuts the claims of transparency. Because the excerpts are incomplete, the full extent of Defoe’s satirical targets remains uncertain, but the structural patterns are clear: this is a work that distrusts surfaces and expects its readers to do the same.

That grey afternoon, the rain kept time while I traced Defoe’s shifting map, his invented geographies bleeding into real streets. The theatrical staging of power lingered, a masque where every vote was a role played. Weeks later, this echoed faintly while reading the Canadian elections in The Masques of Ottawa — Key Ideas to Explore, and I felt the same strange fog lift between two centuries.