From the Putumayo to Connemara: Roger Casement’s Amazon Voyage of Discovery

Authors

  • Peter James Harris Universidade Estadual de São Paulo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2595-8127.v4i1p131-138

Keywords:

Roger Casement, Putumayo, Homer, Odyssey

Abstract

This article examines the evidence provided by Roger Casement’s accounts of his voyage to the Putumayo in the Amazon rain forest in 1910, in order to reveal the Odyssean complexity of his personality and to suggest that, in a metaphorical sense at least, this journey represented the beginnings of an Irish homecoming for Casement, just as the wanderings of Homer’s hero led him to the recovery of his house and kingdom in Ithaca.

Author Biography

  • Peter James Harris, Universidade Estadual de São Paulo

    Peter James Harris lectures in English Literature and English Culture at the State University of São Paulo (UNESP). Born in London he has an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a Ph.D. in Irish Studies from the University of São Paulo (USP), with a thesis entitled “Sean O’Casey’s Letters and Autobiographies: Reflections of a Radical Ambivalence”. He is currently researching into the presence of Irish dramatists on the London stage in the period from Independence to the present day.

References

Roger Casement, Roger Casement’s Diaries – 1910: The Black & the White, Roger Sawyer (ed.), (London: Pimlico, 1997)

Roger Casement, The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement, Angus Mitchell (ed.), (London: Anaconda, 1997)

Homer, The Odyssey, W.H.D. Rouse (trans.), (New York: New American Library, 1937)

Roger Sawyer, Casement: The Flawed Hero, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984)

Peter Singleton-Gates and Maurice Girodias, The Black Diaries, (New York: Grove Press, 1959)

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Published

2002-06-30

Issue

Vol. 4 (2002): ABEI Journal 4

Section

The Irish in South America

License

Copyright (c) 2002 Peter James Harris

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Harris, P. J. (2002). From the Putumayo to Connemara: Roger Casement’s Amazon Voyage of Discovery. ABEI Journal, 4(1), 131-138. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2595-8127.v4i1p131-138