Parr argues that Kemp's long-distance Morris dance was not the epitome of the travel stunt. His analysis of the traditional Morris dance reveals a bawdy madcap spectacle that Kemp tried to use to boost his ailing popularity. He examines the published Kemps Nine Daies Wonder (1600) to argue that the famous Morris dance is integral to the English mad voyage. Parr notes that Kemp's Morris dance has been viewed by modern critics as a solitary moment of eccentricity. 79), an outrageous response to the anxieties of European competition. He also argues that Bush's miniature warship was 'a perverse deviation from serious scientific enquiry' (p. Through lack of evidence, Parr speculates that Bush's travel stunt was intended to raise money for a voyage to Guiana. Ferris was parading the celebratory notion that only English seamen could navigate the dangerous British coasts.Ĭhapter 3 closely examines William Bush's 1607 ship voyage on land and Will Kemp's 1600 Morris dance from London to Norwich.

Parr notes insightfully that Ferris's travel stunt occurred just two years after the destruction of the Spanish Armada. The chapter then explores Richard Ferris's dangerous exploit of rowing a small boat to Bristol.

He argues that the revellers were playfully re-enacting the auspicious return of an Elizabethan explorer. Parr describes this escapade as a 'nautical fantasy' recalling the 'ship of fools' imagery (p.37). Parr first analyses the Christmas revels of 1594–95 that transformed Gray's Inn into the Prince of Purpoole's fantastical kingdom, and featured the Prince and his followers sailing down the Thames. With no European equivalent, such travel stunts enable Parr to define the notion of English eccentricity.Ĭhapter 2 explains how mad voyages shaped the early modern imagination. In Chapter 1, Parr argues that the sudden appearance of the 'travel stunt' in late sixteenth-century England was a response to 'increased mobility, opportunity and enterprise' in the New World (p. Anthony Parr's fascinating book investigates an early modern trend for outrageous journeys.

Renaissance Mad Voyages by Anthony Parr