Defoe begins his story with an account of the discovery of a few cases of the plague in St. Giles parish in the winter of 1664-65. The slow and close-grained way in which he describes the alternating terror and relief caused by the reporting of new cases followed by periods of abatement builds dramatic tension very effectively. One of the highlights of this episode is the little editorializing he does about the ability of the media to both report rumors and to embellish them for effect. This, along with his remarks about the speed at which news traveled in the author’s day—”instantly over the whole nation,”—lend a faint irony to the account, as they are pretty much how we would describe our situation today. Defoe concludes the episode with descriptions of the mass exodus from the city of those who were wealthy enough and of rumors of restrictions on travel soon to come.
For an account of a modern-day exodus, see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/upshot/who-left-new-york-coronavirus.html
Credits:
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting. Used by permission.
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© 2020 Mark Cummings