Introduction

An often-overlooked element of the shipboard world in which sea literature takes place is its strikingly oral discourse. Many 19th-century sailors could not read, and even those who could had little access to printed texts. Instead, they created and perpetuated a rich oral culture. Writers such as Melville, Conrad, and London understood the ocean not only in aesthetic, literary, and intellectual terms but also kinesthetically. The knowledge of the sea and seafaring that these sailor-authors gained kinesthetically, and often unconsciously, is reflected in their writing—but in a shorthand rooted in their familiarity with the spoken world of sailors. Sailor talk is by its very nature ephemeral, making it difficult to extract from the historical record. But we can recover such talk to a surprisingly large extent from letters, journals, newspapers, and orally transmitted forms such as song and folklore. Sailor talk offers cultural significance as well as specific literal meaning. Mariners were the first Europeans to interact with indigenous people around the world. When they returned to their home countries, they discussed these experiences—and their speech became the medium of cultural exchange, especially within port cities.