The Elizabethan Image of Africa

Book excerpt: Before the middle of the sixteenth century, the English derived their ideas of Africa from the Bible and the classical historians. These ancient sources continued to be sited long after English marines had visited Africa but had published accounts of their voyages. These accounts, however, could confuse the true picture since they appeared on the same pages as the legendary accounts of monsters and strange beings that peopled the pages of the classical historians. The sixteenth century reader might have found it difficult to separate the true from the imaginary. This book exploers the view of Africa from Elizabethan England.