This handbook offers a systematic exploration of current key topics in travel writing studies. It addresses the history, impact, and unique discursive variety of British travel writing by covering some of the most celebrated and canonical authors of the genre as well as lesser known ones in more than thirty close-reading chapters. Combining theoretically informed, astute literary criticism of single texts with the analysis of the circumstances of their production and reception, these chapters offer excellent possibilities for understanding the complexity and cultural relevance of British travel writing.
This handbook offers a systematic exploration of current key topics in travel writing studies. It addresses the history, impact, and unique discursive variety of British travel writing by covering some of the most celebrated and canonical authors of the genre as well as lesser known ones in more than thirty close-reading chapters. Combining theoretically informed, astute literary criticism of single texts with the analysis of the circumstances of their production and reception, these chapters offer excellent possibilities for understanding the complexity and cultural relevance of British travel writing.
Cocker shows how foreign landscapes and their inhabitants have been used by travel writers as a means to self-definition as well as a source of image, fantasy, even self-image. Loneliness and Time illuminates the appeal of travel - the desire to explore the unfamiliar and the strange - that captivates us all.
Where can travel writing go in the twenty-first century? Author and lifelong travel writing aficionado Tim Hannigan sets out in search of this most venerable of genres, hunting down its legendary practitioners and confronting its greatest controversies. Is it ever okay for travel writers to make things up, and just where does the frontier between fact and fiction lie? What actually is travel writing, and is it just a genre dominated by posh white men? What of travel writing’s queasy colonial connections? Travelling from Monaco to Eton, from wintry Scotland to sun-scorched Greek hillsides, Hannigan swills beer with the indomitable Dervla Murphy, sips tea with the doyen of British explorers, delves into the diaries of Wilfred Thesiger and Patrick Leigh Fermor, and gains unexpected insights from Colin Thubron, Samanth Subramanian, Kapka Kassabova, William Dalrymple and many others. But along the way he realises how much is at stake: can his own love of travel writing survive this journey? The Travel Writing Tribe tackles head on the fierce critical debates usually confined to strictly academic discussions of the genre. This highly original book compels readers and travellers of all kinds to think about travel writing in new ways.
The Handbook of British Romanticism is a state of the art investigation of Romantic literature and theory, a field that probably changed more quickly and more fundamentally than any other traditional era in literary studies. Since the early 1980s, Romantic studies has widened its scope significantly: The canon has been expanded, hitherto ignored genres have been investigated and new topics of research explored. After these profound changes, intensified by the general crisis of literary theory since the turn of the millennium, traditional concepts such as subjectivity, imagination and the creative genius have lost their status as paradigms defining Romanticism. The handbook will feature discussions of key concepts such as history, class, gender, science and the use of media as well as a thorough account of the most central literary genres around the turn of the 19th century. The focus of the book, however, will lie on a discussion of key literary texts in the light of the most recent theoretical developments. Thus, the Handbook of British Romanticism will provide students with an introduction to Romantic literature in general and literary scholars with a discussion of innovative and groundbreaking theoretical developments.
The nexus between travel, writing and media in the contemporary world is dense: travel practice is increasingly interwoven with media; representations in old and new media are co-present and converge. Digitisation has had a profound impact on the practice and mediation of travel, but this volume aims to show that travel and its representation have always been enlaced with media. With contributions by experts in literary and cultural studies, journalism studies and informatics, the book takes a multi- and interdisciplinary approach and covers a wide range of media, from the hand-crafted album to social media. It illustrates how current transformations invite us to revisit earlier periods of travel writing and their media environments, and to explore the ways in which contemporary forms of mediation are prefigured by earlier practices and forms. The book addresses readers interested in travel writing, travel studies and cultural studies. Chapters Introduction, 3, 7 and 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by University of Freiburg.
An increasingly popular genre – addressing issues of empire, colonialism, post-colonialism, globalization, gender and politics – travel writing offers the reader a movement between the familiar and the unknown. In this volume, Carl Thompson: introduces the genre, outlining competing definitions and key debates provides a broad historical survey from the medieval period to the present day explores the autobiographical dimensions of the form looks at both men and women’s travel writing, surveying a range of canonical and more marginal works, drawn from both the colonial and postcolonial era utilises both British and American travelogues to consider the genre's role in shaping the history of both nations. Concise and practical, Travel Writing is the ideal introduction for those new to the subject, as well as a crucial overview of current debates in the field.
The handbook offers a comprehensive introduction to the British novel in the long eighteenth century, when this genre emerged to develop into the period’s most versatile and popular literary form. Part I features six systematic chapters that discuss literary, intellectual, socio-economic, and political contexts, providing innovative approaches to issues such as sense and sentiment, gender considerations, formal characteristics, economic history, enlightened and radical concepts of citizenship and human rights, ecological ramifications, and Britain’s growing global involvement. Part II presents twenty-five analytical chapters that attend to individual novels, some canonical and others recently recovered. These analyses engage the debates outlined in the systematic chapters, undertaking in-depth readings that both contextualize the works and draw on relevant criticism, literary theory, and cultural perspectives. The handbook’s breadth and depth, clear presentation, and lucid language make it attractive and accessible to scholar and student alike.
By the end of the eighteenth century, British travellers had fanned out to every corner of the world, driven by widely varying motives: scientific curiosity, commerce, colonization, diplomacy, exploration, and tourism. In letters, journals, and books, travellers wrote at first-hand of exotic lands and beautiful scenery, and of encounters with strange peoples and wildlife. This anthology brings together the best writing from authors such as Daniel Defoe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Olaudah. Equiano, Mungo Park, Maria Nugent and many others, to provide a comprehensive selection from this emerging literary genre. -;'How is the mind agitated and bewildered, at being thus, as it were, placed on the borders of a new world ' - William Bartram. 'Thus you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would have us believe.' - Mary Wortley Montagu. With widely varied motives - scientific curiosity, commerce, colonization, diplomacy, exploration, and tourism - British travellers fanned out to every corner of the world in the period the Critical Review labelled the 'Age of Peregrination'. The Empire, already established in the Caribbean and North America, was expanding in India and Africa and founding new outposts in the Pacific in the wake of Captain Cook's voyages. In letters, journals, and books, travellers wrote at. first-hand of exotic lands and beautiful scenery, and encounters with strange peoples and dangerous wildlife. They conducted philosophical and political debates in print about slavery and the French Revolution, and their writing often affords unexpected insights into the writers themselves. This anthology brings. together the best writing from authors such as Daniel Defoe, Celia Fiennes, Mary Wollstonecraft, Olaudah Equiano, Mungo Park, and many others, to provide a comprehensive selection from this emerging literary genre. -
