The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination

The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination Carl Thompson examines the romance that can attach to the notion of suffering in travel, and the importance of the persona of 'suffering traveller' for Romantic writers and travellers such as Wordsworth and Byron. Surveying branches of Romantic-era travel writing such as shipwreck, captivity, and exploration narratives, he considers how and why the Romantics typically chose to imitate the hapless protagonists of these accounts, rather than to play the more conventional roles of picturesque and Grand Tourist. Carl Thompson explores the romance that can attach to the notion of suffering in travel, and the importance of the persona of 'suffering traveller' in the Romantic self-fashionings of figures such as Wordsworth and Byron. Situating such self-fashionings in the context of the upsurge of tourism in the late eighteenth century, he shows how the Romantics sought to differentiate themselves from mere tourists by following alternative models, and alternative travel 'scripts', in both their travelling and their travel writing. In a rejection of the more conventional roles of picturesque tourist and Grand Tourist, Romantic travellers often preferred to style themselves as heroic explorers, oppressed and endangered mariners, even shipwreck victims. The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination accordingly returns to the sub-genres of Romantic-era travel writing - the shipwreck narrative, the exploration narrative, the captivity narrative, and the like - that first kindled the Romantic fascination with these figures, to consider the travel scripts seemingly enabled by this source material. Paying particular attention to the narratives of shipwreck and maritime suffering that were a hugely popular part of Romantic-era print culture, and to the equally popular narrative of exploration, the book considers firstly the examples, traditions, and conventions that trained Romantic travellers to think that misadventure as much as adventure could be a route to visionary expe Autor: Carl (Lecturer in English Thompson Wydawnictwo: Oxford University Press Rok wydania: 2007 Okładka: twarda Liczba stron: 312 Wymiary: 21.1 x 14.2 x 2 cm Język: angielski ISBN: 9780199259984