The Witness and the Other World
Exotic European Travel Writing, 400–1600
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15
Exotic European Travel Writing, 400–1600
Ratings1
Average rating3
Surveying exotic travel writing in Europe from late antiquity to the age of discover, The Witness and the Other World illustrates the fundamental human desire to change places, if only in the imagination.Mary B. Campbell looks at works by pilgrims, crusaders, merchants, discoverers, even armchair fantasists such as Mandeville, as well as the writings of Marco Polo, Columbus, and Walter Raleigh. According to Campbell, these travel accounts are exotic because they bear witness to alienated experiences; European travelers, while claiming to relate fact, were often passing on monstrous projections. She contends that their writing not only documented but also made possible the conquest of the peoples whom she travelers described, and she shows how travel literature contributed to the genesis of the modern novel and the modern life sciences.
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Interesting treatment of several major travel classics and especially the evolution of certain techniques of narrative and their contribution to the development of the novel. Especially thought the chapters on Mandeville and Marco Polo to be informative, as well as passages on Wonders of the East and Friar William.
