The Cambridge introduction to travel writing

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Critics have long struggled to find a suitable category for travelogues. From its ancient origins to the present day, the travel narrative has borrowed elements from various genres - from epic poetry to literary reportage - in order to evoke distant cultures and exotic locales, and sometimes those closer to hand. Tim Youngs argues in this lucid and detailed Introduction that travel writing redefines the myriad genres it comprises and is best understood on its own terms. To this end, Youngs surveys some of the most celebrated travel literature from the medieval period until the present, exploring themes such as the quest motif, the traveler's inner journey, postcolonial travel and issues of gender and sexuality. The text culminates in a chapter on twenty-first-century travel writing and offers predictions about future trends in the genre, making this Introduction an ideal guide for today's students, teachers and travel writing enthusiasts.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: defining the terms
• Part I Historical Overview
• 2 Medieval and early modern travel writing
• 3 Travel writing in the long eighteenth century
• 4 Travel writing in the long nineteenth century
• 5 1900 to the present
• Part II Continuities and Departures
• 6 Quests
• 7 Inner journeys
• 8 Traveling b(l)ack
• 9 Gender and sexuality
• Part III Writing and Reading Travel
• 10 Writing travel
• 11 Reading travel writing
• 12 The way ahead: current travel writing
• Bibliography
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Coeditor (with Peter Hulme) of The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing (CH, Jun'03, 40-5647) and author of numerous books and articles on travel writing, Youngs (Nottingham Trent Univ., UK) has condensed decades of analysis of travel writing into an informative, readable introduction to the massive body of travel writing, with its dizzying variety. The author divides the book into three parts: "Historical Overview" covers the origins of travel writing and concludes with recent texts; "Continuities and Departures" provides a thematic overview focusing on quests, inner journeys, "traveling b(l)ack," and gender and sexuality; "Writing and Reading Travel" discusses the craft of travel writing and explains the strategies authors employ in their presentations of self and place. In his concise introduction, Youngs provides a succinct overview of the vexing classification problems plaguing the genre and discusses some of its conceptual challenges, particularly the relationship between travel and representation. A leitmotif of his survey is the importance and eminently political nature of all travel writing and the huge influence it continues to exert on how people view the world. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and general readers. M. Shafi University of Delaware