Travel from Europe and the Middle East - Ancient And Medieval Travel: Epic Heroes, Pilgrims, And Merchants, Renaissance Travel: Exploration And Empire
activity human structure images
Travel, as a human activity, predates language. It should be no surprise, then, that some of the first ancient literary expressions from the European and African continents should use travel as a motif. Certainly the ancient Hebrew biblical narratives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses structure the lives of their subjects through travel. Greek and Roman epics—The Odyssey and The Aeneid—as well as the history of Thucydides, use travel as an important thematic element, connecting it with various aspects of conflict. Similarly, Herodotus (c. 484–c. 424 B.C.E.), in his historical, ethnographic, and geographic compendium, uses travel in part as his method of research. The Islamic tradition begins with epic travel—flight and return—continuing with pilgrimage, educational, and diplomatic travel. In the millennium and a half since, the motif of travel has attracted a number of images that structure our view of this basic human activity, images that appear in both fiction and nonfiction.
Additional Topics
The genre of epic structures the oldest European travel narratives extant, from the voyages of Ulysses to that of Beowulf. The epic as a form connects travel to conflict and cultural threat, as well as to the landscape of fantasy and to the epic hero. Just as the epic hero is larger and more marvelous than life, so the epic landscape is both marvelous and dangerous. The epic hero and those who acc…
With the beginning of the early modern period, the primary image of travel gradually transforms from the traditional images of epic and pilgrimage into something new—exploration. There is a sense in which exploration retains the heroic character of epic travel: it often highlights conflict, whether conflict with the elements and a hostile landscape or conflict with the other cultures encoun…
Travel narratives allowed ancient and medieval audiences to escape through literary fantasy and compare their culture to different ones. But the wondrous living denizens of these narratives—people whose heads grew beneath their shoulders, people who lived on odors, tribes of Amazon women—would be proven nonexistent. In their place, exploration narratives would put the actual wonders …
Islamic travelers voyaged through Africa and into the Far East using established overland and sea routes from northern Africa and the Mideast. Routes were established in the Mediterranean to Spain and indirectly to the rest of Europe; overland, the great Silk Road reached into China; by sea, Arab traders reached India. Of two important early Muslim travelers, Ibn Fadlan (Ahmad ibn Fadlan ibn al-&#…
Tourism began in the early modern period as travel for education. At this time, travel was seen as an important pedagogical capstone. In England, such important social and literary figures as Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) took the "grand tour" (an extended visit to important cities and courts of continental Europe) as an appropriate way to conclude their education in the arts …
The early modern period in Europe (roughly 1450–1700) was not only a time of intense exploratory activity but also a time in which a number of editors and collectors strove to collect, organize, and distribute overviews of nonfictional writing about travel. Nationalistic impulses as well as the need for information drove a number of editors between 1550 and 1650 to collect narratives. Giova…
Casas, Bartolomé de las. De unico vocationis. Edited by Helen R. Parish and translated by Francis Sullivan. New York: Paulist Press, 1992. Cortés, Hernán. Letters from Mexico. Edited and translated by A. R. Pagden. New York: Grossman, 1971. Gide, André. Amyntas. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Ecco, 1988. Ibn Battuta. Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. Edited and translated b…
Citing this material
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments