Notes to accompanyThe Virago Book of Women Travellers.
(New York, 1999)
1. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: an intrepid early traveler and proto-feminist
Letters
Useful web links:
Ministry of Culture: (The Republic of Turkey) information on Ottoman history, art, and culture e.g. portraits of Ottoman women's dress.
Orientalist Paintings at http://www.orientalist-art.org.uk/index.html (see particularly “harem paintings” there)
Excerpt from Virago:
- an intrepid early traveler and proto-feminist
pp. 3-4 the contradictory feelings: missing home (town) & friends so much vs the excitements, the urge to share the new experience in the foreign country
- hungry for news from England: even boring details become “fresh and sweet here”
- meticulous description of her Turkish clothing (beginning with the more intimate): (the excitement, the love for the exotic)
drawers vs petticoats: concealing the legs, brocaded織花with silver flowers; shoes: kid leather羔皮embroidered刺繡with gold; smock (loose-fitting undergarment resembling a shirt) of silk; waistcoat, caftan (a long loose dress) => as in description of Eastern food, this allows her to express a sensuality for which there were few respectable outlets for women [re. conventional “Orientalist” image] at her time
- beauties: more in Turkey; custom of putting round their eyes on the inside a black tincture [cf eye shadow, mascara]; dying their nails rose color
- arguing against popular stereotypes; ambivalent attitude: Turkish women not any worse morally speaking (common humanity, even idealization vs “Orientalism”); a “feminist” perspective: in fact they have more freedom than the English women [desiring for more] because of clothing (covered up; veiled), great ladies concealing their names to the gallants; privilege of the harem; when divorced, keep all the money
- hinting that many Turkish women commit adultery because of the secrecy they enjoy [no proper Christian education to teach them to abstain from such a sin]
– sounds like criticizing them but perhaps more of an admiration [projection of the female writer-traveler’s own desire -- more fantasy than reality]
Polygamy? Well, it’s not as widespread as expected
Ending: we’re all human (appealing to common humanity). Their manners “do not differ widely as our voyage writers would make us believe.” [7]
– re. the travel writer’s need to establish authority [discover the truth – that’s the value of travel writing]; to discredit rivals, however, doesn’t mean one can easy go beyond Orientalist fantasies
Generic considerations:
Limitations --
- often short, episodic, not easy to organize into a well-knitted plot
- obliged to take a more or less personal rather than public tone
Merits –
- peculiarly open to women for they require no classical education, literary training or uninterrupted time (more freedom than some more “public” form of writing)
- for “ladies,” letters create impressions of leisure (high-class distinction): cost of traveling, correspondence… privileged access to forbidden places, etc
- a letter’s emotional focus can be shifted to the recipient/addressee; less egocentric
- can demonstrate wit (like male writers): reader is invited to assess and enjoy the writer’s wit (verbal facility) like the recipient [particularly in C18; but later emotions became more important]
- suited to travel writing: its sequential nature provides a rhythm of anticipation and immediacy (a sense of suspense, a sense of on-going movement)
- its flexibility (looseness in form) matches the episodic nature of travel account [cf an essay or a novel]; - description & comments can be freely mixed (discursive freedom)
2. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, & Denmark
The trip: initially accompanied by her husband Gilbert Imlay & their infant daughter Fanny; later she traveled all alone. Personal problems haunting the trip: Wollstonecraft sensed that her relationship with Imlay will end; worrying about her daughter
See Sara Mills’ article in Romantic Geographies & Elizabeth Bohls’ book Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics
* Richard Holmes on the mysterious business affair on which Wollstonecraft was engaged:
“Although never once referred to explicitly in the text, it exerts its unseen pressure on the text… It gives Wollstonecraft’s travels their secret urgency, their sense of a mysterious, almost nightmare pursuit. It adds immemeasurably to the feeling of inexplicable anxiety, of gloomy foreboding which so marks Wollstonecrafts reflections on men and affairs and drvies her continually to seek Romantic solace in the wilderness…, hoping to escape into a sublime vision of grand, impartial Nature…”
Mills on Wollstonecraft’s aesthetics: rewriting the masculine Romantic conventions –
- same: lonely traveler-observer looking for/ inspired by the sublime landscape
- different: not seeking a mastery over Nature; no yearning for transcendence; there’re sense of fulfillment as much as sense of bereavement, the (relational) self is more fluid (“negotiating” with Nature), the viewing position may vary, natural beauty reminds her of concrete human relationship (e.g. the rosy tint of morning bringing to mind sweet blushes on her child’s cheeks).
3. Flora Tristan (1803-1844)
Peregrinations of a Pariah
See Pratt 155-71 (Tristan & Maria Graham as exploratrices socials or “social exploratresses” 社會問題的女性探索者)
Her traumatic marriage (cf Mary Wollstonecraft – click “eng lit” on the left & read my notes on her) – fighting with her ex-husband over custody of their children, financial problems, being shot by him. Motive of her 1833 Peru trip: wishes to claim an inheritance. Note the title of the book: “Peregrinations of a Pariah.” This journey initiates her political (socialist, feminist) awakening. Style: anti-sentimental, borrowing writing techniques of the Realist novel, offering social critiques and “feminotopias”… (see particularly her admiration of Dona Pencha & the rabonas, p. 166)
Focusing on our excerpt –
The theme of hospitality: Mr Smith, Don Justo, Madame Denuelle (cf )
Questions: Why is the theme of hospitality so prevalent in women’s travel writing? How could it be related to the female traveler-writer’s emotional needs and rhetorical strategies?)
Her keen social analysis & “moral anguish”: exemplified by the comments on the handsome English commander’s story (16-17).
Another piece of social criticism: Islay destroyed by endless (“postcolonial”) wars [Peru became independent from Spain in 1821 – power went to creoles, i.e. Euroamericans rather than indigenous people]
Her ambivalent attitude toward the native Americans:
- When first arrives, she considers the place barbarian (met a few polite Europeans & “immediately… felt at home… back in civilization”)
- Cf her indirect criticism of the Spanish invasion (regretting that the Indian city has disappeared for good; the colonizers are not interested in studying Indian history)
Her self-congratulation: (re gender issue)
- “I managed the horse so well that Lieutenant Monsilla could not keep up with me, much less the two lancers”; the previous sentence “I fell into so deep a sleep that nobody dared attempt to make me more comfortable”, in retrospective, does not sound like typical “feminine” “self-deprecating” humor.
4. Mrs FD. Bridges (ca. 1840-?)
Journal of a Lady’s Travels Round the World (1883)
Apart from the religious difference (English Protestantism versus Mormonism – read the supplementary notes sent to you), you should pay particular attention to the following: her landscape descriptions (how they are inflected by her cultural & religious biases), her conflicting [not necessarily “balanced”] treatments of the “natives” of Salt Lake City (from the most negative, nasty to the most tolerant; even her praise of the Mormon’s work ethic is not unconditional: it ends with the reminder that this “hardworking and religiously-minded people, are entirely devoid of all perception of the beautiful in Life, Art, or Religion” [53], echoing her repeated emphases on their ugliness), &, finally, how gender comes in (note her obsession with polygamy, her apparent appreciation of women’s rights there)
5. Isabella Bird (1831-1904)
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains
Read D.A. Watson’s articles on Bird: http://www.femexplorers.com/article1003.html
Her multi-volume Complete Works is available in Taiwan. Please look it up using NBINET online: http://nbinet.ncl.edu.tw/screens/opacmenu_chia.html
She’s so famous that it’s not at all difficult to find secondary sources concerned.
6. Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904)
The Passionate Nomad
Read Robert Bononno’s informative article on Eberhard:
http://home.nyu.edu/~rb28/rb-eb.html
No many useful materials in English on the web; but if you can read French…
Love (loving & marrying the native Algerian soldier Slimene), cross-dressing, conversion to Sufism, secret missions & mysterious enemies (probably involving in [counter-] espionage), sense of impending death, probing into her own psychological depths, deliberate evasion of politics – a unique kind of travel writing…
7. Anna Leonowens (1834-1914)
The English Governess at the Siamese Court
Think about: Why are some Thai people so upset about The King and I (in its various forms) while many Westerner viewers consider it little more than a “harmless,” and in fact rather entertaining, comedy?
Visit “The King and I: Fact or Fiction” webpage at: http://www.thaistudents.com/kingandi/index.html
Films concerned (available on DVDs):
Anna and the King of Siam (1946), Dir: John Cromwell. Starring: Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison
The King and I (1956), musical, Dir: Walter Lang. Starring: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr
The King and I (1999), animation, Dir: Richard Rich
Anna and the King (1999), dir: Andy Tennant; Starring: Jodie Foster, Chow Yun-Fat
Anna and the King:The Real Story of Anna Leonowens (1999) A&E biography
I’ve got a good introduction to Anna Leonowens’ life & works written by Lorraine Mercer (from British Travel Writers, 1837-1875. Dictionary of Literary Biography. vol. 166. Detroit, 1996, pp. 219-26. Feel free to contact me if you’re interested.
Exercise: doing "ideological analysis" with reference to Walter Lang's version - brief notes
- Our emphasis falls on power relations
- We look for all "binary oppositions" like "civilized" vs "barbarian" & "West" vs "East" and study how they're articulated (what signs are used, etc)
further examples: "proper" clothing vs nakedness; experience vs ignorance; politeness vs rudeness; keeping promise vs egocentric arbitrary will; civilized pretensions vs rustic simplicity/genuineness; "normal" vs "perverse"; "Man" vs "Woman," etc
We try to find cultural/Orientalist stereotypes (emphasizing, with Homi Bhabha, contradictions, ambivalence, polarization, vacillation...)
e.g. the Oriental despot vs child-like ruler struggling to learn new things from the West
the reversal & fluctuation of powerful positions
Finally, we try to explore how the problem of desire comes in
- what precisely is the "love" between Anna and the King?
- how's it related to the clash/exchange between West and East?
8. Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
In Morocco
The editors (Mary Morris and Larry O’Connor praise her description of Morocco for her presentation of “the exotic, infinite beauty” and the “restrained” style. In a “post-Saidian” perspective, our critical view can be very different!
This piece is excellent for analyzing the contradictory attitudes of Orientalist knowledge and fantasies. Read the following quotes first:
Westerners are “rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion”; Orientals are “none of these things” (Said, Orientalism. London, 1978, p. 49). The Orient, however, has its irresistible allure; or, put the other way, it’s the screen for Westerners to project their own desires. Hence the Orient well known for “its strangeness, its difference, its exotic sensuousness” (Said 72)
For Homi Bhabha, the Orientalist stereotype is “complex, ambivalent, contradictory”: for example, the black is “both savage (cannibal) and yet the most obedient and dignified of servants (the bearer of food); he is the embodiment of rampant sexuality and yet innocent as a child; he is mystical, primitive, simple-minded and yet the most worldly and accomplished liar…” (Location of Culture. London, 1994, p. 82)
9. Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)
Passenger to Teheran
10. Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)
My Journey to Lhasa
Read Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference 125-52. Notice how, rhetorically, the narrator establishes her authority, the mixing of & contradiction between colonial discourses & feminine discourses, her “insider (religious and cultural) knowledge” (& Oriental identity) versus her stubborn Westernness, her love of treatment of Tibetan people, landscape & religion versus a sense of Western superiority, the constant fear of being exposed (disguised as a native pilgrim) versus the show of resourcefulness, the sense of secret triumph, etc.
- Chinese translation: 亞歷珊卓．大衞－尼爾【拉薩之旅】陳玲瓏譯。台北：馬可孛羅，2000．(with Tibetan expressions, including Buddhist terms, translated)
11. Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)
Out of Africa
12. Freya Stark (1893-1993)
Winter in Arabia
13. Rebecca West (1892-1983)
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Online bio: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WwestR.htm
Read more excerpts about her journey through Yugoslavia: http://www.kosovo.com/rwest.html
Again we can probe into the ambivalent attitude toward the Orientals: Moslem’s “indifference to the dead” (196) versus description of “the elegance of a small Moslem town, with its lovely minarets” (and not to say Mostar, literally the old bridge), the remark “there are… evident in all Moslem life co-equal strains of extreme fastidiousness and extreme slovenliness” (197)
Note also the gender difference: women travel-writers “tend to be less concerned with architecture, history, and even topography than with local customs (especially domestic ones), with the curious habits and dress of local people, and with remarking how strangely different (i.e. uncivilized) foreigners are from normal [Western] people.” (Jane Robinson, Unsuitable for Ladies. Oxford, 1994, p. 19) In this excerpt we have the lengthy depiction of the strange Mostar female costume
* Speculating on the cultural meaning of the veil in terms of misogyny (201).
Study question: Why have such Orientalist descriptions been so appealing to Western readers? What kind of psychology is involved in “our” consumption of such kind of literature and film?
14. Ella Maillart (1903-97)
The Cruel Way
15. Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
A Way of Seeing
16. Emily Hahn (1905- )項美麗
Times and Places
Online bio: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hahn/hahn-bibliography.html
17. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1934- )
Italian Days
San Gimignano (Italy): “City of Fine Towers” – visit the town council’s official site (you can find some photos there): http://www.sangimignano.com/sghomei.htm
18. Mary Lee Settle (1918- )
Turkish Reflections
* The following refers to excerpts from Jane Robinson, Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers. Oxford, 1994
19. Charlotte Eaton
Narrative of a Residence in Belgium (1817)
20. Lady Sydney Morgan (c.1783-1859)
France (1817)