Messenger 17.2 Pages 1-96

The European English Messenger, 17.2 (2008) Silencing the Center(s) in American Travel Writing: From Washington Irving to Globe Trekker Ramón Espejo Romero (Sevilla, Spain) Travel writing often involves a central paradox. be viewed, along with Edward Said, as a “de- For a variety of reasons, travellers often make exoticising category that demands an analysis secret or leave out much of what they see and of the material conditions surrounding textual experience, and concentrate only on the most production and representation” (qtd. in Huggan bizarre, exceptional or picturesque, that is, not 19). It is now generally understood that travel on the things that best describe a region, country writing “belongs to a wider structure of or territory but on those that may be most representation within which cultural affiliations appealing or attractive to themselves or to and links – culture itself – can be analyzed, potential readers (or those that best fit the questioned, and reassessed” (Holland/Huggan latter’s notions of what a place should look like). viii-ix). Travel writing is acknowledged to have The writer thus tries to be faithful only to what some say both in the construction of the places s/he or his readers want, expect or are likely to travelled in, through representing them in enjoy. S/he wants to amuse, impress or astonish particular ways, and also of the “traveller” them rather than stimulate their critical powers society itself. According to Susan L. Robertson, or let them arrive at conclusions of their own editor of a collection of seminal critical about the places or cultures under scrutiny. reflections on travel and travel writing, Defining When it comes to American travel writers, and Travel. Diverse Visions, “the position of in such an insecurity-ridden culture as that of spectator is double sided, for both the visitor the United States, we should also take into and the visited view each other and contribute account that they have often tried to tell their to the construction of new identities” (xviii). It readers exactly what the latter needed to be is my contention, however, that, at least in the told so as to be able to view themselves in a case of Americans, travel discourses have often certain way, by means of contrast and negative played a more important role in shaping or self-definition. Comparing such diverse texts as defining who they are than in defining who the Washington Irving’s The Alhambra and an other(s) might have been. The two narratives episode of the Globe Trekker show about under analysis here “create” a Spain that gives Southern Spain,1 common strategies employed back to Americans an image of themselves as in centralizing margins and marginalizing a cosmopolitan, well-travelled society, capable center(s) will be discussed and ultimately of observing distantly without involving itself too related to the need for self-definition which much in the distinctly inferior practices being Americans have invariably felt ever since they investigated, a society which does things in vastly constituted themselves as a nation.2 superior ways, hard-working, probably not so Taking for granted that, as Holland and picturesque or capable of enjoyment, but all in Huggan argue, “travel writing frequently all better situated within the path of modernity provides an effective alibi for the perpetuation and progress. and reinstallment of ethnocentrically superior Washington Irving’s The Alhambra (1832) is attitudes to ‘other’ cultures, peoples, and probably best known for its collection of folk places,” but that, nevertheless, “[a]n in-depth tales set in or connected in some way with the study of contemporary travel writing as a famed Moorish monument (and probably popular phenomenon remains to be under because of that it has been invariably translated taken” (viii; authors’ emphasis),3 a number of into Spanish as Cuentos de la Alhambra). concepts originating in postcolonial theory will However, it is also an outstanding example of be employed in this approach to two instances American 19th century travel writing. Irving of popular travel “writing.” The postcolonial will spent several months in Granada, where he 20 obtained permission to be lodged in the in the small villages of New York’s Dutch Alhambra, undoubtedly collecting material for country, chosen by him as the setting of such his book. I will, however, concentrate not on tales as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”).4 Irving’s stay in that city or what came of it but Esther Ortas summarizes in the following way rather on the journey that took him there, which what 19th century travellers sought in Spain: he describes at length in the opening section of [E]l viajero extranjero esperaba encontrar en España the book. Though shorter routes from Madrid un universo radicalmente opuesto al de la realidad diaria existed, Irving decided instead to take one that de su país de origen, donde lo cotidiano sorprendiera y would lead him from Seville through the pudiera hallarse lo primitivo, la magia de lo árabe, la sobriedad de lo medieval cristiano y la leyenda de las Guadalquivir valley, the Sevillian campiña, the catedrales góticas. La confluencia de todos estos Antequera plains, the hills around Archidona and elementos alimentó la imaginación del viajero que hizo part of Sierra Morena. It was certainly a longer de España un espacio poético, pictórico, literaturizado route but one that would allow the writer and y ensoñado. Nuestro país se ofrecía a los extranjeros voyager to have a tasteful of picturesque como un lugar en el cual el visitante podía toparse a cada paso con grados de singularidad y pintoresquismo Andalusia, as a preparation for what he hoped capaces de arrancar de su interior el hastío de lo conocido. to encounter in Granada. It was a voyage which (60) allowed him also to wallow in an atmosphere Though the tales included in The Alhambra of story-telling. Following in the footsteps of do not allow Irving to comment at all on Spanish Dumas, Gautier or Chateubriand and having reality in the first half of the nineteenth century such distinguished continuators in his own (being all of them set in a distant past), the country as Longfellow or Hemingway, introductory non-fiction some 30-page travel Washington Irving remains however the narrative does. Not interested at all in sound prototype of the Romantic traveller. Always social analysis, Irving becomes a detached alive to the presence of Moorish footprints in observer of Spanish (or Andalusian) reality and the places he visits and in the customs he he provides us with interesting descriptions of observes, it is, as far as he is concerned, as if what he encounters. They are interesting, that the Moors had just left Spain (instead of having is, only because of what they reveal about Irving done so, in some places, almost four centuries and about travel writing as a whole. First of all, before!). it is not by mere chance that Irving happened After the European Enlightenment had to alight on Andalusia of all places. This was popularized an image of Spain as invariably the most backward region of Spain, and though connected with obsolete religious practices and all of the country, for different historical superstitions, Romantic travellers were then to circumstances, was only a shadow of what it try to disseminate an altogether different view had been three centuries before, historians have of Spain as picturesque, charming and mis- often contended that the invariable traits which takenly depreciated by earlier voyagers. Oddly, Romantic travellers attached to 19th century the Romantic approach differed from the Spain are not at all fair. As shown by the most Enlightened one more in the final judgment than famous British traveller in Spain, Richard Ford, in the analysis leading up to it. It was pretty some regions of the country were making much the same Spain, although now celebrated considerable social and economic headway instead of deplored. Where the Enlightenment (Ortas 68-9). Andalusia, the land chosen by had, in dismay, only spotted old-fashioned values Irving, was not among them. But even while and practices, the Romantics also spotted them, not having chosen a representative part of Spain but were just glad to have done so. In which for his travel piece, Irving often preferred the other European country would one find so much more general word Spain instead of Andalusia charm? Certainly not in the far duller United to refer to the land he was travelling in. His States, Washington Irving would contend, bent view of Spain as largely synonymous with as his country was upon wholesale industrial- Andalusia, and in particular 19th century ization and territorial expansion (except, that is, Andalusia, has been, however, far from 21 The European English Messenger, 17.2 (2008) occasional. It is not a coincidence that the music, to make such central characteristics relatively dancing and costumes that foreigners have unimportant (or marginal). always regarded and still regard as typically The Spaniard who guides and makes the Spanish are rather “typical” only of that region. necessary preparations for the comfort of Anyway, in choosing Andalusia as the setting Irving’s group is described as a simpleton. They of his narrative of a Spanish journey, Irving was call him Sancho (inadvertently attaching to Irving using as central an ec-centric or marginal part the role of a Quixote who never sees through of Spain and thereby ignoring much more his own Romantic delusions). The writer’s central aspects of such a country. attitude to him is invariably patronizing. So is But even within Andalusia there was a his attitude to most of the natives. He describes centralization of margins and simultaneous the commander who dines with them at Arahal marginalization of centers, observable, for as “a lively, talking, laughing Andaluz, who .

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