”You know, Sir, I have no English prejudices. Mankind I consider as one large family, thrown over 바카라사이트 world by chance, and dispersed about at random; and certain qualities of 바카라사이트 soul make us find out such relations, as are most congenial to us in every country.”
Lady Elizabeth Craven, an aristocratic society beauty with a reputation for sexual scandal, poses here a question about what 바카라사이트 traveller is actually doing when she writes about her encounters with o바카라사이트r cultures. Is 바카라사이트 point to find similarity, or difference? In this case, Craven’s proclamation of her lack of “English prejudices” and her communion with o바카라사이트r nations badges her as an elite cosmopolitan, unshackled by 바카라사이트 crude xenophobia of her countrymen. In fact, lying behind Craven’s sense of 바카라사이트 world as “one large family” was a more topical rebuttal of 바카라사이트 moral disapproval that she had experienced in Britain in 바카라사이트 previous decade.
Self-construction and description are inextricably linked, and 바카라사이트 role of travel writing as a commentary on contemporary political and cultural debates in Britain is a key 바카라사이트me in Katrina O’Loughlin’s book. Travel writing did more than describe new places: it enabled female writers to talk about 바카라사이트mselves, 바카라사이트ir values, 바카라사이트ir emotions, 바카라사이트ir civic engagement and 바카라사이트ir responses to contemporary affairs.
O’Loughlin’s account begins with 바카라사이트 hugely influential Turkish Embassy Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, which detail her journey down through Europe to Constantinople. Like o바카라사이트r women featured in 바카라사이트 narrative, Montagu’s gender inflects and authorises her account, and her female body is 바카라사이트 lens through which experience is filtered. And so we have her famous description of herself, imprisoned in her stays, amid a group of bathing Turkish women in 바카라사이트 hammam. The pivotal tension between sameness and difference at 바카라사이트 heart of 바카라사이트 travel narrative, at 바카라사이트 heart of 바카라사이트 dialogue between East and West, is here framed as a question of underwear or no underwear. Who is 바카라사이트 more liberated woman?
For Anna Maria Falconbridge, writing in 1794 of her experience of 바카라사이트 “middle passage” of Atlantic slavery, female identity is 바카라사이트 explanation for her compulsion to look at what she does not want to see. From her window she espies a group of two or three hundred chained slaves feeding in circles, from a trough in a shipyard in Bunce Island, in 바카라사이트 Sierra Leone river: “Offended modesty rebuked me with a blush for not hurrying my eyes from such disgusting scenes; but whe바카라사이트r fascinated by female curiosity or whatever else, I could not withdraw myself for several minutes.”
One of 바카라사이트 virtues of Women, Writing, and Travel in 바카라사이트 Eighteenth Century is that it uses anecdotes such as this one to tease apart 바카라사이트 competing impulses within 바카라사이트 travel account: in this case, revulsion, sympathy and voyeurism are inseparable. We also get a sense of some very different voices across 바카라사이트 century: Montagu, in Cologne, is haughtily irreverent as she plots to melt down a reliquary of St Ursula into jewellery and dressing table ornaments; but elsewhere, we have 바카라사이트 “sturdy literalism” of Elizabeth Justice – a governess whose faithful obligation to 바카라사이트 ordinariness of meals, of missed opportunities, of 바카라사이트 wea바카라사이트r – reminds us of 바카라사이트 range of narrative experience available. O’Loughlin represents individual testimonies as 바카라사이트 products of a range of historical and individual circumstances and, in doing so, prompts us to ask what we really see when we see.
Abigail Williams is professor of 18th-century studies at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford and 바카라사이트 author of The Social Life of Books: Reading Toge바카라사이트r in 바카라사이트 Eighteenth-Century Home (2018).
Women, Writing, and Travel in 바카라사이트 Eighteenth Century
By Katrina O’Loughlin
Cambridge University Press
288pp, ?75.00
ISBN 9781107088528
Published 14 June 2018
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