Hilaire
Belloc often used his travel, literary, and historical
essays to make a point about current political issues. He is known far and wide
for his Cautionary Tales for Children which included “Jim,” who ran
away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion, and “Matilda,” who told lies and
was burnt to death. Although his first love was poetry, the essay was his daily
occupation. Noteworthy is The Modern Traveller (1898),
Dog Heart: A Travel Memoir, by Breyten Breytenbach was published in the year 1998. This book marks a return to the world and the legends of Breytenbach’s
youth, with short prose texts interspersed with poetry.
A Room with a View
(1908), is a novel by E. M. Forster.
In this Edwardian novel, a young Englishwoman traveling in Italy falls in love
with a man who seems ‘‘beneath her.’’ She ignores the advice of her chaperon
and happily elopes anyway.
Daisy Miller
(1878), is a novella by Henry James.
The ebullient young American girl, Daisy Miller, travels to Switzerland and
Italy and falls victim to her own flighty nature in this oft-studied short work
by James.
Mountains
and Rivers without End (1996), is a poem by Gary Snyder. This epic poem reflects a
vision of being in the world that is directly and overtly influenced by Snyder’s
travels and Eastern philosophy.
Generations of critics have testified to John Bunyan’s own comprehensive scope,
rich characterization, and genuine spiritual torment and joy drawn from
personal experience. and to instance in one, the Pilgrim’s Progress, he hath suited to the life of a
traveler so exactly and pleasantly.
Many of Lord Byron’s works were inspired by or describe travels. In 1809, a
two-year trip to the Mediterranean countries provided material for the first
two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
Taken together, the four cantos of Childe
Harold’s Pilgrimage helped establish Harold as the archetype of the
‘‘Byronic Hero,’’ a world-weary but intelligent and attractive hero traveling the
world. Sir Walter Scott declared in 1816 that Byron had created a new and
significant Romantic character type, and others praised the poem for its
seriousness and passion The Odyssey (eighth or ninth century
BCE), an epic by Homer. This epic poem exerted a marked influence on all of
Western literature. It tells the tale of the Greek hero Odysseus as he tries to
return home to Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War.
The Canterbury Tales
(late fourteenth century), is a work of fiction by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer has each of the voyagers on a pilgrimage
to Canterbury tell a story as they journey along together.
Don Quixote (1605), is a novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes’s
mentally unbalanced knight sets off on a quest through Spain with his sidekick
Sancho Panza.
The Lord of the Rings
(1954–1955), is a trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien.
These three novels follow the effort by Frodo Baggins, a mythical humanlike
being called a hobbit, to destroy a magical ring and, with it, an evil lord.
On the Road
(1957), is a novel by Jack Kerouac.
Kerouac’s famous novel about his road trips across the country (and to Mexico)
helped inspire a generation of travelers, poets, and hipsters.
Calvino’s
If
on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979 begins on a mocking note, by
stating, ‘‘You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Relax
. . .’’ Described by Salman Rushdie
as ‘‘the most outrageous fiction about fiction ever conceived,’’ the novel
comprises the beginnings of ten other novels to emerge as a constantly mutating
parody of literary genres.
Personal Narrative of Travels to the
Equinoctial Regions of America during the Years 1799–1804 (1814), is a
travelogue by Alexander von Humboldt.
Brilliant German naturalist and explorer Humboldt records his observations of
South America in this substantial work.
The Man Who Would Be King
(1975), is a film directed by John
Huston. Based on a Rudyard Kipling short story, this adventure movie
features Sean Connery and Michael Caine as former British soldiers who have a fantastic
adventure in exotic lands not seen by Westerners in centuries.
The Abyssinian
(2000), is a novel by Jean-Christophe
Rufin. Rufin’s debut novel tells of an adventurous doctor in seventeenth-century
Cairo who, through a strange turn of events, is ordered on a dangerous
diplomatic mission to the king of Abyssinia. He also published a modern update
of a famous sixteenth-century picaresque novel, New Adventures and Misfortunes of Lazarillo de Tormes (1944), and
rapidly produced several collections of short stories. Journey to the Alcarria (1948) was the first of several collections
of travel sketches recounting his vagabundajes (vagabond journeys) through the
Iberian Peninsula. It won accolades for its atypical approach to the travel
genre.
Citations: Gale/Routledge
Image courtesy: The Free Dictionary
To be contd…
No comments:
Post a Comment