Cultural Encounters and Travel Writing Flashcards
Cultural Encounters – Routes to the East:
The Silk Road – central to trade and culture - about 1500 – Asia, India and China centre of trade and culture – motivates efforts for trade and exploration – Europeans keen to get to the Silk Road or acquire things to trade on the Silk Road
Cultural Encounters and exchange not new to the EMP - yet from a European perspective trade and cultural encounters began to take place, depicting the Eurocentrism and teleology of history whereby there is a potential within a certain thing to reach its highest form, evident in the fact Europe’s final form was to reach the top
Eurocentrism in the ‘Age of Discovery’:
Teleology – an inherent end, potential to reach its ultimate end
Aristotle
‘The Other’ – Civilisations v Barbarians and Savages
Europe had inherent destiny (teleology)
‘Discovery’ applied to Europeans – world existed was only ‘New World’ to Europeans
Mary Louise Pratt: argues the contact zone between cultures is ‘the space in which people geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict – Contact Zone
Albert and Irving: challenging the binary between active coloniser and passive colonised. Emphasise exchange and an uncertain balance of power. Challenging the idea of teleology.
Henry the Navigator:
Infante Henrique of Portugal – Portuguese explorations of Africa – looking for gold and slaves - supported Portuguese explorations primarily to the West coast of Africa – funded skills needed and trades for maritime exploration
In addition to looking for gold and slaves in Africa they also intended to get around Africa
Silk Road started to break down in the Early Modern period thus Europeans couldn’t access the East via land routes thus turned to marital routes
Hub of exploration = Portugal
Major European Voyages (1480-1525):
First mission not successful – De Garra travelled from Portugal to India
Christopher Columbus – Portugal attracted Columbus to come to Lisbon, but he then disagreed with the Portuguese and tried Spain – Columbus supported by Isabella discovered a ‘New World’
Explorations in Asia:
Portuguese forcefully take over trade in Asia - set up fortified trading posts – Portuguese had greater machinery thus could use greater force to get what they wanted
Portuguese arrived in China in 1520 and Japan in 1540
Missionaries arrived in Asia, primarily the Catholic missionaries
Late 16th century – Portuguese enabled global trade
Early 17th century – English and Dutch took over trade in Asia
Africa:
Missionaries travelled further than merchants into Africa – particularly into Congo, a powerful African state
Primary European influence in Africa = Slave Trade -driven largely by the demand for cheap labour to harvest sugar cane
More Africans crossed the Atlantic
By 1600 = Brazil responsible for the biggest industry of Sugar Cain in the Western world
Early voyages would die making voyages across the Atlantic
Slavery enhanced view of black Africans as machinery
Brazil – Black Africans became the dominant population
Black Africans = Inferior
Limited trading posts = focus on slavery
Black Africans = Inferior
Americas:
European diseases played a big role
European diseases killed 90% of existing native populations in some areas
Europeans set up colonies – empty continent due to European diseases decimating populations
Pizzario and Cortes:
By 1521 Cortes took the entire Aztec empire
North America:
English and French largely compete for North America
Columbian Exchange:
Linked worlds and exchange
Movement of plants, foods, animals, diseases and technologies between the old and the new worlds
Neapolitan Cooking established – Coffee, tomatoes, Potatoes
Foods associated with countries only came about because of the exchange – Raymond A Sokolov = “Before the Columbian Exchange there was no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no potatoes in Ireland”
Drive of the exchange largely Asian and not European economies – economies in Asia already fully developed
Maps:
T and O shaped maps = Jerusalem at the centre
East at the top of the T and O World Maps
T and O maps popular in the medieval world
Map would help you get to heaven
Asian maps centred around Geography
16th Century = the way the world was represented in maps changed
Ptolemy Cosmographia, 1467 = Original Map from 150 but reinstated by the Renaissance – indicated a round world – foundation for other maps in the EMP
Waldseemuller Map
Merecator Map, 1569, Map of the World
Ortelius Map, 1606, map of the world, shows territories and how the world is being conquered
Fools Cap Map of the World, c. 1500 – Flemish
Travel Writing:
- Travel Writing not a set genre – so could involve many aspects of genres particularly political
- In Medieval and Early Modern Period, travel writing a means of many understanding various places as only the elite were able to travel. Ultimately, only means for many to explore.
Travel Writing = Political:
- Often contained political content
2. Often caught up in a political context
History of travel writing:
Medieval: travel writing centred around religion and pilgrimage, ultimately what divine wonders could be found at the sight
Earliest forms of literature are about travel and journeying – EMP did not create travel writing
Mixing of fiction and fact within travel writing texts
Early Travel Writing such as Marco Polo inspired 15th and 16th century Europeans to travel to the East - tales of the 13th century and 14th century travels of Polo inspired the wealth to travel to the East
Early Modern Travel Writing:
Christopher Columbus = shift in travel writing at the end of the 15th century
16th Century: writing became an essential element of travelling and growth in travel writing
For some travel writing was the sole purpose for travelling to a place
Reasons for providing a written account of travels:
Cartography
Political or Commercial Interest
Investment
Settlers
Empire/Nationalism
Conquest
Personal Reputation
Critique practices back home
Travel Writing standards related to:
- Eye-witness accounts
2. Claim to independence (Francis Bacon: ‘New Continent of Truth’)
The ‘Other’:
Europe = civilised and thus is opposed to barbarian and savage cultures that are elsewhere
Ideas of the other provided the legitimacy for colonisation and conquest
Construction of non-European countries gave legitimacy to the process of colonisation Edward Said, Orientalism (1978) 1. Homogenised 2. Feminised 3. Essentialised
The ‘Noble Savage’:
Orientalism and othering yet in an elevation of the Native person
Idealised perception of Native people as being uncorrupted by civilisation, in opposition to the violent savage which is uncontrolled by civilisation – still identifies the process of othering
Alexander Pope – Essay on Man (1734): noble savage = untouched by greed and socialisation yet still seen as an ‘Other’
The Grand Tour:
17th Century Travel = moves to being fundamental for one’s education – idea that travel completes education
Travel moves from exploration and conquest to greater emphasis on education
Way of creating a nobleman’s education by going on the ‘Grand Tour’ – usually around Europe, particularly the great towns of the Renaissance, could be between 6 months to a couple of years
Thomas More, Utopia (1516):
Fictional travel writing – riffs of existing travel writing
Published over 500 years ago
Character goes on a voyage – all characters are fictional
Utopia depicted as a place of happiness – as no greed, deception as is present in Europe
Vespucci’s travels – basis for much of Utopia and Utopians
New world travel writing
More uses tropes of travel writing from Amerigo Vespucci travels – links to Vespucci in More’s Utopia
Thomas More = humanist
Key ideas explored in Utopia =
- Value of Jewelry and Gold
- Exchange of Houses
- Epicureanism
- Peace not war – uses ideas about native people to critique the society he is living in in England. For example, Utopia has S4 territories showing links to England
1515 descriptions of Henry VIII:
Expensive war with France – More mocks these attributes in ‘Utopia’
Luxuries of Henry VIII - Utopians don’t need luxuries only seek pleasure by values, More levelling a critique at the customs of More’s society
Prince Henry and Thomas Coryate:
Attracted to travel writing – Prince Henry wanted to travel but due to royal duties couldn’t travel
Important for Royals to have an understanding of the world around them
Coryate wrote for the Prince – Coryate travelled for the purpose of writing – Coryate wrote specific accounts for countries that were of political interest for the King such as Venice and France
Coryate gives a lengthy description of Venice and France – addressed nations that were particularly related to England suggesting material of politics at the highest level
Political context and content for the Prince who cannot go travelling himself
Much more of a pamphlet and satirical nature to the travel writing
Travel Writing challenged world views on:
- Bible and Christianity
- Ancient knowledge
- Sources of knowledge
Dias:
Rounded the Southern tip of Africa but then had to return to Africa
Da Game:
Rounded the Southern tip of Africa and reached the West coast of India via the Southern tip of Africa – first mission not successful as he was meet with resistance, yet he was lorded when returned to Portuguese
Christopher Columbus:
An Italian who arrived in Portugal in 1447, to enter Henry the Navigator’s scholars – Portugal attracted people from all over as they had technologies to travel
Inspired by Italian humanists – he believed distance between West shorter than the East which was where the Portuguese were sailing
Left Portugal due to this disagreement and attracted Isabella and Ferdinand, as he sails from the Canary Islands and landed in an Island just off of Asia, calling the people Indians.
Came to realise he had discovered a ‘New World’ – a place unknown to Europeans
John Cabot:
Finds Canada – claims ‘New found land’ for England, found a lot of Cod
Ferdinand Magellan:
1518 – round the Southern tip of South Africa and into the Pacific – only one ship of five made it back to Spain
Pizzario and Cortes:
1519 Cortes led a group of 600 men into Mexico
Took advantage of conflicts in the area by making alliances with Aztecs enemies
Cortes slaughtered the population
Small Pox enabled Cortes to take the entire Aztec empire
By 1521 Cortes took the entire Aztec empire
Pizzaro conquered Inkar empire in much the same way
Ebstorf Map – 13th C:
Germany
Map of the World
T and O shaped map
Jerusalem at the centre
Christ is at the East
Orientation originated from the idea that the East is at the top
European map
Asian Maps –
Born out of the concerns of the cultures that created them
Asian maps need trade routes thus more about geography
More recognisable to geography
Ptolemy Cosmographia, 1467:
Renaissance brought back the map that originated from 150
Round world
Missing a continent
More recognisable geography
Foundation for other maps in the EMP
Mercator Map of the World, 1569:
Starting to understand the geography of the Americas
Map of the World from Abraham Ortelius:
Drawn from first atlas published in 1570
Addresses the way the world is being cut up by European territories – how the world is being conquered
Clearer understanding of the Americas
Fools Cap Map of the World:
Nobody knows who produced
Designed to say the more you explore the world the more folly that is identified
