Travel Narratives: Conventions

Travel Narratives

Travel Narratives

Conventions

Basics:

1. “Barbaric” rituals, threats of death, physical suffering, triumph of the European hero.
2.  Difficult ocean passage
3. Deriding earlier reports
4. Reporting advantages of European technology
5. Describing New World geography
6. Mixing practical advice with rhetorical landscape descriptions
7. Nature and “savages” as friendly and ferocious
8. Expedition plagued by intrigue and disunity
9. Emphasizing flaws and virtues of the expedition leaders
10. Comparison of virtues of life in a strange foreign land with the idleness and corruption of the old world
11. New World plenitude: the catalogue of delights
12. Initial successes followed by defeats