Haunted Journeys : Desire and Transgression in European Travel Writing

Focusing on travel journals by writers, navigators, philosophers, scientists, and anthropologists--from the eighteenth-century grand tour to the modern period--Dennis Porter explores how male authors at different historical moments conceptualized and represented the lands they encountered. Efforts to portray unfamiliar peoples and cultures are shown to give rise to rich and complex works, in which individual psychic investments frequently subvert an inherited cultural discourse. In exploring the various uses and pleasures of travel, Porter interprets it as a transgressive activity animated by desire and haunted by different forms of guilt. Broad in its historical scope and interdisciplinary in its approach, the book draws on literary theory, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, and the social history of ideas. Texts analyzed include works by Boswell, Diderot, Bougainville, Cook, Stendhal, Darwin, Flaubert, Freud, D. H. Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence, Gide, Lvi-Strauss, Barthes, and V. S. Naipaul. Originally published in 1990. The **Princeton Legacy Library** uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. Focusing on travel journals by writers, navigators, philosophers, scientists, and anthropologists--from the eighteenth-century grand tour to the modern period--Dennis Porter explores how male authors at different historical moments conceptualized and represented the lands they encountered. Efforts to portray unfamiliar peoples and cultures are shown to give rise to rich and complex works, in which individual psychic investments frequently subvert an inherited cultural discourse. In exploring the various uses and pleasures of travel, Porter interprets it as a transgressive activity animated by desire and haunted by different forms of guilt.Broad in its historical scope and interdisciplinary in its approach, the book draws on literary theory, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, and the social history of ideas. Texts analyzed include works by Boswell, Diderot, Bougainville, Cook, Stendhal, Darwin, Flaubert, Freud, D. H. Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence, Gide, Lvi-Strauss, Barthes, and V. S. Naipaul.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905 Focusing on travel journals by writers, navigators, philosophers, scientists, and anthropologists--from the eighteenth-century grand tour to the modern period--Dennis Porter explores how male authors at different historical moments conceptualized and represented the lands they encountered. Efforts to portray unfamiliar peoples and cultures are shown to give rise to rich and complex works, in which individual psychic investments frequently subvert an inherited cultural discourse. In exploring the various uses and pleasures of travel, Porter interprets it as a transgressive activity animated by desire and haunted by different forms of guilt. Broad in its historical scope and interdisciplinary in its approach, the book draws on literary theory, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, and the social history of ideas. Texts analyzed include works by Boswell, Diderot, Bougainville, Cook, Stendhal, Darwin, Flaubert, Freud, D.H. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence, Gide, Lvi-Strauss, Barthes, and V.S. Naipaul. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION PART ONE: Enlightenment Europe and Its Globe I. Uses of the Grand Tour: Boswell and His Contemporaries II. The Philosophe as Traveler: Diderot III. Circumnavigation: Bougainville and Cook PART TWO: Romantic Transgressions IV. Travel for Travel's Sake: Stendhal V. Darwin's Passionate Voyage VI. The Perverse Traveler: Flaubert in the Orient PART THREE: Europe and Its Discontents VII. Freud and Travel VIII. The Other Italy: D. H. Lawrence IX. Political Witness: Τ. E. Lawrence and Gide X. Travel for Science's Sake: Malinowski and Levi-Strauss PART FOUR: Postcolonial Dilemmas XI. Writing the Orient: Barthes XII. Originary Displacement and the Writer's Burden: V. S. Naipaul Index