A Cultural Study of Narrative Modes of British Travel Literature

Ever since 1970 s,Western academia approaches travel literature mainly from the perspectives of projection of cultural ideology,representation of otherness and image of aliens. However,like poem,novel and drama,travel literature,as a literary genre,has its own narrative modes and literary tradition. This essay investigates the narrative shifts of British travel literature in an attempt to illustrate that British travel literature is a heterogeneous genre with its own complex and dynamic literary tradition as represented by a combination of subjective imagination and objective truth,science and autobiography. It bears witness to the genealogy of English cultural development.