SEUME AND THE ENGLISH
by Robert L. Kahn
The second half of the eighteenth century witnessed an astonish-
ing increase in the number of books of travel coupled with an
equally surprising change in the very nature of the genre. The
reasons for this development in the European literature of travel
were manifold. In the economic and political spheres the rise of
the middle classes, the accelerating process of industrialization, and
the continuous decay of feudal institutions and boundaries were
contributory factors. In the philosophical area the ideas of en-
lightenment, cosmopolitanism, and egalitarianism during the pre-
ceding era, even the reaction to the Age of Reason by subjective,
sentimental, and emotional forces, all these conspired to bring
about a greater interest in foreign lands, peoples, customs, and
cultures. Whereas rationalism tended to stress scientific and an-
thropological features of the foreign milieu, sentimentalism was
primarily concerned with questions of the heart and humane values
of both author and observed men.
The older travelogues from Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville
down through the seventeenth century, on the whole, had been
naive accounts of an adventurous and fantastic sort. In the early
eighteenth century the narratives tended to be factual and sim-
plistic, as for instance George Ansons Voyage round the World . . .
(London, 1748). The late eighteenth century saw the rise of the
sophisticated and feeling novelistic voyager, initiated perhaps by
Laurence Sterne in his Sentimental Journey through France and
Italy (London, 1768).
“Mr. Yorick’s” moving account of his experiences abroad,
particularly his strictures against the prejudiced traveler,1 fell
on fertile ground in Germany. Among the many literary travelers
who followed in Sterne’s footsteps are found the renowned names
of Moritz August von Thiimmel (1738-1817), Goethe (1749-1832),
Editor’s Note: Mr. Kahn is Professor of Germanics and Chairman of the
Department of Germanics at Rice University.
47