Relatos imperiais: a literatura de viagem entre a política e a ciência na Espanha, França e Inglaterra (1680-1780)

• Autor(a) principal: Paredes, Rogelio C.
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Rodrigues, Jaime
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Almanack (Guarulhos)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unifesp.br/index.php/alm/article/view/13303
• topic: literatura de viagem; expansão ultramarina; Ilustração; voyage literature; overseas expansion; Enlightenment

Travel literature emerged as a cultural practice associated to overseasEuropean expansion. From being at first associated to the curious storiesand adventures of the first Portuguese and Spanish voyages to Africa aswell as to the Middle and the Far East, travel literature consolidated asa synonym of knowledge just as the Scientific Revolution establishedincreasingly stable patterns of truth, authenticity and objectivity. Betweenthe end of the XVIIth century and the end of the XVIIIth century, colonialpowers, which were involved in an intense struggle to control the seas andits overseas territories, sought to legitimate their expansionist projects byorganizing expeditions based on the principles of the Enlightenment whichwere held at the time. They thus oriented their expansionist projects soas to gather universal knowledge on the planet, its vegetable and animalspecies, and its societies and cultures. By means of analyzing the collectionof travel literature kept at the library of the Buenos Aires EthnographicMuseum, the present essay seeks to identify the characteristics of theseexpeditions and the narratives that described them in order to connectthem to the international context in which they were produced, theimperial policy of each State and the similarities and differences of thecultural and social conditions of the audiences interested in them.