The Evolution of the Traveling Writer

With pens in their hands and eager to tell tales of adventure, 19th century writers traveled to Europe to experience, as well as document their experiences, in an exotic world. In his essay “The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to Culture,” James Buzard discusses this trend, remarking that “the Continental tour is more of an affair of ‘writing’ more than of ‘traveling’…” (156). This mass influx of travelers to Europe resulted in numerous travel journals and guidebooks, laying the grounds for what tourists and other travelers should do and see while abroad. Writing and traveling became a game of claiming territory, much like a soldier claims a battlefield after a war, and produced a frenzy among writers to write about locations that had not already been “covered” (158). This search for the unmarked territory became an emerging trend for the travel writers in the 1800s. Along with this fight for the rights to undiscovered locations, writers began to make their journals more personalized and “truer to lived experience,” creating “volumes of personal impressions” (165) that were not the same, bland subject material of the other writers. Travel-writing began to emphasize personal experiences and the focus became on poetic rather than prosaic quality, as tales of “impassioned impressions” (166) became the new trend.


Like many other writers of the time, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe traveled to Italy to document his travels in a series of diary entries entitled “Italian Journey.” Goethe presents a collection of his travels that blend the poetic and prosaic while also recognizing the appropriate uses of each. He begins his journal with a visit to the Roman Amphitheatre in Verona, where he highlights the picturesque nature of the location through his description of the shape of the giant oval and the artistic qualities of the structure. He also focuses on the stillness and emptiness of the theater, stating, “I felt strange because I was seeing something great and yet actually seeing nothing…. “Of course it should not be seen empty, but brimful of people…” (3). Goethe is identifying with the position of the collective tourist gaze which, according John Urry’s essay entitled “Consuming Places,” regards places as needing people to complete the ambience and considers places strange when absent of these entities. Goethe’s description of the amphitheatre is extremely different than the description provided by William Beckford in his writings of the amphitheatre, which also focus on the solitude and sublimity of the setting. Beckford describes the freedom of being alone in the theater, the drama of “throwing” himself on the grass to observe the beauty around him (Buzard, 177) and the rich details of the scene around him. His description is extremely poetic, writing “red and fatal were the tints of the Western sky” and the “weeds and grasses which skirt the walls and tremble with the faintest breeze” (Buzard, 177). Goethe, on the other hand, provides a more prosaic description, a narrative of his experience that is more factual and less personal in comparison to the flowery, emotional account provided by Beckford.


As Goethe’s journal continues, it becomes increasingly written like a guidebook, a description of his do’s and don’ts on the sites visited. He writes of his visit to San Giorgio, “I shall touch briefly on the pictures I have seen and add a few observations.” He then continues with his overall impression of the gallery, stating, “San Giorgio is a gallery of good paintings, all altarpieces, perhaps not of equal worth yet certainly noteworthy” (Goethe, 7). This passage sounds like a piece from a modern Rick Steves guidebook, and the emotion of his experience is absent. It is not until our protagonist arrives in Venice do we see a shift in the evocative quality of his work. This shift is purposeful, as stated by Goethe, “So much has already been told and printed about Venice that instead of a detailed description I shall just give my personal impressions” (24). This statement outlines the structure of Goethe’s narrative, suggesting that his earlier writings were purposely descriptive because of their lesser known origins in the world of tourist travel. His writing then shifts to a more fluid, poetic prose, describing the Grand Canal as a “great serpentine canal” (25), providing excellent imagery of the city.


The myth of Venice and the influence of this myth on Goethe become apparent in his description of the city. He begins by stating, “I have often sighed longingly for solitude, and now I can really enjoy it; for nowhere does an individual feel more alone than in a bustling crowd, through which he presses, unknown to all” (22). Goethe is describing his desire for the sublime, a characteristic of the Romantic tourist that Goethe has now possessed. However, his tourist identity is somewhat appearing as an odd mix of the romantic and collective as he adds a new twist on the idea of the sublime. While adhering to the myth of Venice as the location where one can discover solitude and discover his inner being, he also recognizes the overabundance of tourists and visitors and the bustling nature of the city; he finds peace and solitude in the bustling crowds. He hints to the concept of urbanism in that he finds that being surrounded by crowds allows him more time to lose himself in his thoughts and blend into the world around him. In the crowds, he loses his identity while at the same time also discovering his inner self. Goethe also comments on the myth of Venice as a decaying beauty. He writes, “It is succumbing to time, like everything that has a visible existence” (26). Although Goethe aims to write about Venice as a series of personal impressions, his impressions are extremely generalized statements relating to the popular myth of the city. He does offer some unique observations of sites such as the Arsenal, of which he writes “reminds me of an old family which is still active although the best season of blossoms and fruit is past” (33).


Goethe offers a direct commentary on the tourist gaze in his work, referring to St. Giorgio Maggiore, St. Mark’s Square, and the Grand Canal with a regard for the popularity of these sites and their images in the media. He writes, “All the views and prospects have been engraved so often that anyone who likes prints can easily get a vivid idea of them” (25). As a Romantic tourist, Goethe is searching for authenticity in Venice, describing later how he “adequately assimilated the local way of life and know that I am taking away a very clear and true, if incomplete, impression” (148). This desire for a genuine and real experience is a characteristic of the Romantic tourist into which Goethe has transformed, although his collective identity is still retained. As a result, Goethe’s Venetian memoirs combine the collective and Romantic gaze to produce a beautifully crafted work.


As Goethe concludes his travels in Venice, he attempts to highlight to readers the importance of his journal as a “monument of first impressions” which, as he states, “we continue to delight in and treasure, even if they are not always true” (47). This statement directly relates to the trend of the time in which, as I previously mentioned, writers aimed to compose “volumes of personal impressions” that were free from the bland quality of the guidebook and “truer to lived experience” (Buzard, 165). Goethe achieves this quality in the end with his complex tourist identity and unique writing style. Venice is crucial in Goethe’s transformation and triggers Goethe’s awakening to the Romantic. Venice has served as breeding ground for artistic awakening and inspiration for generations, and many artists have traveled to Venice to use the island as their muse. Goethe begins his writings as a collective tourist and ends with a blended identity that encompasses both the collective and Romantic.