Multilingualism in 19th-Century Travel Writing

Travel writing was one of the most popular genres in the 19th century. As it often deals with journeys across linguistic boundaries and reports on experiences with other people, other countries, and other cultures, it is a genre that seems bound to be multilingual. Still, the multilingualism of travelogues has hitherto hardly been studied. The present chapter attempts to fill this gap and proposes a fist typology of the use of multilingualism in 19th-century travel writing in Europe. It discusses translingual travel writers, examines forms of manifest and hidden (latent) multilingualism, and analyzes multilingual intertextuality. In addition, the article considers the various functions of multilingualism in these texts: it may be used to create atmosphere or to confirm authenticity, it may serve to stage the author’s self, it may be used to create difference, or the authors might use it to illustrate their linguistic interest.