Theodor Fontane: A German Traveller in England and Scotland

Abstract

Travel writing is a presentation of self and place, a form of non-fiction increasingly perceived as “life-writing”, that is as “literature whose historical assertions and representational intentions are by definition an effort to fix our identity within the world around us.”1 Like other forms of non-fiction, it is read, according to Daniel W. Lehmann, “over the edge of text and experience”, in the knowledge that behind it there are real human lives.2 Lehmann describes “the resulting transaction among writer, reader, and subject” as “implicated”, a term that suggests a deeper involvement in both history and text than concepts of “ideal” or “implied” authors and readers.3 Travel writing is thus a hybrid form, a non-fiction narrative that intersects with autobiography, but has both imaginary, descriptive and interpretive elements, and structures and strategies similar to those of fiction. As the traveller engages with the foreign environment his or her sense of identity and narrative skill are challenged.4 From the end of the eighteenth century the classical autobiographical travel narrative is characterised by linearity, fostering the reader’s sense that he or she is also travelling. As the prevailing forms of factual guide, scientific, analytical record and sentimental “travel notes” become more diverse and differentiated the process of hybridisation intensifies. Oliver Lubrich credits Alexander von Humboldt’s account of his South American travels with a critical role in this process. Lubrich identifies the variables of the classical travel narrative as follows: “(1) an identifiable subject (2) travels to foreign countries (3) and offers his readers at home (4) a written report of his experience”.5 Lubrich suggests that Humboldt problematises each of its elements in a way that destabilises the narrative.6 The identifiable subject reveals himself variously as author, traveller and nar-