| Travel literature in the eighteenth century had to satisfy many needs: it had to instruct and delight; to provide marvels without challenging credulity; to add to the Enlightenment's store of knowledge; and to mediate between familiar and unfamiliar worlds. Late in the century, newspaper and periodicals erupted in controversies about exploration narratives, and the eruptions suggest a change in the needs they were expected to satisfy for their readers. The public debate between readers, writers, and reviewers signaled an ideological shift that eventually defined the shape of a new domestic discourse to justify and stimulate the interventionist colonial policies of the nineteenth century.;John Hawkesworth's 1773 narrative of Captain Cook's first circumnavigation included extensive accounts of Tahiti and aroused the public's sense of morality. Periodical reviewers initially praised the book, then realigned themselves with nonconformists who condemned it as a threat to public morals. James Bruce's 1790 Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile was viciously attacked for his heroic self-representation and overall air of incredibility; though verified in the nineteenth century, Bruce's rhetoric defeated his truth claims in the eighteenth. Hawkesworth and Bruce were pilloried and satirized, but Mungo Park benefitted from their experience; his 1799 Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa--sponsored by the economically motivated African Association--was a great success. Though morally acceptable and credible, it shows many traces of highly selective editing and reveals an ideological stance closely aligned with the religious, social, and economic needs of the domestic reading audience.;Park's Travels exemplifies a precolonial discourse that (1) established a hierarchy that situated Europeans as rational and native peoples as credulous and superstitious; (2) identified an enemy (often the French) shared by the native peoples and the British, thus justifying the use of military force; (3) gendered native peoples as feminine, in terms of the European power paradigm, and therefore not only needing but welcoming the wise guiding hand of European males; and (4) developed a narrator/hero who satisfied its readers' new ideological needs. |
