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English Studies :‫المسلك‬

5 :‫الفصل‬

31 :‫الوحدة‬

Travel Narrative :‫المادة‬

Mamaoui M. Lmustapha :‫األستاذ‬

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Sultan Moulay Slimane University

Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Department of English - Beni Mellal
Prof. Mamaoui M. Lmustapha
Online Learning

Travel Narrative (Semester 5 - Mod 31 - 2020/2021)

The first, and most probably, the only Travel narrative we are going to study
this term is Journey into Barbary: Morocco Writings and Drawings by the
Anglo-Canadian author, or travel writer, Wyndham Lewis. The other narratives
included in the syllabus are also assigned, but they are primarily meant to help
students be familiar with this literary genre. Also, the assigned critical works
generally aim, among other things, to:

- Make students aware of the existence of a body of theoretical and critical

works extremely relevant to the study and analysis of travel writing such as
Lewis's Journey into Barbary.
- Make students familiar with the critical, theoretical and conceptual
terminology used in this field of study, which is most often referred to as
the field of cross/cultural studies.
- Nevertheless, students are in no way required, at least at this current
academic level, to fully understand the often complicated and deep
meanings and arguments of these critical works. The main learning
objective in this regard is to introduce students to this domain of criticism
and analysis of this type of literary works and to equally attract their
attention to the importance of reading. This will no doubt contribute to the
development of their critical skills and spirit, something which is very
much required.

And in an introduction to the study and analysis of this narrative, it is

actually very much useful to say a few words on some elements below, elements
that are considered contextual in the sense that they provide and constitute a
context that is relevant to the study of Journey into Barbary. These elements are:
Travel Narrative as a literary genre, the author, the historical background and the
study methodology.
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1 - Travel Narrative as a literary genre: Travel narrative is a literary genre

just like novel or drama. This means that the study, the assessment, the
understanding, or the analysis of this genre is to be undertaken within the sphere
of literature. Of course, other fields of study or other disciplines, such as history
and sociology, could be interested in the examination of this type of literature
because of the useful information it provides and of the arguments it addresses.
In this regard, travel texts/narratives could be used as important historical
documents. In our context, the context of literature - which is obviously broad in
that it also incorporates aspects of history, sociology, geography, etc - travel
narratives will be considered and studied as literary or as cultural texts. What
does that mean? It means that our analysis will focus on the nature of the
meanings expressed explicitly or implicitly in the narrative and on their critical
(cultural) significance. For this purpose, and as is the case in literary texts, a lot
of textual (and extratextual) elements will be examined, such as: Setting (time
and space), language (style, Lexis, structure), point of view, etc.
In our sense, travel narrative belongs to the sphere of literature and
constitutes a literary genre or sub-genre (as some would say) of non-fiction,
mainly if we define literary genres as follows: Fiction, which mostly refers to
novel, novellas and short stories and which is based on imagination, that is on
imagined, and not real, events (hence the word fiction or fictional). Poetry and
drama, which are also mostly fictional since they are based on imagination. And
finally, non-fiction which feeds on real events and experiences as is the case of
travel narrative, memoirs, essays, diaries, etc. The definition of literature and
literary genres is somewhat controversial; critics differ in their approach to this
question.
The assigned works are travel narratives and not novels, poems or plays.
Their contents consist of real events and experiences lived, witnessed or heard
by their authors. Journey into Barbary, for instance, is an account of a trip
undertaken by Wyndham Lewis in Morocco in the spring of 1931. It belongs
thus to this literary field of non-fiction; its events are not fictional, that is
imagined, but rather real ones. This does not preclude the fact that some are
imagined, but this does not in any way affect the non-fictional aspect of the
narrative.
Finally, there is this important question, the answer of which will make clear
the relevance of the definition of this literary genre to our study, or to our
attempt to analyze and understand Journey into Barbary as a travel narrative.
Again, what is the relevance or use of this section about the genre? First, it
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makes clear, as indicated above, that this text is considered as a literary text and
will thus be analyzed as such. Last, and as will be discussed below in the section
of study methodology, the fact that these narratives are non-fictional does not
make them very much different from fictional texts. Both are meant to express
meanings and ideas of an author. No doubt, even if the medium of expression, or
the artistic medium, differs, ideas and meanings most probably do not.

2 - Author: What matters in this regard is Lewis's literary and artistic identity,
the knowledge of which helps in the understanding of his works. His belonging
does matter too. Wyndham Lewis is British, mostly because his mother is
English and he grew up, spent most of his life and was educated in England.
Some prefer to add that he is also Canadian, given his birth (Born on 18
November 1882, Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada), and American since his father
is American. Whatever, Lewis, it seems, evolved within one same culture, the
Anglo-Saxon culture in spite of its varied constituents.
In a very simple way, his Englishness points to his culture and cultural
belonging, and by culture we signify a lot of things including language, religion,
ethnicity, race, identity, history, geography, values, thought pattern, etc, all of
which contribute and determine his thinking, his ideas and his vision of things.
In other words, they inform and frame his thoughts as well as they determine his
perspective or the point view from which he sees and conceives things. An
example of the significance of his Englishness is the fact that he no doubt
perceives himself as belonging to a country that is culturally or civilizationally
developed almost at all levels. This belonging frames his mode of thinking. In
Journey into Barbary, for instance, the effect of this belonging is obvious, for
the reader senses that Wyndham Lewis projects himself as superior to the
Moroccan he often produces as an uncultured and uncivilized other. Belonging,
as will be made much clearer in the course of our analysis of the book, is thus
significant critically and the above is an illustrating example.
Concerning the artistic identity of the author, Wyndham Lewis is not simply
a travel writer, but also a very talented novelist, painter, essayist as well as critic.
This means that he is a devoted and professional writer as he is of course
declared in the literary and artistic circles, masterful of and very much
experienced in the art of writing and painting. Lewis is thus an author who made
of fiction, non-fiction and painting his favorite medium to express his ideas and
represent reality as he perceives it. Again, in the course of our analysis of
excerpts from his travel account, we will have the occasion to show how both
his career as novelist and painter affect and show through his travel writing.
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The other point which is of paramount importance is the nature of his

personality, thoughts and ideas he expressed in his works. In other words, what
is his personality like, and what are the ideas and thoughts he believed in and
wished to disseminate or communicate through his arts? Briefly, Lewis is a
rationalist just like the neoclassicists. In other words, he is a sort of intellectual
and artist who believes in reason. For him, reason, the mind, the intellect and
rational ideas, and not imagination or the senses, are the appropriate means for
the establishment of reality and acquisition of knowledge. Lewis believes that he
is an intellectual who makes use of rational logic and reasoning in his thinking.
His mode of thinking is thus rational. Lewis even believes that he is a very
distinguished intellectual whose rational knowledge enables him to establish the
right truth. His emphasis on his intellectual powers and gifts show that he is also
an elitist in his thinking and that he belongs to the British intellectual elite, or
even to the world's intelligentsia of his time. This conviction signifies that Lewis
makes a distinction between himself and the rest of the people or the masses. As
a matter of fact, this sentiment of intellectual or even racial distinction and
superiority was not proper to Lewis at that time, that is during the first half of
the last century.
Next, we have now to answer the following question: in which way is the
above intellectual and artistic identification useful? It is so because it sheds light
on Lewis's personality and especially on his rational mode of thinking mainly
thanks to his mental or cerebral consciousness and which, he believes, qualifies
him to approach the world and phenomena from the right and appropriate
perspective and which thus enables him to arrive at the fundamental truth and to
have access to the essential reality. Lewis perceives this as a privilege he has
over those who do not make of reason/mind a means to see and represent the
world. This privilege makes Lewis nourish/develop the sense or sentiment of
monopolizing reality which he believes always exists in an essential form, one
made available by means of reason. In embracing this type of rational and
essentialist thinking Lewis sets himself in opposition to those artists,
intellectuals, peoples of a different race, Orientals, etc, who perceive reality
otherwise and through means other than reason. The consequence of this is that
Lewis's thinking becomes equally founded on a binarism/dichotomy. It always
sets a difference between reality and unreality, the self and the other, the author
and the authored, the Westerner and the Oriental, etc. This Manichean (either
good or evil) division or dichotomy is perceptible/obvious in his travel account,
Journey into Barbary in which the self, himself or any other European, is always
depicted as superior and civilized and the Moroccan inferior and uncivilized.
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In connection with the above essentialist but still alleged rational mode of
thinking, which Lewis sees as a privilege that sets him apart from the rest, is his
sympathies with Nazism, fascism and the right-wing politics and ideology which
equally lay a claim to a certain social, intellectual and racial privilege and
superiority. In this regard, in 1931, Lewis wrote a book entitled Hitler in which
he presents Adolf Hitler as a man of peace, a view harshly criticized by liberals
and anti-fascists. In this connection too, Lewis perceives the democratic values
the left wing intellectuals and politicians advocate as dangerous and detrimental
to British and European society. Finally, Lewis also engages in the support for
colonialism, something openly expressed in his account on Morocco.

3 - Historical background: The main point in this regard is that Journey into
Barbary is an account of a trip undertaken in the spring of 1931, that is during
the colonial period, when Morocco was still under the French colonization or
rule. This period is one of colonialism, that is of European countries power and
supremacy over the weak nations and peoples. This historical background is
relevant to the understanding of this narrative which openly sustains French
colonialism in Morocco. It is in this sense that this account is part of what is
critically referred as colonial discourse, a discourse the aim of which were to
sustain and justify European colonialism or colonial enterprise/project which is
perceived as a civilizing mission, or as a mission intended to civilize supposedly
uncivilized peoples, Africans, Asians, Arabs, and Orientals mainly.

4 - Study methodology: This section aims to shed light on the nature of the
study and analysis we intend to carry out and on the methodology we will be
following for this purpose. The study consists on the whole in an attempt to
understand the different ideas and meanings, either explicit or implicit, that are
expressed in Journey into Barbary and their critical significance. For this
purpose, a number of relevant passages, excerpts and statements in the book will
be analyzed. The methodology followed in the analysis of these texts consists in
the examination of their settings, contents, form, language, style, structure, etc,
from a critical perspective aiming to arrive at their the critical significance. The
analysis will intensely and heavily focus on the text which remains the main
source of meaning. From time to time, and when it is necessary and relevant, we
will equally make allusion to existing critical theory and concepts in the field of
literary and cultural studies.
In this respect, it is useful to note that our reading will be more or less
postcolonial or anti-colonial in that it examines a text pertaining to and produced
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by the discourse of colonialism, or the colonial discourse. Given this, the

analysis will focus on showing how the meanings and ideas of this text are
colonial and how they are formed and constituted for the purpose of conveying
colonial and colonizing assumptions and ideology, which the author strives to
substantiate and disseminate. The other main but related theme the analysis will
equally attempt to address is Lewis's representation of the Moroccans. In fact,
the representation of otherness is of paramount of importance as regards this
subject of travel narrative, given that its subject matter is mostly about the other
in relation to the self. If the English Novel - mostly the realistic and the
modernist - is mostly about the self, the British travel accounts on Morocco,
before and during the colonial period, is concerned with the depiction or
representation of the Moroccans, their spaces and cultures. The analysis will
thus concentrate on understanding how this representation is effected, how it
takes place. It will seek to comprehend the means and the techniques deployed
in this regard in the same way as it will strive to understand the nature and
significance of this representation, always through the examination of the
author, the historical background of the narrative, its contents, settings, language
and structures.
Finally, the learning outcome or objective in this regard is to enable students
to critically read literary texts, especially in this field. They are thus expected to
learn how a literary text is analyzed. In this regard, students are encouraged and
incited to primarily focus their attention on the text. In critical terms, this is the
sound method of analysis, for the text, as pointed to above, is to be regarded as
the primary and main source of information. Of course, allusions will be made
to related theory and concepts, but this is mostly meant to introduce students to
critical theory and concepts in this domain of literary and cultural studies. And
in order, to really benefit from the lectures, students must read the assigned
works, mainly Lewis's account.
The reading of this book is mandatory and is taken into consideration in the
exam.