Greece in early English Travel Writing, 1596–1682

Description

This book examines the letters, diaries, and published accounts of English and Scottish travelers to Greece in the seventeenth century, a time of growing interest in ancient texts and the Ottoman Empire. Through these early encounters, this book analyzes the travelers’ construction of Greece in the early modern Mediterranean world and shows how travel became a means of collecting and disseminating knowledge about ancient sites. Focusing on the mobility and exchange of people, artifacts, texts, and opinions between the two countries, it argues that the presence of Britons in Greece and of Greeks in England aroused interest not only in Hellenic antiquity, but also in Greece’s contemporary geopolitical role. Exploring myth, perception, and trope with clarity and precision, this book offers new insight into the connections between Greece, the Ottoman Empire, and the West. Front Matter ....Pages i-x Introduction (Efterpi Mitsi)....Pages 1-15 Angell in Oxford: The Travails of a Greek Monk in Seventeenth-Century England (Efterpi Mitsi)....Pages 17-41 The “Fruit of Travell”: Fynes Moryson and Thomas Dallam in the Greek Islands (Efterpi Mitsi)....Pages 43-86 “A Revelation of Time”: Translating Greece in George Sandys’ Relation of a Journey (Efterpi Mitsi)....Pages 87-118 “Fensed with Experience and Garnished with Truth”: Experience and Invention in William Lithgow’s Greek Journey (Efterpi Mitsi)....Pages 119-150 The Rediscovery of Athens in George Wheler’s Journey into Greece (Efterpi Mitsi)....Pages 151-184 Back Matter ....Pages 185-206