The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination

Carl Thompson examines the romance that can attach to the notion of suffering in travel, and the importance of the persona of 'suffering traveller' for Romantic writers and travellers such as Wordsworth and Byron. Surveying branches of Romantic-era travel writing such as shipwreck, captivity, and exploration narratives, he considers how and why the Romantics typically chose to imitate the hapless protagonists of these accounts, rather than to play the more conventional roles of picturesque and Grand Tourist.