New Journeys through Old Voyages: Literary Approaches to Richard Hakluyt and Early Modern Travel Writing

Abstract

AbstractThis essay provides newcomers with a path into the study of early modern English travel writing by reviewing the most important scholarship on this material, both before and since the recognition of its value to literary scholars beyond what Willy Maley has recently called the ‘rather limiting notion of “background” and “source” material’ (489). It introduces the texts of the genre's most influential figure in this period, Richard Hakluyt (c.1552–1616), and discusses how recent literary and interdisciplinary scholarship has placed new emphasis on the depth and complexity of Hakluyt's best‐known travel book, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589; 1598–1600). This shift that has caused much of the conventional wisdom surrounding this text to be reconsidered, and opened the way for new and sustained critical readings. Reflecting the fact that research into early modern travel literature is developing quite rapidly, this article contains up‐to‐date references (including to forthcoming scholarship from a number of the world's leading Hakluyt specialists), which even readers who are already familiar with this field may find useful.