Perilous Journeys and Archetypal Encounters: Critical Observations on Chinese Travel Literature

Abstract

Travel literature has long and complex traditions. In the European context, Homer’s Odyssey constitutes the earliest representative masterpiece, followed by countless variations and modifications of the genre in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish literary practice over the centuries, including the realm of music as for example Schubert’s Winterreise and in more recent times the film as Wim Wender’s memorable depictions of the wasteland of capitalism in the American West. Travels in mysterious uncharted terri- tory as powerful metaphors of self-exploration also form an integral part of Australian literary consciousness (e.g. Patrick White’s Voss). Chinese literature also has a long and rich tradition of travel literature with its origins dating back well before its Western counterparts. The travel-motif as determining structural and thematic feature appears in numerous variations ranging from flying shamans, journeys in search of paradise or immortality, dangerous sea-journeys as for example Tang Ao’s miraculous adventures reminiscent of Gulliver’s travels, the life of the vagrant monks and robbers in popular literary works, the journeys of scholars to India in search of the Buddhist Scriptures, Kang Youwei’s utopian journeys to heaven, Mao Zedong’s Long March and his ritualistic crossing of the Yangtze in 1956 and 1966 and symbolic journeys in contemporary Chinese literature. The paper will focus specifically on exemplary works of Chinese literature and identify hallmarks of the genre.