Post-Enlightenment Exploration and the Aesthetic of Information: Curious with a Purpose

Abstract

Exploration accounts written during the post-Enlightenment era of European expansion relied upon the agency of a romanticized narrator who could inspire a dedicated readership since he strategically projected the ‘performance’ of exploration as necessarily hazardous and hence, awe-inspiring. The concomitant element of romance was further emphasized in such texts since the precarious and vulnerable position of the explorer-narrator functioned as a much-needed foil to the sort of objectivist-detached discourse of functional intelligence that exploration narratives were increasingly expected to generate. The elaborate, methodical, organized and professional performance of overseas exploration needs to be understood as a targeted activity that utilized specific narratorial devices with an aim to make use of the widespread curiosity about the New World. This essay seeks to address the post-Enlightenment emergence of an ‘aesthetic of information’ along with its discursive trappings and epistemological frameworks which were ‘realized’ within a subculture of geographical exploration. ‘Knowledge’ aspired to be defined by empirical rigour, but the process of accessing and documenting it could scarcely avoid subjective variables.