The Theme of "Departure" in Women's Travel Narratives, 1600 - 1900 - Taking Leave from Oneself (Hardcover)

This book takes a comparative approach to women's travel writing from three centuries, in English, French, Polish, and Russian: it focuses on narrative strategies used by female travel writers. It demonstrates how female travel writing before the twentieth century shows parallels and continuities in its use of the theme of departure into a different sphere or convention. From travel into a utopian world where women rule and inhabitants live in harmony, to travel into the private world of subjectivity and poetic inspiration, female heroines venture outside the realities that bind them. The works discussed, written by Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn, Francoise de Graffigny, Claire de Duras and Unca Eliza Winkfield, to Maria Sadowska and Karolina Pavlova, exploit alternate world images to achieve the goals of giving female characters freedom to be independent.