El Lejano Oriente en libros de viaje españoles del siglo XVI: Un acercamiento a la perspectiva transoceánica e intercontinental

Yan Li, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Spanish construction of the Orient in travel literature during the sixteenth century. This work concentrates on three coordinating and interrelated factors that conditioned the image-making process: the persistence of medieval ideologies, the new trends of transition to the Modern era and the unique experiences and psychological conditions of the Spanish explorers. This study also attempts to divide the corpus of texts into three categories: works based on circumnavigation of the globe; works that focus exclusively on visits to Asian countries; and a single book Viaje del mundo by Pedro Ordóñez de Ceballos, which combines characteristics of the first two categories. Finally, this dissertation analyzes the specific case of contact zones in sixteenth-century Asia, which as a space of conflict, negotiation, discussion, dialogues and reconciliation, differed from the colonial context of Latin America. The significance of this work is that it expands the current models of reading Spanish travel literature on the Orient by integrating America into the itinerary from Spain to Asia. My research proposes that those documents, with America present or absent in the text, have unanimously reflected the ideological conditions and the transoceanic and intercontinental experiences of the sixteenth-century Spanish travelers-writers. By addressing a series of relevant questions in the construction of the Oriental image, my dissertation demonstrates that some of the Spanish writings contributed to the prolongation of the medieval mystification of the Orient while others created new legends of the Orient for their European and Latin American audience. Furthermore, after comparing original sources in native languages of Asia, my study shows that sixteenth-century Spanish travelers were actually very reliable in what they reported, because they based their writings on direct observations and intercultural communications with native Asian people.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Stephenson, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Modern literature|Latin American literature

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