The problematic in the research of the travel literature

Abstract EN

This article is about the difficulties what the researchers in the field of travelling literature are facing.

While many studies tried already to find a comprehensive definition for the travelling literature other studies started to ask what kind of trips or journeys exactly is interesting for the literature.

The scientific and the expedition's journeys and even the colonial trips are mostly done by non-writers but the outcome of that has been always considered as a part of the travel literature.

The result was that there are no clear borders between the literary and the geographic or historic texts.

The article goes over the most important challenges what are facing the researches in the field of the travel literature as follow:
1- To what genus does the travel literature belong?
2- What are the types of texts what can classified under the travel literature?
3- The interdisciplinary in the field of the travel literature
4- The reality and the fiction in the travel literature
5- The travel literature and the gender discourse
So the recent research about the genus which the travel literature belongs to came after that the theorists of this literature have found that the travel literature became as a pool where all kinds of texts come in even if they are just a collection of some press reports or travels blogs.

However this unclear classification of the text types what belong to the travel literature is a challenge for the researchers and impact their choice of the texts what they should or should not consider in their study.

Above this the interdisciplinary of the travel literature that the text can have historic, geographic, political, anthropological, cultural or social aspects make it impossible that the researcher be aware with all these fields however this plays a big role in his understanding of the texts.

An additional point is the question about the reality or the fiction of the text as the most of the studies do not consider the imaginary journey as a part of the travel literature.

And finally gender discourse in the travel literature is about the role what the gender of the writer is playing in the chosen topics and also in the description of the journey.