NATURAL HISTORY AND TRAVEL NARRATIVE: THE VOICE OF ELIZABETH CABOT CARY AGASSIZ
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47250/intrell.v36i1.p93-108Keywords:
Travel narratives, Women’s writing, Natural history, Elizabeth Cabot AgassizAbstract
Natural history and travel narratives, highly popular between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, is marked by scientific exploration of foreign cultures and territories. Although women were often marginalized from print culture, traveling across the seas granted them the authority to be the beholders of the pen. Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz was a pioneer woman that traveled to Brazil with the Thayer Expedition alongside her husband from 1865 to 1866. Upon a year with their return to the U.S. Elizabeth and her husband published in co-authorship the travel narrative, A Journey to Brazil. This article proposes an analysis of the travel narrative, A Journey in Brazil, to rescue Elizabeth Cary Cabot Agassiz’s contribution to the dissemination of knowledge in the nineteenth century. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the theoretical framework is based on studies on travel writing and feminist literary criticism. Elizabeth dialogues with leading male voices of the century and natural history discourses to rewrite a unique literary space and insert her voice into print culture.
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