Travel and Poetry: The Allure of Going Somewhere Else
What drives human beings to explore the unknown?
While explorers’ accounts are descriptive and explanatory, with a quasi-scientific approach, poets focus more on feelings. What do those who travel feel? What motivates the impulse to go somewhere else? Is happiness achieved through the exploration of new horizons? And can exile not feed a disquieting nostalgia? Travel inspires poets because it feeds their dreams and imagination. But don’t they tend to idealise adventure?
Why go into the unknown?
From the Renaissance to the 18th century, aristocratic families sent their young men on the Grand Tour. This was an educational journey of several years across Western Europe, designed to perfect their knowledge of ancient art and the Greco-Latin humanities. In this context, Italy was naturally a very popular destination. Young people travelled not out of a desire for the exotic, but out of necessity: they had to travel to show that they belonged to a social elite, and also because they had to see what they had to see. Certain places became unmissable, and the European nobility forged a common culture. It is not surprising, then, that Joachim du Bellay left “The quiet kindness of the Angevin air” for a time to live among the “Roman palaces”. When his father’s…
