Gazing upon the Stranger in the Nineteenth Century: On French Travellers in the Balearic Islands

Abstract

In the XIXth century, many French travellers visited the Balearic Islands. Their travel writing, far from being an objective reflection of the reality, conveys a gaze on the Other full of stereotypes and assumptions. We analyze how this gaze on the Balearic islander comes from two cultural representations of the XIXth century, the island representation and the romantic Spain representation. Responding to the expectation of the XIXth century French society, who hoped to find in Spain an universe completely opposite to its daily life, a primitive world full of oriental magic, and in all islands, the fortunate island, the travellers portray an Islander half way between Paradise and Orient.