Tras los pasos de Washington Irving: viajeras norteamericanas en la Andalucía del siglo XIX

Abstract

In relation to travel literature about Spain, Washington Irving’s The Alhambra (1832) meant an authentic approach to Spanish history and culture not only to the American people of his time, but also to general readers worldwide. The tales included in his book contributed to the creation and promotion of the Romantic image of Spain: an old-fashioned country inhabited by bullfighters, bandits and beautiful, exotic women. From this particular perspective, many American travel writers visited Spain following Irving’s footsteps and paying attention to his books and advice. This paper will focus on two American women writers who travelled to Andalusia during the second half of the nineteenth century: Susan Hale and Katharine Lee Bates. The paper will not only offer an approach to their biographies and particular travels to the South of Spain, but will also provide an analysis of the texts produced after or during their travels. It is our purpose to establish a comparison between travel books written by men and those written by women, in order to prove whether the female experience provides a different perspective to the traditional one offered by men.