Images of Germany. The Travelogues of Emilia Pardo Bazán

Abstract

Throughout the 19^th century, a wave of enthusiasm for Spain sparked in Germany and all over Europe, culminating in the travelogues of writers who set off in search of the ghosts of the Moorish past and the Golden Age. While the travelogues to Spain have been the subject of much critical literature, those of Spaniards who set out to discover Germany are less well known. What kind of Germanic imaginary grew on the Iberian Peninsula in the 19^th century? Who travelled to Germany, and for what reasons? What do these texts tell us about the image Spanish travellers had of their own culture? This article attempts to answer those questions in two stages. Firstly, by providing a brief overview of Spanish travel literature in Germany from an imagological perspective, focusing on the literary images of the foreign country. Secondly, a closer look at a specific case is taken, by analysing the travel notes of Emilia Pardo Bazán, who travelled to Bavaria in 1890. Indeed, her experience in Germany led the Countess to paint a critical portrait of Spain, probing, through that travel experience, for new cultural models that could help redefine the identity of her own country.