The image of the East, the personal identity, the view of “we” and “the other”, in Pilgrimage of Fernão Mendes Pinto

Abstract

The texts describing travel experiences are a discourse on the foreigner. They are instruments to study the cultural image of the visited country and, at the same time, by the focus assumed, they build a cultural image of the traveller’s natural country. The Portuguese tradition of travel literature has a notorious flowering with the maritime expeditions of the sixteenth century, which is stemmed from the need to witness the discoveries performed. This is exemplified by the Peregrinação of Fernão Mendes Pinto, a work that is the focus of the present study. The aims of the present study are to explore the personal identity, the vision of the “Other” and of “We” and the image of the East revealed in Peregrinação, a work which provides to the European reader the spatial and cultural exoticism of the Eastern civilizations.