Following in the footsteps of a traveller from the past is also a way to rethink the meaning and transformations of the tradition of travel writing. For many writers, the figure of Marco Polo has been the meta-literary device for reflecting on the repertoire of strategies for representing the East. This essay traces some of the stages in the history of Marco Polo’s role in contemporary travel writing, with its aesthetics of exoticism, political tourism, postmodern rewritings and paths of cultural mediation. From this perspective, the East has been intended as a figure of displacement, the mental space of an alternative onto which to project the impulses of the social unconscious.
University of Padua, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-2544-8640
Chapter Title
Sulle tracce di Marco Polo. Gli scrittori di viaggio e la rappresentazione dell’Oriente
Authors
Luigi Marfè
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0883-3.20
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2025
Copyright Information
© 2025 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Il Milione nel tempo tra Asia ed Europa: Marco Polo nelle letterature medievali e contemporanee
Book Subtitle
Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Siena, 7–8 novembre 2024) e del Seminario “700 anni di Marco Polo” (Firenze, 11 dicembre 2024)
Editors
Paola Mocella
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
178
Publication Year
2025
Copyright Information
© 2025 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0883-3
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0882-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0883-3
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0884-0
Series Title
ConTesti medievali. Studi, ricerche e fonti