The Picturesque Gaze: The Image of America in 19th Century British Travel Writings

This paper aims to discuss how the 19th century British travel writers construct the image of America through the aesthetic representation of Englishness, the Picturesque. As a matter of fact, America provoked complicated feelings in those British writers who travelled in their former colony. On one hand, they wanted to re-implant the "Englishness" through their identification of the England-like landscapes with the Beautiful; on the other hand, they used the Sublime to describe those unfamiliar landscapes with an aim to transform or control them. In a certain sense, the image of America under their pens was not a real one, while the Picturesque gaze, which symbolized the process of Othering, was more than an aesthetic one. As a conclusion, the Picturesque in the 19th century colonial social context was well combined with the travel writings. By doing so, they formed a new colonial narrative and successfully promoted the formation of Englishness.