A Sublime Journey to the Barren Plains: Lady Florence Dixie's 'Across Patagonia' (1880)

Lady Florence Dixie’s 'Across Patagonia' (1880) is the only full account of a British woman’s journey to the Patagonian region. This paper is an analysis of the ways in which Florence Dixie uses the landscape as a testing ground for exploring herself. By doing so, she explicitly exposes th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fernanda Penaloza
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Western Australia 2004-06-01
Series:Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.archive.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/186581/10-penaloza.pdf
Description
Summary:Lady Florence Dixie’s 'Across Patagonia' (1880) is the only full account of a British woman’s journey to the Patagonian region. This paper is an analysis of the ways in which Florence Dixie uses the landscape as a testing ground for exploring herself. By doing so, she explicitly exposes the possibilities of Patagonia as a scenario for the enjoyer of the sublime. Even though Dixie’s contribution to the tradition of travel writing in Patagonia remains almost invisible, 'Across Patagonia' sets the basis for a way of contemplating and experiencing the landscape that continued to be important in later writings on the region. This marginal travelogue enables the exploration of travel from a female perspective, raises questions of aesthetics and gender, and sees how the journey inscribes itself on colonial discourse within the specificities of the Argentine historical and cultural context.
ISSN:1833-3419