South America in Contemporary German-Language Travel Writing. Reflections on the Background of Geopoetics

Abstract

This article contains an analysis of three books representing contemporary German travel writing about South America. The basic theory used for the analysis is geopoetics, which has been developed on the grounds of broader theoretic directions, like e.g. „spacial turn“. We discussed only a few selected geopoetical aspects in the three analysed travel books. First, we analysed the general spatial characteristics of the travels of the German authors. On the other hand, we analyzed the literature context appearing in these books. As the „literature context“, we understand various textual references to literature. These references can roughly be divided into three main groups: a.) the occassional, intentional references to writers or literature works, which accompany the narrative process, b.) accidental, unintentional encounters with literature works during the travel and c.) so called „literary travels“. All three groups together form a kind of „map of the literature context“ in the analyzed books. The map is an integral part of the geopoetic aspects of these books.