Listening to Early Modern Travel Writing: Sound, Bodies and Purchas His Pilgrimes

This Element demonstrates that the epistemic value of sound and listening (real and imagined) was central to early modern travel writing. It argues that traveller-writers and their editors, in this case Samuel Purchas, intentionally stimulated the ears and auditory imaginations of their listener-readers. By Listening to Early Modern Travel Writing, audiences hear sounds that connote more than descriptive detail; taken together, sounds added credibility to the narratives and embodied proof of the travellers' personal experiences. The Element also uncovers the layers of sound fundamental to the accounts and their reception, arguing that at every stage – from the sound itself, to its interpretation by the initial auditor, to its textual signification, and its reinterpretation by editors – the body functioned as a vital site in both the pursuit and articulation of religious and scientific knowledge. Finally, it argues that such sensory and embodied practices contributed to English Protestant imperial hierarchies.