on COURSE
On the WINGS of WORDS Creating the vicarious pleasure of travel
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traveler can journey overseas, across the country, through rural towns and city streets, or deep into the cobwebbed delights of a jam-packed attic. To the skilled and observant travel writer, each of these journeys is a true adventure, a stimulus for the senses, and fodder for related—and often rambling— ruminations. “Travel writing [not to be confused with the content of Fodor’s or Frommer’s!] is a beautiful, enthralling, frequently educational, and often poignant form of literature,” says English instructor Nina Scott, with emphasis on each adjective. In her class, The Literature of Travel Writing, Scott leads her 16 students on a spirited exploration of the evolution of the genre, from the painstaking journal entries of Christopher Columbus on his 15th-century voyages to David Foster Wallace’s hilarious off-the-cuff take on a 20th-century celebrity cruise.
Columbus to Kerouac—and beyond “Students read travel literature across time, beginning with the ancients and explorers,” explains Scott. “We then move into the 18th century and the Grand Tour, followed by the 19th and early 20th centuries—the great heyday of travel—when trains made lengthy excursions relatively accessible and safe, and so many great writers included travel essays among their works.” Scott enlivens the Bulfinch Hall classroom with impassioned quotations and gesticulations and prods her students to think more deeply about their readings, to constantly search for symbolism, metaphors, and multiple levels of meaning. Near the end of the term the class tackles the “post tourists,” modern writers who, seeking a warts-and-all experience, returned to oncesplendid places for a sobering view of the affects of traffic and commercialism. The authors sampled throughout the course are many, and their writings vary greatly in style, intellect, and social consciousness. Finally, students take what Scott calls a “fabulous journey across time,” perusing Charles Darwin’s prescient ruminations about his 19th-century Galapagos Islands explorations—and the writings of author and poet Annie Dillard, a visitor to the archipelago more than 150 years later.
An escape from the familiar “What is the lure of travel?” Scott asks in an early class. “An escape from the familiar,” “a quest for knowledge,” “a chance to get closer to nature,” and “a search for the exotic” are some of her students’ responses. “Our job as writers,” she summarizes, “is to satisfy those desires.” In their nightly journal entries, the young PA writers analyze or mimic the styles of some famous travel writers, such as Marco Polo, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Alexander Kinglake, Freya Stark, Paul Theroux, V.S. Naipaul, and poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Walt Whitman. By the end of the course they hone what Scott calls their own “honest” travel writing style in a lengthy essay about the destination of their choice.
It’s not about you The most common mistake of an aspiring travel writer, claims Scott, is overuse of the word “I.”
“It’s not about you,” she admonishes. “It’s about the place. The passion of your descriptions, the complexity of your ruminations, and the selection of your anecdotes will divulge your character, intellect, background, opinions, and values.” “Travel writers are superb observers,” Scott reminds her students. “They not only describe what an object, scene, or interaction looks like, they reveal how it makes them think and feel. They make the place come alive for the reader.”
Laistrygonians and Cyclops beware “When we are struggling with writer’s block, Mrs. Scott often says, ‘Do not fear the Laistrygonians and the Cyclops!’ a reference to C.P. Cavafy’s poem, Ithaka, to encourage us to keep exploring and not worry about failure,” says Curie Kim ’09. “As writers—and in life, I suppose—we are the ones most responsible for creating our own obstacles.” Kim, notes Scott, is one of her most confident, perceptive, and fearless student writers.
Nina Scott, instructor in English
Excerpts from selected writings by seniors are presented on the following pages. For the full text of each, please visit the extended content page at www.andover.edu/bulletin.
—Jill Clerkin
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