The perception of Spain and its cultural heritage in Great Britain during the end of 18th and the first half of 19th century
Abstract
I presented the progress of my dissertation project on the perception of Spain and its culture. First, I specified my research question, which is the perception of Spanish culture in British travel literature and the change of such perception from the end of 18th to the second half of the 19th century.
In the next part, I introduced the travelogues which I used as my primary sources. Then, I focused on the methods I used in my project, namely textual analysis and historical comparison.In the main part of the presentation, I outlined respective topics of my project.
First, I focused on description of Spanish cities and their relationships to the perception of peninsular culture. Then, I focused on particular aspects of Spanish culture, including literature, forms of sociability, or standards of public behaviour.
Then, I talked about the problem of the Spanish "national character" as described in British travelogues. In the last part of the presentation, I mentioned the problematic of space and the ways how it could influence the view of Spanish culture.