Cultural and Civilizational Consciousness in Twenty-First Century Urdu Travelogues

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of travelogue over the centuries. It comments on the way travelogues of past were based on the geographical specifications and served as an accurate description of the physical aspects of a space, an exercise that would help familiarise the audience with the place itself without giving away much of author's inner life. On the other hand the evolving through the late 20th and early 21st centuries has resulted in a new trend where the author centers himself in the narrative. Modern travelogue spans accross the geographical as well as the inner world of the author at the time of those travels, serving as a recollection of everything that the narrator felt as he travelled through the world and how it impacted him as a person.