Memory, Narrative and Experience – The Journal of the American Edward Watkinson Wells about Madeira

Abstract

Perhaps because of its more insipid writing, Edward W. Wells’ journal has not been studied until today – or we simply are not aware of it. In the numerous readings we did on the subject, we found two or three references to this document, which proves that it is known among scholars who study travel literature or foreign narratives dealing with Madeira Island. Having recently translated this journal into Portuguese, it aroused our curiosity and that is the main reason this essay aims to analyse the Journal of the American Edward Watkinson Wells: A Journey to Madeira (1836/1837), from the perspective of individual and collective memory, not forgetting the concepts of temporality and experience, imperative for the understanding of travel narrative and of its importance in the construction of insular historiography. In the same line of analysis, it is important for us to understand the experience of alterity: the encounter with the other, the foreign and observer gaze that is cast on the other, the observed object, and understand the reason why this other is worth recording.

Keywords

Travel Narrative; Journal; Madeira; Memory; Experience.