ABSTRACT
The importance of genre of travel literature in a period lies in the sheer quantity of original material which was written, in variety of forms and purposes which it inspired, and in the intellectual importance of the debates that it informed. Travel literature is therefore best described as a "genre of genres", since a variety of kinds of literature defined by a variety of purposes and conventions share travel as their essential condition of production. Indeed, the centrality of such questions provides a thread of continuity within the genre of travel writing all the way to modern times. Thus the traveler potentially transcends the limits of a given identity, either to defend it against difference, to reject it as false, or to redefine it in the light of a deeper understanding. Many late narratives of pilgrimage to the Holy Land seem more interested in miraculous stories and in depicting exotic customs than in interpreting the spiritual significance of the journey.
