ABSTRACT
Born to a wealthy aristocratic English family, Lady Florence Dixie had the education and financial means to undertake a voyage to Patagonia and the social connections to publish her travel narrative as a book in 1880. At the same time, referring to the landscape, Dixie paid homage to the English poet Samuel Coleridge, as her words are almost the same as the verses in the poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": "We were the first that ever burst/Into that silent sea". These competing discourses permeate the textual politics of the travel narrative. Similar to the illustrations, Dixie intermingled feminist and colonialist discourses. Dixie's narrative, being filled with competing discourses, justified a close analysis of her word choice. An examination of Dixie's play with language draws on English literature to assert England's superiority as a country and as a culture.
