TRUTH AND LYING IN EARLY MODERN TRAVEL NARRATIVES: CORYAT'S CRUDITIES, LITHGOW'S TOTALL DISCOURSE AND GENERIC CHANGE

This article looks at concepts of truth and falsehood in early modern travel narratives, focusing particularly on Thomas Coryat's Crudities (1611) and William Lithgow's The Totall Discourse (1614). It argues that these travelogues point towards a change in the generic conventions of literature, especially the split between factual and fictional narratives that emerged in the course of the early modern period and which is decisive for understanding conceptions of mendacity in literary accounts. Partly, the texts by Coryat and Lithgow still cling to long-established practices of myth-making in travel writing; but partly, they already follow new expectations concerning the veracity of travel narratives and, in the case of Coryat, they even use (a simulation of) accuracy for spectacular and satirical effects.