Odkrywca, tubylec… pisarz – literatura podróżnicza jako źródło wiedzy o człowieku (na przykładzie cyklu Alfreda Szklarskiego O przygodach Tomka Wilmowskiego)

Abstract

In this article a reflection is made upon such matters as the importance of travel literature; its forms from antiquity to the present; the relations between anthropology and literature; the dimensions of identity (social, individual, cultural) which represent characters of travel literature; the creation of the world by the writer from cultural and philosophical perspectives; archetypes of human behaviours and mechanisms of human psyche; depictions of strange cultures in travel literature; ways of assigning meanings to objects, people and phenomena by characters; customs typical of local society depicted by the writer; traveller’s status in the autochtons’ opinions, exotism of places, geographical and historical knowledge.