UNDERSTANDING THE OTHER THROUGH SPEAKING HIS LANGUAGE: F.C.H.L. POUQUEVILLE’ S VOYAGE EN MORÉE

Abstract

The article focuses on the French traveller and diplomat François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouque- ville and more specifically on his first work Travel in Morea published in 1805, after staying for three years in Greece which was at that time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Pouqueville’s case is of a great interest since he belongs to a very small group of travellers who were able to communicate with the culture that they visited in their vernacular language. Taking into account this fact, the article examines how the meeting of these two cultures develops, analyses its textual effects and the transformations of “otherness”. Stereotypes, prejudices and preconceived ideas that set the two cultures apart are sidelined as the learning of the language becomes the avenue for understanding the Other and its culture, leading to transformation of Self