Characteristics of travel prose:

1. It is necessary to describe not only the scenery but also the local people;

2. The author’s inner feelings triggered by the scenery are described. Waves;

3. In addition to the description and introduction of objects, there should also be a plot or detailed description of human activities;

4. Control the lyricism or discussion interspersed in the writing process , indirect lyricism and implicit discussion are the best.

The most important feature is that the scenery described in the work must be completely real, and exaggeration and fiction are not allowed. However, it is not based on similar actual records, but the author blends emotions with the objects to achieve a blend of scenes.

Extended information

Travel writing is a form of prose that describes travel experiences. Travel notes can be drawn from a wide range of materials. They can describe the beauty of famous mountains and rivers, record the interesting local customs and customs, reflect the daily life of a person and a family, record major events in a country, and express the author's thoughts and feelings.

Travel notes can be divided into many types. Those that focus on recording the itinerary are narrative travelogues; those that focus on expressing emotions are lyrical travelogues; those that focus on describing scenery and landscapes are landscape-type travelogues; those that illustrate a principle through travel notes are reasoning-type travelogues.

Representative Works

1. Travels of Xu Xiake

"Travels of Xu Xiake" is a famous Chinese geographical work mainly written in the form of a diary. It mainly describes the author's travel observations from 1613 to 1639 based on the diary. He makes detailed records of geography, hydrology, geology, plants and other phenomena, and has made great achievements in geography and literature.

In the late Ming Dynasty, Xu Hongzu traveled for 34 years and wrote 17 travel notes on famous mountains such as Tiantai Mountain, Yandang Mountain, Huangshan Mountain, and Lushan Mountain, as well as "Zhejiang Travel Diary", "Jiangyou Travel Diary", and "Chu Travel Diary" , "Diary of a Journey to Western Guangdong", "Diary of a Journey to Guizhou", "Diary of a Journey to Yunnan" and other works. Except for those lost, there are more than 600,000 words of travel notes. After his death, it was compiled into "Xu Xiake's Travels" by others.

2. Marco Polo’s Travels

According to legend, Marco Polo was born into a merchant family in Venice, Italy in 1254. When he was 17 years old, he followed his father and uncle through the Middle East. It took more than four years for him to come to China and traveled in China for 17 years. After returning to China, he wrote "The Travels of Marco Polo", which recorded his travels in China and aroused many Europeans' yearning for Eastern China.

The travel diary is divided into four volumes. The first volume of the travel diary records what Marco Polo and his friends saw along the way to Xanadu; the second volume records the Mongol Khan Kubi Lieutenant General, his palace, capital, court, government, festivals, hunting and other matters; traveling south from Dadu to Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Quanzhou and the coast of the East and the seas and continents; the third volume records Japan, Vietnam, East India , South India, the Indian Ocean coast and islands, and eastern Africa; the fourth volume records the wars between the descendants of Genghis Khan and the Tatar kings who came to Asia and northern Asia.

Each volume is divided into chapters, and each chapter describes the situation of a place or a historical event. There are 229 chapters in total. A large part of the book is about records about Asia. Most of the focus of the book is about the travel records of the Yuan Dynasty in China at that time, because he stayed in China for the longest time and traveled all over the northwest, north China, southwest and east China. area.

Baidu Encyclopedia--Travel Notes