[This is an abstract of a presentation to be delivered at the "Hitting the Road! Experiences and writing of travellers in the Victorian and Edwardian Eras" Conference (University of Tours, 2-3 February, 2023). — Taylor Tomko]
his paper aims to explore George Moores accounts of his travel experiences in France and Ireland. His rich autobiographical production finds its origins in this experience of travelling which contributed to his formation as an artist. For him, as for many other artists, travel offered endless possibilities and a promise of freedom, education and entertainment. The purpose of Moore's travels was mostly cultural, as he intended to recreate himself in other cultures and other languages.
In Confessions of a Young Man (1886), his first autobiographical text, Moore presents his trip to Paris as motivated by his rebellion against his Anglo-Irish origins and the wish to reinvent himself in the womb of a new nation. Travel is here essential in the Künstlerroman or portrait of the artist as a young man, written by Moore as his confessions and in which he imagines himself as a piece of wax receiving various imprints and taking multiple shapes as he finds himself steeped in a new environment. On the contrary, in Hail and Farewell (1911), the writer narrates how his return to Ireland after years spent in London led to the re-discovery of his native country and to an exploration of both Celtic culture and Irish countryside.
The cultural but also societal implications of these travels appear as paramount in these autobiographies, as Moore constantly strove to immerse himself in other cultures and to forge new bonds with other artists. His narratives are testimony to the necessity for the writer to explore new and unknown areas (even in his native country) in order to evolve and get on in his artistic career. However, these accounts also relate the conditions and the effects of travel itself, thereby revealing the essential function of geographical mobility and the extent to which the immersion in new spaces can shape an individuals mind.
I intend to focus on the role of travel as essential material in Moores autobiographical writing and on its power to create a new identity for the artist in the making whom Moore, always receptive to new artistic forms and ventures, remained all his life. I also propose to take into consideration the embodied dimension of the writers travelling experiences, as related in these two major autobiographies, Confessions of a Young Man and Hail and Farewell, showing how the material conditions of travel also contributed to the forging of this new identity.