Cultural Bias and Orientalism in The Travels of Marco Polo

Introduction: Authorship, Accuracy, and Bias

Taking Marco Polo largely at his word, translator and editor Ronald Latham tells us in his introduction to The Travels of Marco Polo that the thirteenth-century Italian explorer was not lying when he claimed, in the prologue of the book, that he "had traveled more extensively than any man since the Creation" (Latham 7). Surely this claim helped to sell copies, and the tales of Marco Polo's travels were a bestseller in his own time; the book continues to be read and to generate a fair amount of scholarship even today. A cursory overview of current criticism reveals that most scholarly debates revolve around the historical accuracy and veracity of Marco Polo's claims. Latham himself notes that there "are other features of the book that are as likely to be due to Rustichello [the compiler and author to one degree or another of the Travels] as to Marco" (Latham 18). Other critics have suggested that Marco Polo inflated his own and his family's stature, while still others argue that he had little or nothing to do with the book at all and merely told some stories to Rustichello that were then hugely embellished.

Orientalism and Ethnocentrism in the Travels

Regardless of who actually wrote which portions of The Travels of Marco Polo, a certain strain of Orientalism and exoticism runs through the book — one that would come to pervade European culture for centuries to come. The narrative's descriptions of the villages and courts that Marco Polo encounters are full of fantastical imagery and references to magic and sorcery. No doubt part of this, like the claim made in the prologue, was an attempt to sell copies; sensationalism sold then just as it does today. But at the heart of this sensationalism is an ethnocentrism that is readily apparent throughout much of the book.

The strangeness of Middle and Far Eastern cultures would certainly have been shocking to a fifteen-year-old encountering them for the first time — if he truly did encounter everything he describes — but the narrator's tone is shaped not so much by surprise as by judgment. There are many moments throughout the text where the narrator's own Western and Christian culture bars him from seeing — and thus representing — the other cultures encountered in the Travels in a fair and objective light. Whether the result of first-hand observation, a compilation of stories heard from others, or even outright invention, the text bears definite evidence of the perspective that created it. The Western and Christian culture of the author colors his account of the Middle and Far East to a considerable extent.

The Prologue's Christian Framework

The prologue itself contains evidence of the influence that culture and perspective played in the writing of this work. The claim that Latham mentions — about Marco having traveled farther than any man since the Creation — is actually delivered in explicitly Christian terms: "from the time when our Lord God formed Adam our first parent with His hands down to this day there has been no man, Christian or Pagan, Tartar or Indian…[that has traveled so far] as this same Messr Marco Polo" (Travels 33). Even the surface meaning of this sentence betrays its ethnocentric orientation toward Christianity. Time is measured from the Biblical creation of Adam by the Judeo-Christian — or more aptly, given the likely authorship, simply Christian — God, and the collective possessive "our" preceding "Lord" and "first parent," though a common idiomatic usage even among Christians today, implies a certain otherness in anyone who does not share that belief. The author of the Travels has, as a matter of course, set Christians apart from the Oriental subjects described in the rest of the book.

Conclusion: A Western Spectacle of the Orient

The Western Christian view of the peoples of the Orient was profoundly exoticized; every difference was perceived as strangeness, a feature easy to exaggerate in print. The author's primary drive in writing this book was not an accurate historical or cultural record but the selling of books. An already biased perspective combined with commercial motivation produced a highly sensationalized account of Marco Polo's travels and the peoples he encountered along the way.

This Western Christian ethnocentrism is not limited to Marco Polo — far from it. He, or whoever the author of the Travels was, would not have found a readership had the perspective from which the book was written not been shared by the vast majority of Europeans at the time. It is a problem that social scientists, journalists, businesspeople, and many others still confront today. Objectivity is difficult to achieve — impossible, according to many theorists. Still, the author of the Travels did not even attempt to remain accurate. He views the peoples he encounters from a position of superiority; and though he marvels at some of their feats and ways of life, he regards them as exhibits in a sideshow. Or rather, he is the host of that show, dutifully describing the strange and gruesome attractions in each tent. This view of the Orient could hardly be considered fair, yet for centuries it was the view that persisted.

Works Cited

Polo, Marco (attributed). The Travels of Marco Polo. Trans. and ed. Ronald Latham. New York: Penguin, 1958.