The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire

ISBN-13: 9780415968058 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 216 str.

Filiz Turhan

Opis

This book contributes to the body of postcolonial scholarship that explores the growth of imperial culture in the Romantic and early Victorian period by focusing on the literary uses of the figure of the Turk and the Ottoman Empire. Filiz Turhan analyzes Turkish Tales, novels and travelogues from c.1789-1846 to expose the three primary ways in which the Ottoman Other served as a strong counterimage of empire for both liberal and conservative writers. These elements include Turkey's commercial policies; its adherence to the harem system; and its oppressive treatment of the Greeks. Through readings of Elizabeth Craven's A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople, Lord Byron's Turkish Tales, Percy Shelley's poetry, Mary Shelley's The Last Man, and the career of Lady Hester Stanhope, this book argues that by the early nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire was a particularly flexible trope that could be presented as both familiar or foreign, Same or Other in a way that reflected back onto England its own vexed attitude toward its imperial successes. This study provides copious historical context for the role the Ottoman Empire played in the development of imperial discourses in a

Spis treści

Contents List of Figures Preface Chapter One: The Slippery Signifier Chapter Two: Desire and Disdain: The Travels of Lady Elizabeth Craven Chapter Three: Victim, Vixen, and Virago: The Odalisque in Byron's Turkish Tales Chapter Four: The spoil of wild beasts and unlettered Tartars: Shelley's Uses of the Ottoman Empire and the Figure of the Turk Chapter Five: Figuring the End of Empire in the City of Constantinople Epilogue: To read the long, dark, interior life: Learning One's Lesson from the Lady Hester Stanhope Notes Bibliography Index

O autorze

Filiz Turhan's work focuses on romanticism, with specific emphasis on orientalism, imperialism, and the gothic. Her current research project is focused on the discursive construction of the Turks in twentieth-century fiction, travel literature, and film. She is assistant professor of English at Suffolk Community College and teaches courses in literature and composition.