Representation of the Muslim orient in select travelogues and fiction from the early nineteenth century

Abstract

In this study, the researcher provides an analytical and critical reading of selected travelogues and novels written in the early half of the nineteenth century. For novels, Sir Walter Scott’s The Talisman (1825) and Benjamin Disraeli’s Tancred (1847) are the instances. For travelogues, Domingo Badia Lyblich’s Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, between the years 1803 and 1807 (1816), William Kinglake’s Eothen (1835) and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo (1844) will be the selection. Edward Said’s Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism particularly the taxonomy of the writings of these pilgrims/travellers put forth the arguments that the study takes up for its analytical framework in the light of which textual analysis of the study carries on. The study explores ways in which these selected English fictional and non-fictional writings of the age represent the Muslim Orient and how this representation ultimately contributes to a sense of superiority to, and then domination of the inferior “other.” Therefore, the present study is about the relationship between literary Orientalism (in terms of fiction and travel literature) and the British imperialism in the Muslim Orient through themes like “Crusades,” and “Pilgrimage.” The study has come to conclude that literature contributes to cultural misrepresentation and later on imperial control of the “inferior” Muslim Orient.