Haddad Emily A. - Orientalist poetics: the Islamic Middle East in nineteenth-century English and French poetry

First published 2002 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Emily A. Haddad 2002

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Haddad, Emily A.
Orientalist poetics : the Islamic Middle East in nineteenth-century English and French poetry. - (Nineteenth century series)
1. English poetry - 19th century - History and criticism
2. French poetry - 19th century - History and criticism
3. Middle East - In literature
I. Title
821.89956

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haddad, Emily A.
Orientalist poetics : the Islamic Middle East in nineteenth-century English and French poetry/ Emily A. Haddad.
p. cm. - (The nineteenth century series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-7546-0304-0 (alk. paper)
1. English poetry-Oriental influences. 2. Middle East-In literature. 3. English poetry-19th centuryHistory and criticism. 4. French poetry-19th century-History and criticism. 5. Civilization, Islamic, in literature. 6. French poetry-Oriental influences. 7. Islam in literature. 8. Orientalism. I. Title. II. Nineteenth century (Aldershot, England)
PR129.M54 H33 2001
821'.8093256--dc21

2001046047

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-0304-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-3152-4749-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-3152-4749-6 (ebk)

A poem may be the product of a single mind and heart, but a work of criticism usually is not. I have many people to thank for their help. First always are my husband, John Erikson, and my sons, Philip and Robby. I am grateful to my mother, Helen R. Haddad, for caring for my children so that I could complete my dissertation (the basis for this book), and to my father, Robert M. Haddad, for being the model of a committed and honest scholar. My sister Josette Haddad edited this book with more attention than it deserves. Leila Borowsky, George Haddad, Josette Generale, and Jean Rogerson provided cheering support at difficult moments.

The shape of this book owes much to Barbara Johnson, who directed my dissertation with sensitivity and brilliance, and to Sandra Naddaff, who introduced me to orientalism and whose clear perspective and warm friendship have been important to me for nearly twenty years. Stephen Owen and James Engell provided invaluable help with early drafts. Linda Simon has been a source of calm and good advice throughout. My thanks are due as well to Wheeler Thackston for comments on part of published in modified form by the Journal of African Travel-Writing. Since receiving my doctorate from Harvard University and taking a position in the English Department at the University of South Dakota, I have been especially grateful to Susan Wolfe for her confidence in my work and for making sure that I had the time I needed to finish writing this book. I must also thank Sasha Erickson for assistance with research and Christelle Gonthier for checking my translations of French texts.

I would not have been in a position to undertake this project without the financial support of several institutions. Grants from the Fulbright Foundation and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad enabled me to study in Cairo for almost two years. A Jacob Javits Fellowship supported much of my graduate education. I completed my dissertation with the help of a fellowship from the Whiting Foundation. Support for additional research was provided by a faculty development grant from the University of South Dakota.

I acknowledge with thanks permission to quote copyrighted material from Oxford University Press and from Socit ddition Les Belles Lettres.

This book was expertly guided through the publication process by Erika Gaffhey of Ashgate Publishing. I am grateful also to Claire Annals, Alec McAuley, and Ruth Peters for additional help at various stages of that process.

To
Philip and Robby
and to the memory of
George

Throughout the nineteenth century, British and French poets wrote widely and often on oriental topics. Even William Wordsworth, who was never an enthusiastic orientalist, participated, sketching the Orient as a place of risk and fantasy,

Stocked with Pachas, Seraskiers,

Slaves, and turbaned Buccaneers;

Sensual Mussulmen atrocious,

Renegados, more ferocious!

Percy Bysshe Shelley saw instead a languid woman lying in the paradise of Lebanon / Under a heaven of cedar boughs.

The striking diversity of these visions of the East reflects the fertility of the Islamic Orient as a poetic source. The Orients appeal to poets was formidable throughout the nineteenth century, more obviously in the early decades, but in increasingly complex and aesthetically significant ways later on. A comprehensive anthology of nineteenth-century orientalist poetry would include poems by almost every British or French poet of the time; poets made reputations and even a living from writing poems on oriental topics. These poets were united in a sense of the Orient as an arena for poetic experimentation. Nineteenth-century orientalisms Orient functions as an alternative aesthetic space in which poems play out a variety of responses to both contemporary and past trends in poetry. Orientalist poetics does not yield a single, unified approach; rather, it provides a medium for the cultivation and refinement of a broad range of poetic positions. Thus Wordsworths devotion to nature, Hugos to poets autonomy, Shelleys to liberal political morality, Robert Southeys to poetry as information, Gautiers to art for arts sake, Tennysons to the social context of art, and Oscar Wildes to arts freedom from what he calls the prison-house of realism are all asserted and confirmed through the mediation of orientalism.

Given orientalisms infiltration of the nineteenth centurys poetic oeuvre, it should come as no surprise that orientalism has had an extensive and important impact on the large developments of nineteenth-century British and French poetics and poetry. However, that impact has not been fully addressed by critics. From M.H. Abramss The Mirror and the Lamp (1953) to Isobel Armstrongs Victorian Poetry (1993), overviews of poetics are relatively disinterested in orientalism. Since the appearance of Edward Saids Orientalism (1978), a number of critics have undertaken serious studies of literary orientalism, but like Said they do not pursue in depth the interaction between orientalism and nineteenth-century poetics in general. This book bridges the gap between the analysis of poetics and the analysis of orientalism; its aim is to demonstrate orientalisms centrality to the evolution of poetry and poetics in France and Britain during this period. Specifically, it will show how orientalism functions as a diffuse avant-garde, a matrix for the reexamination of both preexisting conventions and contemporary expectations in poetry and poetics. In suggesting that major poetic developments have roots in orientalism, this book offers a revisionist view of the literary history of the nineteenth century.