Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson Ethiopian Thought in the Making of an English Author

by Belcher, Wendy Laura

• ISBN13: 9780199793211
• ISBN10: 0199793212
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-31
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

As a very young man, one of the most celebrated English authors of the eighteenth century translated a tome about Ethiopia. This experience permanently marked Samuel Johnson, leaving traces of the African discourse he encountered in that text in his dramaIrene;several of his short stories; and his most famous fiction,Rasselas. In this book, Wendy Laura Belcher provides a much needed perspective in comparative literature and postcolonial studies on the power of the discourse of the other to infuse European texts. Belcher illuminates how the Western literary canon is globally produced by developing the powerful metaphor of spirit possession to posit some texts in the European canon asenergumens, texts that are spoken through. Her model ofdiscursive possessionoffers a new way of theorizing transcultural intertextuality, in particular how Europe's others have co-constituted European representations. Through close readings of primary and secondary sources in English, French, Portuguese, and Ge'ez, Belcher challenges conventional wisdom on Johnson's work, from the inspiration for the name Rasselas and the nature of Johnson's religious beliefs to what makesRasselasso strange.

Author Biography

Wendy Laura Belcher is Assistant Professor of African literature in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks and Honey from the Lion: An African Journey.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Three Thousand Years of Habesha History and Discourse	p. 23
Samuel Johnson's Discursive Possession and A Voyage to Abyssinia	p. 42
Johnson's Reading, Beliefs, and Translation of A Voyage to Abyssinia	p. 62
Habesha Discourse in A Voyage to Abyssinia	p. 97
Habesha Discourse and Johnson's Drama Irene	p. 131
Habesha Discourse and Johnson's Oriental Tales	p. 170
Habesha Discourse in Johnson's Sources for Rasselas	p. 189
Habesha Discourse and Johnson's Rasselas	p. 212
Conclusion	p. 244
Acknowledgments	p. 248
Works Cited	p. 250
Index	p. 275
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