Fabulous Orients Fictions of the East in England 1662-1785

by Ballaster, Ros

• ISBN13: 9780199267330
• ISBN10: 0199267332
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Narrative moves. Stories migrate from one culture to another, over vast distances sometimes, but their path is often difficult to trace and obscured by time. Fabulous Orients looks at the traffic of narrative between Orient and Occident in the eighteenth century, and challenges the assumption that has dominated since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) that such traffic is always one-way.

Author Biography

Born in Bombay, India, in 1962, Ros Ballaster has had an abiding interest in eastern culture and narrative. She was a visiting Fellow at Harvard University 1988-89; Lecturer in English Literature at University of East Anglia 1989-1993; and Leverhulme Major Research Fellow 2000-2003. She is currently College and University Fellow in English Literature at Mansfield College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Abbreviations	xiii
Narrative Moves	1	(24)
Dinarzade, the second string	1	(6)
The state of narrative	7	(18)
Shape-Shifting: Oriental Tales	25	(34)
Fadlallah and Zemroude: transmigratory desires	25	(7)
The framed sequence	32	(4)
Travellers' tales	36	(5)
Fictional letters	41	(4)
Histories	45	(7)
Heroic drama	52	(5)
A passion for tales	57	(2)
Tales of the Seraglio: Turkey and Persia	59	(134)
Roxolana: the loquacious courtesan	59	(11)
Speaking likenesses: Turkey and Persia	70	(13)
Loquacious women I: staging the Orient	83	(12)
Loquacious women II: narrating the Orient	95	(50)
Speculative men I: spies and correspondents	145	(26)
Speculative men II: court secrets	171	(8)
`Fabulous and Romantic': the `Embassy Letters' and `The Sultan's Tale'	179	(14)
`Bearing Confucius' Morals to Britannia's Ears': China	193	(61)
Tourandocte, the riddling princess	193	(9)
Chinese whispers	202	(6)
Orphans and absolutism: tragedies of state	208	(10)
Empire of Dulness	218	(9)
Narrative transmigrations	227	(15)
Chinese letters of reason	242	(10)
Madness and civilization	252	(2)
`Dreams of Men Awake': India	254	(106)
Canzade: the illusory sati	254	(9)
India as Illusion	263	(12)
`The dreaming Priest': Aureng-Zebe	275	(17)
The treasures of the East: Indian tales	292	(3)
Tales of India: weaving illusions	295	(48)
The Indian fable: rational animals	343	(15)
Waking from the dream	358	(2)
Epilogue: Romantic Revisions of the Orient	360	(16)
Bibliography	376	(17)
Index	393