The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)

this Book Contributes To The Body Of Postcolonial Scholarship That Explores The Growth Of Imperial Culture In The Romantic And Early Victorian Periods By Focusing On The Literary Uses Of The Figure Of The Turk And The Ottoman Empire. Filiz Turham 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. Through Readings Of Such Authors As Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley And Elizabeth Craven The Authors Identifies The Ottoman Empire As A Particularly Flexible Trope That Could Be Presented As Noth Familiar Or Foreign, Same Or Other In A Way That Reflected Back Onto England Its Own Vexed Attitude Toward Its Imperial Success. LIST OF FIGURES vii PREFACE viii 1. The Slippery Signifier 1 2. Desire and Disdain: The Travels of Lady Elizabeth Craven 27 3. Victim, Vixen, and Virago: The Odalisque in Byron’s Turkish Tales 45 4. “The spoil of wild beasts and unlettered Tartars”: Shelley’s Uses of the Ottoman Empire and the Figure of the Turk 75 5. Figuring the End of Empire in the City of Constantinople 105 EPILOGUE “To read the long, dark, interior life”: Learning One’s Lesson from the Lady Hester Stanhope 138 NOTES 163 BIBLIOGRAPHY 185 INDEX 193 This study provides copious historical context for the role the Ottoman Empire played in the development of imperial discourses in a time when the colonial holdings of Great Britain increased exponentially First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company