Byron, Orientalism, and Empire
Jan. 2nd, 2011 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been reading The Corsair and reading up on Byron and reading background stuff on Orientalism and empire.
The bullet points version of Orientalism we got in class says that Orientalism is where East and West are written about as a binary opposition, where East has all the bad points and West the good ones. East is stereotyped as despotic and tyrannical rulers over slavish and subservient masses, lazy and sybaritic, sexually promiscuous and kinky, and in decline from a glorious past. It was like Egypt, the imaginary past, was all the pyramids and monuments and all that getting built, and then everyone forgot how to do that and turned into these boring people the armies were having to trample all over so they could go see the pyramids and monuments and all that. East was also described in terms of animal imagery, bestial and brutish. I'm less convinced about that bit though since animal metaphors are a long strong seam to mine, they're all over many places. They do tend to be about Those Other Guys though.
We read a couple of things that fitted pretty simple, descriptions of Orientals that were all about the animal images, descriptions of Egypt that were all about broken statues and faded glories. But Byron's Oriental Tales, at least The Corsair which we read in class, doesn't seem to be that simple. There's a lot about the lazy sybaritic despot with the haram, so that fits, but there's also a lot that connects Conrad, the dark and brooding Byronic hero, with the Moslem. He doesn't drink alcohol, he dresses up as the Moslem equivalent of a monk, it says he's more than Moslem... except obviously the emphasis there could be more than, better than. But then all the animal imagery is about him, snakes and tigers. Bird imagery is all everyone, especially if you include 'fly' for run away, but animal is just Conrad. And then once he's captured he won't do what is suggested to escape his execution because if it were the other way around he'd be killing the other dude, so that's another connection. Hmmm, now I write it all down it don't half look skinny. But my feeling was, he weren't put in opposition to Moslems, it was more like there was one guy doing it wrong and the other guy doing it right by those same standards.
And then there's empires. The idea with Orientalism is it's a construction of knowledge used to justify imperial expansion. The stories all say them's the bad guys, so going over there and stomping on them was perfectly reasonable. Empire cheerleading.
But Byron was not a fan of empires. He wrote some nasty about Caesar that I copied out somewhere around here. In The Corsair it's a pirate versus an evil empire. And the empire isn't one of the European ones, it's an Oriental empire, all despots and tyranny. Teach reckons that complicates up the theory because Byron wasn't cheering on empire, he was making it the bad guy.
I'm not so sure though. the other guy's empire is bad, yes, but that do tend to still cheerlead going in there and kicking it.
Byron was a big fan of Greece. He was an aristocrat, he did all that learning languages and reading up on the Classics. He's got an ancient Greece in his imagination that's vivid and clear, and the source of most references in dominant culture at the time. There was an influx of metaphor from translations of oriental texts around this time, but still, mostly, it was all Ariadne and Theseus if you wanted to assume everyone knew what you were on about. So Byron went out to go look at the world, or the bits of it he could conveniently reach, and he made sure to go look at Greece. And then he got really annoyed at what he found. It was part of the Ottoman Empire and the ancient buildings were ruins and there wasn't much very much like the stories any more.
The Corsair is set in Greece, with the pirate fighting against the representative of the Ottoman Empire. There's a lot calling the Greeks 'slaves', which weren't technically true, though they weren't treated equal, at least according to a quick Wiki read on Ottoman Greece. But still, slave Greeks and slave women in the haram, who eventually get together and kill the Pacha, the turbaned bearded Moslem tyrant. In the middle there's a bit where it breaks off to go on about how beautiful Greece is, using all the old names and referencing Salamis, a battle where Greeks kicked Persian arse. There's actually a note by Byron, if I'm reading it right, where he sort of apologises and says they probably don't belong there. It's just a bit of pure cheerleading for that ancient and shiny Greece plunked in the middle of an adventure story. But it do suggest why Byron wants to write that particular adventure. He likes the Greece in his head, but the Greece he went and walked in was all covered in these Other people who had a different set of stories and ways of living he weren't impressed with. So here's an adventure where they're lazy and cowardly and cruel and get their arse kicked in the end. And it's not so very different from the other Orientalism stuff. It uses the grandeur of an ancient civilisation as a contrast to the fallen nature of a present civ, and as justification for violence against those people who don't live up to it no more. Violence of a western vs eastern culture. Even though they're occupying the same geography, they're still defined in a vs sort of way. So he's using lots of words for local color, lots of customs out of travel stories, compared with classical references and modern Greek 'slaves'. East vs West. Orientalism.
I'm hoping this theory stands up to further poking because then I can get an essay out of it.
... due date is 04/01 but I've asked for an extension. I usually can because of disability, the paperwork is all done already. Probably.
I can't materialise an essay out of thin air though, so I'll just have to keep plodding on as if I've got the time.
The bullet points version of Orientalism we got in class says that Orientalism is where East and West are written about as a binary opposition, where East has all the bad points and West the good ones. East is stereotyped as despotic and tyrannical rulers over slavish and subservient masses, lazy and sybaritic, sexually promiscuous and kinky, and in decline from a glorious past. It was like Egypt, the imaginary past, was all the pyramids and monuments and all that getting built, and then everyone forgot how to do that and turned into these boring people the armies were having to trample all over so they could go see the pyramids and monuments and all that. East was also described in terms of animal imagery, bestial and brutish. I'm less convinced about that bit though since animal metaphors are a long strong seam to mine, they're all over many places. They do tend to be about Those Other Guys though.
We read a couple of things that fitted pretty simple, descriptions of Orientals that were all about the animal images, descriptions of Egypt that were all about broken statues and faded glories. But Byron's Oriental Tales, at least The Corsair which we read in class, doesn't seem to be that simple. There's a lot about the lazy sybaritic despot with the haram, so that fits, but there's also a lot that connects Conrad, the dark and brooding Byronic hero, with the Moslem. He doesn't drink alcohol, he dresses up as the Moslem equivalent of a monk, it says he's more than Moslem... except obviously the emphasis there could be more than, better than. But then all the animal imagery is about him, snakes and tigers. Bird imagery is all everyone, especially if you include 'fly' for run away, but animal is just Conrad. And then once he's captured he won't do what is suggested to escape his execution because if it were the other way around he'd be killing the other dude, so that's another connection. Hmmm, now I write it all down it don't half look skinny. But my feeling was, he weren't put in opposition to Moslems, it was more like there was one guy doing it wrong and the other guy doing it right by those same standards.
And then there's empires. The idea with Orientalism is it's a construction of knowledge used to justify imperial expansion. The stories all say them's the bad guys, so going over there and stomping on them was perfectly reasonable. Empire cheerleading.
But Byron was not a fan of empires. He wrote some nasty about Caesar that I copied out somewhere around here. In The Corsair it's a pirate versus an evil empire. And the empire isn't one of the European ones, it's an Oriental empire, all despots and tyranny. Teach reckons that complicates up the theory because Byron wasn't cheering on empire, he was making it the bad guy.
I'm not so sure though. the other guy's empire is bad, yes, but that do tend to still cheerlead going in there and kicking it.
Byron was a big fan of Greece. He was an aristocrat, he did all that learning languages and reading up on the Classics. He's got an ancient Greece in his imagination that's vivid and clear, and the source of most references in dominant culture at the time. There was an influx of metaphor from translations of oriental texts around this time, but still, mostly, it was all Ariadne and Theseus if you wanted to assume everyone knew what you were on about. So Byron went out to go look at the world, or the bits of it he could conveniently reach, and he made sure to go look at Greece. And then he got really annoyed at what he found. It was part of the Ottoman Empire and the ancient buildings were ruins and there wasn't much very much like the stories any more.
The Corsair is set in Greece, with the pirate fighting against the representative of the Ottoman Empire. There's a lot calling the Greeks 'slaves', which weren't technically true, though they weren't treated equal, at least according to a quick Wiki read on Ottoman Greece. But still, slave Greeks and slave women in the haram, who eventually get together and kill the Pacha, the turbaned bearded Moslem tyrant. In the middle there's a bit where it breaks off to go on about how beautiful Greece is, using all the old names and referencing Salamis, a battle where Greeks kicked Persian arse. There's actually a note by Byron, if I'm reading it right, where he sort of apologises and says they probably don't belong there. It's just a bit of pure cheerleading for that ancient and shiny Greece plunked in the middle of an adventure story. But it do suggest why Byron wants to write that particular adventure. He likes the Greece in his head, but the Greece he went and walked in was all covered in these Other people who had a different set of stories and ways of living he weren't impressed with. So here's an adventure where they're lazy and cowardly and cruel and get their arse kicked in the end. And it's not so very different from the other Orientalism stuff. It uses the grandeur of an ancient civilisation as a contrast to the fallen nature of a present civ, and as justification for violence against those people who don't live up to it no more. Violence of a western vs eastern culture. Even though they're occupying the same geography, they're still defined in a vs sort of way. So he's using lots of words for local color, lots of customs out of travel stories, compared with classical references and modern Greek 'slaves'. East vs West. Orientalism.
I'm hoping this theory stands up to further poking because then I can get an essay out of it.
... due date is 04/01 but I've asked for an extension. I usually can because of disability, the paperwork is all done already. Probably.
I can't materialise an essay out of thin air though, so I'll just have to keep plodding on as if I've got the time.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 03:22 am (UTC)That sounds the wrong way round. It assumes the default human belief is to not approve of imperial expansion and then people have to talk themselves into approving of it. I think it is more the other way round, and the dominant belief at that time was that foreigners were lesser than us and it was morally acceptable to treat them differently accordingly. So Orientalism would be a product of that belief system rather than a deliberate creation to prop it up.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 05:25 pm (UTC)