Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England 1662-1785

by Ros Ballaster

Overview

The first book-length study of the oriental tale in England since 1908, Fabulous Orients is an original work of criticism which illustrates the centrality of narratives of and from the eastern territories of Turkey, Persia, China, and India in the formation of the novel and constructions of western identity in a culture on the threshold of empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199267330
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/08/2005
Pages:	422
Product dimensions:	8.54(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.07(d)

About the Author

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

1. Narrative moves1.1. Dinarzade, the second string1.2. The state of narrative2. Shape shifting: oriental tales2.1. Fadlallah and Zemroude, transmigratory desires2.2. The framed sequence2.3. Travellers' tales2.4. Fictional letters2.5. Histories2.6. Heroic drama2.7. A passion for tales3. Tales of the seraglio: Turkey and Persia3.1. Roxolana: the loquacious courtesan3.2. Speaking likenesses: Turkey and Persia3.3. Loquacious women I: staging the Orient3.4. Loquacious women II: narrating the Orient3.5. Speculative men I: spies and correspondents3.6. Speculative men II: court secrets3.7. 'Fabulous and Romantic': the Embassy Letters and the Sultan's Tale4. 'Bearing Confucius' morals to Britannia's ears': China4.1. Turandocte: the riddling princess4.2. Chinese whispers4.3. Orphans and absolutism: tragedies of state4.4. Empires of Dulness4.5. Narrative transmigrations4.6. Chinese letters of reason4.7. Madness and civilization5. 'Dreams of men awake': India5.1. Canzade: the illusory sati5.2. India as illusion5.3. 'The dreaming priest': Aureng-Zebe5.4. The treasures of the East: Indian tales5.5. Tales of India: weaving illusions5.6. The Indian fable: rational animals5.7. Waking from the dream6. Epilogue: Romantic revisions of the Orient

Editorial Reviews

"Reveal[s] eighteenth-century scholars' continuing interest in the ways English readers and writers assimilated, re-imagined, and wrote tales from and about the rest of the world." --Elizabeth Wanning Harries, Smith College

"Rich and wide-ranging account of Restoration and eighteenth-century fictions of the East... Critically adroit and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions"--Tom Keymer

"A very welcome addition to the available scholarship"--T.H Barrett, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

"Rich and wide-ranging account of Restoration and eighteenth-century fictions of the East... Critically adroit and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions"--Tom Keymer

"A thorough and well-researched work of literary criticism." --The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography

"Rich and wide-ranging account of Restoration and eighteenth-century fictions of the East... Critically adroit and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions"--Tom Keymer

"A very welcome addition to the available scholarship"--T.H Barrett, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

"Rich and wide-ranging account of Restoration and eighteenth-century fictions of the East... Critically adroit and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions"--Tom Keymer

"A thorough and well-researched work of literary criticism." --The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography

"Rich and wide-ranging account of Restoration and eighteenth-century fictions of the East... Critically adroit and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions"--Tom Keymer


"Rich and wide-ranging account of Restoration and eighteenth-century fictions of the East... Critically adroit and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions"--Tom Keymer

From the Publisher