Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England 1662-1785 by Ros Ballaster (En

Description: Fabulous Orients by Ros Ballaster 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. FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description 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 Saids Orientalism (1978) that such traffic is always one-way. Eighteenth-century readers in the West cameto draw their mental maps of oriental territories and distinctions between them from their experience of reading tales from the Orient.In this proto-colonial period the English encounter with theEast was largely mediated through the consumption of material goods such as silks, indigo, muslin, spices, or jewels, imported from the East, together with the more moral traffic of narratives about the East, both imaginary and ethnographic. Through analyses of fictional representations (including travellers accounts, letter narratives such as Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy, and popular sequences of tales such as the Arabian Nights Entertainments) of four orientalterritories (Persia, Turkey, China and India), Ros Ballaster demonstrates the ways in which the East came to be understood as a source of story, a territory of fable and narrative.Fabulous Orients isstructured according to territory rather than genre. Each section opens by re-narrating an oriental story in which a feminine character serves to figure western desire for the territory she represents: the courtesan queen of the Ottoman seraglio Roxolana; the riddling Chinese princess Turandocte; and the illusory sati of India, Canzade. The book goes on to explore the range of fabulous writings relating to each territory in order to illustrate how certain narrative tropes can come to dominateits representation: the conflict between the male look and female speech staged in the seraglio in the case of Turkey and Persia, the inauthenticity and/or dullness associated with China and itsproducts such as porcelain, and the illusory dreams that are woven in the space of India and associated with its textile industries. This is the first book-length study of the oriental tale to appear for almost a century. Informed by recent historiographical and literary re-assessments of western constructions of the East, it develops an original argument about the use of narrative as a form of sympathetic and imaginative engagement with otherness, a disinvestment of theself rather than a confident expression of colonial or imperial ambition. 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 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 Sultans Tale4. Bearing Confucius morals to Britannias 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 Review 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 adriot and historically nuanced... brilliant discussions Tom Keymer Prizes Winner of Winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 2006. Long Description 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 Saids Orientalism (1978) that such traffic is always one-way. Eighteenth-century readers in the West cameto draw their mental maps of oriental territories and distinctions between them from their experience of reading tales from the Orient.In this proto-colonial period the English encounter with the East was largely mediated through the consumption of material goods such as silks, indigo, muslin,spices, or jewels, imported from the East, together with the more moral traffic of narratives about the East, both imaginary and ethnographic. Through analyses of fictional representations (including travellers accounts, letter narratives such as Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy, and popular sequences of tales such as the Arabian Nights Entertainments) of four oriental territories (Persia, Turkey, China and India), Ros Ballaster demonstrates the ways in which the East came tobe understood as a source of story, a territory of fable and narrative.Fabulous Orients is structured according to territory rather than genre. Each section opens by re-narrating an oriental story in which a feminine character serves to figure western desire for the territory she represents:the courtesan queen of the Ottoman seraglio Roxolana; the riddling Chinese princess Turandocte; and the illusory sati of India, Canzade. The book goes on to explore the range of fabulous writings relating to each territory in order to illustrate how certain narrative tropes can come to dominate its representation: the conflict between the male look and female speech staged in the seraglio in the case of Turkey and Persia, the inauthenticity and/or dullness associated with China and its productssuch as porcelain, and the illusory dreams that are woven in the space of India and associated with its textile industries. This is the first book-length study of the oriental tale to appear for almost a century. Informed by recent historiographical and literary re-assessmentsof western constructions of the East, it develops an original argument about the use of narrative as a form of sympathetic and imaginative engagement with otherness, a disinvestment of the self rather than a confident expression of colonial or imperial ambition. Review Quote "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 Promotional "Headline" 1. Narrative moves 1.1. Dinarzade, the second string 1.2. The state of narrative 2. Shape shifting: oriental tales 2.1. Fadlallah and Zemroude, transmigratory desires 2.2. The framed sequence 2.3. Travellers tales 2.4. Fictional letters 2.5. Histories 2.6. Heroic drama 2.7. A passion for tales 3. Tales of the seraglio: Turkey and Persia 3.1. Roxolana: the loquacious courtesan 3.2. Speaking likenesses: Turkey and Persia 3.3. Loquacious women I: staging the Orient 3.4. Loquacious women II: narrating the Orient 3.5. Speculative men I: spies and correspondents 3.6. Speculative men II: court secrets 3.7. Fabulous and Romantic: the Embassy Letters and the Sultans Tale 4. Bearing Confucius morals to Britannias ears: China 4.1. Turandocte: the riddling princess 4.2. Chinese whispers 4.3. Orphans and absolutism: tragedies of state 4.4. Empires of Dulness 4.5. Narrative transmigrations 4.6. Chinese letters of reason 4.7. Madness and civilization 5. Dreams of men awake: India 5.1. Canzade: the illusory sati 5.2. India as illusion 5.3. The dreaming priest: Aureng-Zebe 5.4. The treasures of the East: Indian tales 5.5. Tales of India: weaving illusions 5.6. The Indian fable: rational animals 5.7. Waking from the dream 6. Epilogue: Romantic revisions of the Orient Feature A study of narrative and the centrality of the oriental tale in the development of the novel in EuropeA challenge to and development of debates about orientalism since the publication of Edward Saids Orientalism in 1978An exhaustive study of key works of oriental ficiton and their translation, imitation, and parody in the English lanagugeBoth a timely account of a period of more openness and enlightened exchange between East and West, and an exploration of the roots of the myth of ancient hostility which dominates current popular thinking Details ISBN0199267332 Short Title FABULOUS ORIENTS Language English ISBN-10 0199267332 ISBN-13 9780199267330 Media Book Format Hardcover Year 2005 Imprint Oxford University Press Subtitle Fictions of the East in England 1662-1785 Place of Publication Oxford Country of Publication United Kingdom DOI 10.1604/9780199267330 AU Release Date 2005-10-20 NZ Release Date 2005-10-20 UK Release Date 2005-10-20 Author Ros Ballaster Pages 422 Publisher Oxford University Press Publication Date 2005-10-20 Alternative 9780199234295 DEWEY 808.83 Illustrations numerous halftones Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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