Research Proposal on "Orientalism as Defined by Burton in the Arabian Nights"

Research Proposal 10 pages (2900 words) Sources: 10 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

All these views, in both positive and negative versions, were common colonial currency. Anthropological views of colonialism commonly stressed a combination of the three. A standard conception of professionalizing colonialism between the wars was that, to avoid colonial struggle -- race conflict and indigenous revolt -- one should follow a colonial strategy based on anthropological knowledge and planning to achieve the desired evolutionary progress cheaply and without bloodshed (e.g. Malinowski 1929). (Pels 163-183)

For decades Burton's The Arabian Nights has been read by readers around the world; many having never experienced first-hand the Orient, or its people, but who hold in their minds an impression of those places and people derived from Burton's TAN. It is not only a false impression of the Arabo-Muslim culture, but as can be inferred from Burton's annotations it is a culturally biased impression, and one which portrays the Arab Muslim in ways that do not reflect the level of expertise Burton is credited with having as an expert on the Orient and Oriental culture. At best, Burton was an intellectual traveler to the Orient; at worst, a spy making observations in defense of a colonizing country. Whether or not Burton was the first or the latter might best be summed up by the Orientalist and historian Stanley Lane-Poole who commented many years later of another issue, "It is a question between documents and Sir Richard Burton's word" (Godsall 331-335).

Historically, Burton's annotations, which are his reader's contextual framework for TAN, fail to make mention of the many positive contributions Middle Eastern people have made to art, science, medicine, and technological advancements, all of which contributed to the advancement in these areas for Western culture. Rather, nineteenth century readers were subjectively influenced by Western literary interpretations of Oriental fiction which carry in them the infliction of colonial prejudices, stereotypes, and resentments of the indigenous struggle for autonomy. This mind-set can be demonstrated in a single, and perhaps the most widely read work: Captain Sir Richard F. Burton's TAN. Authors such as Petis de la Crois with Antoine Galland, and Edward William Lane, whose own translation of TAN contains fewer embellishments than Burton's, depart from the actual tales as originally told, and, therefore, distort the true meaning and images of the original tales as they reflected a more wholesome and true-to-nature Near Eastern Oriental society and culture. However Burton's relationship to England as a soldier and diplomatic representative, gives rise to the question of whether or not Burton's embellishments were used to further the political and economic agendas of his greater source of benefit and support: the English government.

Certainly Burton's relationship to the government and his interpretations of TAN warrant examination to identify what, if any, patterns and ideas of government propaganda might be found. Also, the ideas and comments of other scholars must be examined and considered in this same regard. We know that Burton read Payne's TAN book, and that it was this book that first drew Burton's attention to the old fictions. It was Payne's book that Burton is alleged (by Zipes) to have plagiarized (Zipes viii). Thus, it is important to examine Payne's work for any relevance that it might provide in discussing Burton. Already, there exists documented evidence that Burton took liberties in plagiarizing other works, and that he was not a man who readily reconciled his self to his own mistakes.

To determine if any support exists as to a propaganda agenda requires a close review of Burton's own personal history too. My dissertation will examine and analyze all of these areas: Burton's TAN was a tool of the Orientalist Project in support of Britain's political and economic agendas in occupying Oriental states and acting as master over Oriental people. The reader of my dissertation can draw his own conclusions as well as benefit from my analysis as a foundation for those conclusions.

One can begin to identify markers of Orientalism through comparison with other translations of TAN, and through the vast available resources of analytical scholarship and study of Burton's life and his writings. Taken as a whole, these insights help to identify Burton's part in the Orientalist Project, which is perhaps best defined by Said. It is that definition that shall be the working definition in this dissertation.

Literature Review

While some scholars have looked at TAN with an eye towards Burton's motives for interpreting and annotating the ancient stories, and others have written studies about his mimicry of Muslims; no one has really undertaken a study of how TAN worked on Western society as a tool of Burton, the Orientalist, and TAN as a tool of the Orientalist Project. This brief literature review is a compilation of some of the sources that further my thesis: TAN was, and continues to be, a tool of the Orientalist Project. This literature review begins the discussion of TAN as a literary work, but works cited here will support my thesis and argument in that way, and will help also to bring full circle the discussion so that I can demonstrate how Western society was impacted by TAN that caused it to be effective as a tool of the Project.

It must be made clear to my readers what is meant by Orientalism and the Oriental Project. I rely upon Said in this regard, and I will spend some time, talking about the meaning of these terms. Said establishes a well-defined meaning for the terms. Edward W. Said's book, Orientalism, might be called the premier work on Orientalism. From Said's perspective, Orientalism is a discourse that emerged over the course of hundreds of years of exchanges between the Occident and the Orient, as well as an institutionalized practice that developed mainly in academia (Davis 238). Indeed, Davis emphasizes that, "Said's work raised serious questions not only about the conceptualizations of the Middle East used by Western scholars, and their intentions when conducting research, but ultimately about the legitimacy of area studies itself as an institutional framework for generating cross-cultural knowledge" (328). Therefore, Said's book does as much to help the reader understand Orientalism, as it provides provoking thoughts that might cause the reader to challenge certain of Said's ideas. In this book, Said focuses on Western literature and authors, novelists and poets alike, such as Balfour and Cromer, who wrote in colonial and post-colonial periods and covered subject matters, creative or otherwise, that involved their own impressions of the Orient, and especially their impressions of the Islamist or Muslim.

Said contends that the language of the colonial and post colonial, nineteenth century novelists, poets, and authors was purposeful in creating negative stereotypes. Said writes,

Knowledge of the Orient, because generated out of strength, in a sense creates the Orient, the Oriental, and his world. In Cromer's and Balfour's language the Oriental is depicted as something one might judge (as in a court of law), something one studies and depicts (as in a curriculum), something one disciplines (as in a school or prison), something one illustrates (as in a zoological manual). The point is that in each of these cases the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks. Burton is one such "dominating framework." (Said 39)

Burton's TAN is the multi-volume work for which Burton takes credit for based on his expert interpretations of the original Arabic stories. The volumes were first published privately for select readers, and the volumes end with Burton's Terminal Essay, which really provides insight to Burton as a person, Orientalist, and as a resentful former agent of the English Government. I think that this insight reveals Burton to be somewhat unique as an Orientalist, because he used his expertise, according to Dane Kennedy, to challenge his Western readers' senses of propriety, and, at the same time, as is demonstrated by the demand for the book, stirred their imaginations and curiosities by often using lustful and suggestive language and depictions that were provocative to his Victorian society. Indeed, Said noted of Burton that, "All of his vast information about the Orient, which dots every page he wrote, reveals that he knew that… READ MORE

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