Oriental Panorama: British Travellers in 19th Century Turkey. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 33)

Rating:
Summary: A valuable contribution to the Oriental discourse!
Review: "Oriental Panorama" investigates cultural and cross-cultural phenomena as presented in Brtish travel accounts about Ottoman Turkey. Schiffer attempts to reconstruct the impact of a strange country and society on a Romantic and Victorian consciousness and equally the images which arise from such a travelling experience. He has consulted sources from the end of the 18th century onwards; the bulk stems from the first half of the 19th; altogether some 160 travel narratives have been taken into account. This is the most exhaustive anlysis of the theme I know. The method of research combines both cultural studies and literary theory. Part of the study contains descriptions of external phenomena, hardships on the road and on sea, dangers to health and lives, through cholera, plague and bandits, the attitudes and measures of Ottoman authorities faced with foreign visitors, descriptions, moreover, of routes, of natural and architectural beauties and classical ruins, of every day life in the cities and in the country, of ethnic diversity and Oriental sameness, of Muslim devotion and hospitality. Another part attempts to describe the mental state of British travellers when faced with less tangible cultural phenomena such as the genius of the place, the aesthetic character of the capital, the strength and influence of Islamic institutions, the moral character of Turks and other ethnic groups in the dominions of the sultan, the elusive but fascinating topics of sultans and harems, of Oriental women, their freedom, their erotic allure, their moral nature when compared to their British sisters. I find Schiffer's work a valuable contribution to the Oriental discourse.