The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry Jan Alber This article seeks to determine the specific type of Orientalism in Lord Byron’s poetry (from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage [1812] to the Eastern Tales [1813-16]). As will be shown, Byron’s Orientalism is an ambivalent one. His poems illustrate again and again that Western imperialists can be as brutal or destructive as Oriental despots. This similarity could imply the general rejection of qualities like power and oppression regardless of their origin, and would undo potential hierarchies between West and East. However, the exotic representations of the Orient in combination with Byron’s Philhellenism, i.e., the dream to reactivate the values of ancient Greece, ultimately establish a hierarchy between Occident and Orient (or what one might call an Orientalism of a second order) - after the initial deconstruction of the hierarchical relationship between West and East. 1. Introduction In this article, I investigate the specific type of Orientalism in Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) and his Eastern Tales (1813-16), i.e., poems in which images of Ottomans proliferate. While Edward Said defines the term ‘Orientalism’ as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient,” and associates this style with “the self-containing, self-reinforcing character of a closed system” (Said 1995: 3, 70), I discriminate between different ways of exercising power over the Orient and thus different modes of Orientalism (see also Cochran 2006b and Schnepel et al. 2011). From my perspective, the aristocratic Whig Byron represents an ambivalent or hesitant type of Romantic Orientalism which is similar to Percy B. Shelley’s approach but clearly AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 38 (2013) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Jan Alber 108 different from both the binary Orientalism of Robert Southey and Thomas Moore’s (specifically Irish) use of the Orient. 1 Byron’s poetry can be seen as a complex site in which different ideologies vie for dominance. To begin with, Byron’s poems often draw parallels between the despotism of the Ottoman Empire and the atrocities of British imperialism. By critiquing qualities such as power, oppression and hierarchies regardless of their origin, Byron’s poetry deconstructs the contrast between the Occident and the Orient: he shows that the West can be as brutal as the East. At the same time, however, this critique is counteracted by the exotic representations of the Orient, which are based on stereotypes about the East, and Byron’s elegiac Philhellenism (i.e., the dream to reactivate the principles and values of ancient Greece). As I will show, Byron’s exoticism and his Philhellenism re-establish a hierarchy between the Occident and the Orient, thus creating what one might call an Orientalism of a second order. 2. Historical context and state of research Byron wrote his poetry at a time at which the Orient was ‘in the air’. Towards the end of the 18 th century, the British became more and more interested in the East. For example, in 1784, Sir William Jones founded the Asiatick Society in order to enhance the cause of Oriental research. In the same year, the Parliament of Great Britain passed Pitt’s India Act to bring the rule of the East India Company under the control of the British Government. Furthermore, between 1785 and 1788, Edmund Burke gave his impeachment speeches in which he critiqued Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal. Moreover, at the beginning of the 19 th century, Britain developed into a world power: the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) left Britain with “governing power of 200 million people, about 26 per cent of the total world population in 1820,” and “a very large proportion of these were Asian” (Leask 1996: 235). Byron himself travelled to the Ottoman Empire between 1809 and 1811: in the context of his Grand Tour, he visited today’s Albania, today’s Greece and the coast of Asia Minor. That is to say, at the 1 In Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude (1815), Revolt of Islam (1818) and Hellas (1822), for instance, Shelley presents his readers with ambivalent images of the Orient. The conservative Christian Southey, on the other hand, is a rather binary Orientalist: for him, the West stands for enlightenment and wisdom and is thus superior to the East. In Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), for example, he argues that Christianity is superior to Islam, while in The Curse of Kehama (1810), he illustrates the alleged superiority of Christianity to Hinduism. In Lalla Rookh (1817), finally, the Irish poet Moore uses images of Oriental despotism as a stand-in for British imperialism: he uses the Orient to critique the suppression of the Irish by the British. As is immediately apparent, these are very different uses of the Orient which do not form a closed system and should thus not be lumped together. The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 109 beginning of the 19 th century, the Orient was frequently talked about, and I associate Byron’s poetry with this period. 2 Byron’s personal experience of the Orient has led some critics to praise the alleged ‘authenticity’ or ‘objectivity’ of his poetry. A.R. Kidwai, for example, claims that “Byron’s Oriental characters are, on the whole, true to life, subtly used, and reflective of his cross-cultural sympathies” (1994: 76). Similarly, Naji B. Oueijan speaks of the “genuine” Oriental elements in Byron’s poetry, which, for him, belong to “Byron’s Oriental scholarship” (1999: 71). For Mohammed Sharafuddin, Byron represents what he calls a “realistic Orientalism” and is interested in finding “the truth of the Orient” (1994: 220; italics in original). 3 From my perspective, this approach is ill-advised because even though in contrast to other writers who deal with the Orient, 4 Byron travelled to the Ottoman Empire, he cannot possibly represent the ‘true’ Orient or the Orient-in-itself; nobody enjoys a transparent relation to entities as they really are. Numerous other critics have already dealt with Byron’s Orientalism (see, e.g., Blackstone 1975; Butler 1988; Cochran 2006a and 2006b; Kuzmic 2007; Leask 1992, 1996, 2004; Lew 1996; Makdisi 1996; Oueijan 1998; Regan 2011; Richardson 1993 and 2002; and Schneider 2002) and his Philhellenism (see, e.g., Franklin 1992 and 1998, Protopsaltis 1981; Roessel 2002; Spencer 1973; and Webb 1993). My own approach departs from these previous studies in two significant ways. First, in contrast to most other critics, I take all poems by Byron that centrally deal with the Ottoman Empire into consideration. My corpus thus allows me to do justice to the specific Orientalisms of individual poems and to relate them to the overall attitude towards the Orient that is expressed in Byron’s poetry 2 According to Said, the development of Orientalism “as a system of knowledge about the Orient” started in “the last third of the eighteenth century” (1995: 6; 22). However, earlier types of literature obviously contain images of the Orient as well. As examples, I would like to mention medieval Oriental romances such as Floris and Blancheflour as well as John Dryden’s Aureng-Zebe (1675), Samuel Johnson’s History of Rasselas (1759), and Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World (1760-61). 3 Seyed Mohammed Marandi (2005, 2006), on the other hand, seeks to falsify such claims by listing “obvious inaccuracies” (2006: 319) in Byron’s poems. For example, at one point in Don Juan (1819-24), the eunuch Baba swears on “the holy camel’s hump” (VI.102.815-16). Marandi points out - correctly I believe - that “in Islam there is no such thing as a holy camel” (2006: 319). However, since Marandi is so obsessed with the idea of falsifying the (misguided) claims to objectivity and authenticity, he loses sight of the specifically literary qualities of Byron’s poetry. Don Juan is a satirical text, and from my perspective, the function of the holy camel is to ridicule the idea of holiness as such. I seriously doubt that Byron thought that there was a holy camel in Islam. In any case, one should see Bryon’s poems as a constructed literary discourse rather than an authentic account of the Orient. 4 Friedrich Schlegel, for instance, wrote Über die Sprache and Weisheit der Inder (1808) in libraries in Paris, while Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Westöstlicher Divan (1819) was inspired by a journey across the Rhine (Said 1995: 19). Jan Alber 110 as a whole. Second, I try to highlight the special type of Orientalism in Byron’s poetry, which differs from the Orientalisms of other authors. My own position is close to that of Nigel Leask, who argues that […] Byron’s gaze, fixed like many of his fellow-countrymen on the collapsing fabric of the Ottoman Empire, also turned back reflectively upon his own culture as the world’s dominant colonial power, and upon the significance of his own complicity in that power as a poet of orientalism. […] On a wider scale, Byron sought to elegize the loss of contact of modern European civilization with its classical, Hellenistic source. (1992: 23- 24) My argument builds on Leask’s position as follows: in a first step, I show that Byron’s poetry highlights similarities between the despotism of the Ottoman Empire and British imperialism. His poems thus seem to move beyond the idea of “dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said 1995: 3). In a second step, however, Byron’s poetry reintroduces a hierarchical relationship between the Occident and the Orient. This move closely correlates with his Philhellenism, i.e., the wish to reactivate the principles and values of ancient Greece, and his exotic depictions of Turks, i.e., the consistent use of stereotypes. 5 3. Definitions Let me define the terms (1.) Orientalism, (2.) exoticism, (3.) Philhellenism and (4.) anti-imperialism, which will play an important role in my analysis. (1.) To begin with, the term ‘Orientalism’ refers to the use of elements of Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures in Western literature and art. However, ‘the Orient’ is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Already Sir William Jones, the founder of the Asiatick Society, points out that the term “Oriental” is “a word merely relative” (Jones 1799: I, 4; italics in original). Indeed, as Tatjana Kuzmic (2007: 51-65) has shown, Byron deals with the Balkan, or, more specifically, Albania, Greece, and Turkey - and not with, say, India, China, or the Arabic world. 6 5 By illustrating the workings of this pattern, I try to transcend the vagueness of other critics. Bernard Blackstone, for instance, argues that Byron’s Eastern Tales “project a medley of personal and impersonal, Oriental and English experiences whose exact proportions must always, probably, remain a mystery” (1975: 114). Similarly, Timothy Webb points out that in his poetry, Byron “combines exoticism with a sense of history and place and a responsiveness to contemporary realities” (1993: 158). 6 In her analysis, Kuzmic (2007: 51) relies on Maria Todorova’s concept of Balkanism. Among other things, Todorova illustrates that while the Orient is typically associated with images of luxury and pomp, the Balkan is often linked with images of poverty and suffering (1997: 14). The major problem with Kuzmic’s use of Todorova’s Balkanism is that such images do not exist in Byron’s poetry: the aris- The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 111 According to Said, Western representations of the Orient often establish a hierarchy between West and East, and these power relations have their roots in imperialist thinking (1995: 14-15). Even though I move beyond Said by highlighting the existence of different types of Orientalism, I am indebted to certain parts of his research program. For example, like Said, I also look at the relationship between West and East from the perspective of power. Also, like Said, I try to describe “the author’s position […] with regard to the Oriental material he writes about” (Said 1995: 20). (2.) At first glance, exotic images appear to undermine the hegemonic relationship between Occident and Orient. Since such representations closely correlate with the charm of the unfamiliar, they seem to place the perceived East above the Western perceiver. Upon closer inspection, however, exoticism turns out to be a manifestation of Said’s Orientalism: exoticists typically represent others by using stereotypes (through, say, the association of the Orient with excessive sexuality or merciless warriors) that have their roots in the observer’s desires or fears. Naji B. Oueijan describes the workings of exoticism as follows: To a Westerner (considered here as the ‘subject’ or the ‘self’) the Orient (the ‘object’ or the ‘other’) is exotic because it is remote and different. […] When the subject, then, studies this exotic experience, he is studying a Western subjective attitude. In other words, he is studying himself and not the object. Such study involves the self as a central figure and implies the sense of self-superiority. (1998: 30-33) Since exotic images lead to discursive stigmatizations, they also establish a hierarchy between Occident and Orient. (3.) Philhellenism is a movement of young aristocratic men (like Byron and Shelley) who associate themselves with ancient Greece through their classical education. Byron was primarily interested in the reactivation of ‘Hellenistic’ values such as reason, moderation, humaneness, mercy, fairness, taste, and a sense for beauty. David Roessel comments on Byron’s Philhellenism as follows: The revival of the Greeks […] was thought to have the power to transform the lives and art of the world, especially the Western part. For with the regeneration of Greece comes a solution to the cultural malaise of the individual in industrial society. […] The term Greeks was used for a conflation of the supposed qualities of Sparta and Athens, which were considered the epitomes of noble simplicity and refined elegance respectively. (2002: 15-23; italics in original) Byron’s idea of liberating Greece from the Turks was also influenced by the Whig account of the translatio libertatis - the translation of liberty as it tocratic Byron is not interested in the poverty or suffering of the common Albanian or Greek people; he is only interested in them as bearers of his great Philhellenism. Jan Alber 112 is represented by works such as James Thomson’s Liberty (1735-36). According to Malcolm Kelsall, the Whigs thought that England was linked to ancient Greece through the Glorious Revolution of 1688/ 89. Indeed, Charles Fox’s notion of liberty in History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II (1808) “was the same ‘spirit of liberty which had animated and rendered illustrious the ancient republics’ of Athens, Sparta and Rome, and justifies, thus, his interpretation of the Constitution of England as in some measure republican” (Kelsall 1987: 10). (4.) Robert Young defines imperialism as a form of colonialism; the latter is economically driven, while the former has to do with grandiose projects of power: “the ‘idea’ of imperialism was to redeem the plunder of colonialism at the moment when that plunder had been extended into a hegemonic world political system” (2001: 25). At the end of the 18 th century, Britain began to develop into a world power and thus entered its imperialist phase. Byron’s opposition to the British imperialist project is as ambivalent as his Orientalism. Romantic poets such as Byron and Shelley were not only ambivalent with regard to the Orient but also with regard to British imperialism: they neither “sought to subvert the imperialist project” nor did they seek “simply to endorse it” (Leask 1992: 2). In what follows, I will analyze the representation of the Orient and British imperialism in Byron’s poetry. In my readings, I will pay particular attention to hierarchical relationships between Occident and Orient as well as to the use of exotic stereotypes and the role of Philhellenism. I conceptualize the individual poems as different (yet interrelated) stages of Byron’s Orientalism. I see a development from the critique of Ottoman despots and British imperialists in Canto II of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) and The Giaour (1813), where the two groups turn out to be strikingly similar, to the criticism of ineffectual freedom fighters in The Bride of Abydos (1813), a criticism which involves the position of the Whigs and thus Byron’s own world view. In The Corsair (1814), Oriental values then suddenly seem to triumph over Western ones, while the poems Lara (1814) and The Siege of Corinth (1816) clearly place the West over the East. In the first case, the Orientalization of the West is prevented, and in the latter case, the Ottoman victory over the Venetians is lamented. 4. Text analysis and interpretation 4.1. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: The tyranny of the Ottoman Empire and the rapacity of Lord Elgin The situation of Albania and Greece which Childe Harold experiences in Canto II of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage differs fundamentally from the sublime images of ancient Greece that one gets to know through classical education. For example, the speaker of the poem explicitly bemoans the The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 113 oppression through the despotic Ottoman Empire as well as the fallen grace in the following words: Ancient of days! august Athena! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? (II.2.10-11) 7 The use of grandiloquent terms such as ‘ancient’, ‘august’, ‘might’ and ‘grand’ in questions that concern the past creates an elegiac feel: the speaker laments the loss of the paradise of ancient Greece (see also Kuzmic 2007: 54). 8 He also uses the philhellenic image of the dilapidated Parthenon to convey the past greatness: Look on its broken arch, its ruin’d wall, Its chambers desolate, and portals foul: Yes, this was once Ambition’s airy hall, The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul. (II.6.46-49) 9 The speaker, who feels closely linked to the Greeks, also tries to get the oppressed to reactivate the “spirit of freedom” (II.74.702) to rebel against the Ottomans: Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? (II.76.720-21) The poem despises the despotism of the Ottoman Empire and the tyrannical Ali Pasha. The Turks are primarily represented in terms of exoticist stereotypes: pomp, splendour, mysterious warriors and submissive women play an important role. Among other things, we learn that the warrior Ali Pasha resides in a luxurious palace where he supresses women, who, as we learn, are used to this form of tyranny: In marble-pav’d pavilion, where […] soft voluptuous couches breath’d repose, Ali reclin’d, a man of war and woes; Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, […] The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace. […] Here woman’s voice is never heard; […] She yields to one her person and her heart, Tam’d to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove. (II.61-62.541-58) 7 In what follows, all bold italics are mine. 8 Byron reactivates the Spenserian stanza in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which Edmund Spenser first uses in The Faerie Queene (1590-96). The main metre of the Spenserian stanza is the iambic pentameter with a final line in iambic hexameter, while the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. In his dedication to The Corsair, Byron describes “the stanza of Spenser” as being “slow and dignified” (Byron 1814a/ 1981: 149). One might perhaps argue that while Spenser uses this form to praise Queen Elizabeth I, Byron uses it to praise the past greatness of ancient Greece. 9 The highlighted terms in this quotation illustrate that Byron’s Philhellenism correlates with the reactivation of abstract qualities and psychological predispositions that he considers to be Hellenistic. Jan Alber 114 At the same time, however, the poem is also critical of the Scottish Lord Elgin (Thomas Bruce), the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire: between 1799 and 1803, Lord Elgin had parts of the Parthenon shipped to Britain. The speaker comments on this imperialist gesture as follows: The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be! England! I joy no child he was of thine: Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars o’er the long-reluctant brine. (II.11.94-99) This critique of British rapacity and the imperialist project resurfaces again and again in Byron’s poetry (see also Franklin 1998: 221). 10 However, Byron’s anti-imperialism is always counteracted by his exoticism and his sentimental Greek nationalism, and these two features reestablish a hierarchy between West and East. One major difference between Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Byron’s later poems is that while Harold, the first Byronic hero who made Byron famous, observes the Ottoman Empire “at a little distance” (II.72. 640), the other Byronic heroes deal more actively with the Orient. 11 4.2. The similarities between the Oriental despot and the Western conqueror in The Giaour The first Eastern Tale, The Giaour, is a fragmentary narrative poem which is set in the Ottoman Empire and confronts us with numerous different voices: while the poem as a whole is presented by a Western (extradiegetic) speaker, (intradiegetic) characters such as the Giaour, a Muslim fisherman, and a Christian friar have their (hypodiegetic) say, too. Furthermore, in this poem, the Giaour, an infidel from Venice, falls in love with Leila, who is one of the many concubines of the Turkish despot Hassan. When Hassan discovers Leila’s unfaithfulness, he has her drowned (374- 87), and the Giaour kills Hassan. Like the speaker of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, the primary (extradiegetic) speaker of The Giaour complains about the oppression of the Greeks by the Turks. Already at the beginning of the poem, Greece is described in terms of a metaphorical death: 10 For instance, Byron dedicated The Corsair to the Irish writer Thomas Moore, and in the preface, he draws a parallel between the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire and “the wrongs of [Moore’s] own country” (1814a/ 1981: 148), i.e., the atrocities of British imperialism. 11 The Byronic hero is an idealized but flawed figure who typically experiences emotional conflicts, bipolar tendencies, and moodiness. This state of being torn is reminiscent of the way in which Byron’s poetry is torn over the Orient (for an overview see Thorslev 1962 and Sharafuddin 1994: 263-74). The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 115 No breath of air to break the wave That rolls below the Athenian grave, That tomb which, gleaming o’er the cliff, First greets the homeward-veering skiff […] ‘Tis Greece - but living Greece no more! (1-4; 89) Furthermore, the overall peacefulness and the beauty of the landscape are darkened by exotic qualities of the Orient: Strange - that where all is peace beside There passion riots in her pride, And lust and rapine wildly reign, To darken o’er the fair domain. (58-61) The poem’s plot also involves a conflict between East and West, namely the confrontation between Hassan and the Giaour. While the Turkish Hassan represents the Oriental despotism of the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Giaour stands for Western imperialism or Tory foreign policy. As Nigel Leask has shown, “Venice was a standard ‘role-model’ for Britain in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, as in Thomas Otway’s play Venice Preserved” (1682) (Leask 1992: 32). However, the poem does not reproduce the standard pattern of imperialist narratives, which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak describes as follows: “white men are saving brown women from brown men” (2006: 33; italics in original). The white Giaour does not manage to save the brown Leila from the brown Hassan; he can only avenge Leila by killing Hassan. Furthermore, numerous similarities exist between the Western Giaour and the Oriental Hassan. To begin with, the two characters wear similar clothes, and are visually indistinguishable: while Hassan wears a “turban” (659), a “palampore” (666), a “caplac” and a “caftan” (717), the Giaour is “array’d in Arnaut garb” (615). Second, the Giaour is sympathetic to Hassan’s decision to drown Leila: Yet did he what I had done Had she been false to more than one. (1062-63) Third, the barrenness of Hassan’s “tomb”-like (281) palace after his death, “where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread” (298), is reminiscent of the death-like slumber of Greece at the beginning of the poem. By means of these similarities, The Giaour shows that Western imperialists can be as brutal and destructive as Oriental despots. The poem thus critiques Eastern and Western forms of tyranny at the same time. 12 Moreover, the poem connects the bodiless and ghost-like character of Leila with Greece (see also Franklin 1992: 39-47) through her death and also through flower imagery: while her hair is described in terms of a 12 In The Giaour, form and content go hand in hand: the poem’s form, which Byron describes in terms of “disjointed fragments” (Byron 1813a/ 1981: 39) in the preface, reflects upon the destructiveness of Hassan and the Giaour. Jan Alber 116 “hyacinthine flow” (496), we learn that the Turks “trample, brute-like, o’er each flower” (52) of Greece. Leila represents the qualities of ancient Greece; she is an abstract ideal rather than a proper character: we first encounter her as “a speck of white” (382), and, later on, she is described as “a form of life and light” (1127). And since it is her will to be with the Giaour, she also represents “Freedom’s battle” (123). Whereas Hassan sees her as “a soulless toy for tyrant’s lust” (490) and only manages to force her into being his concubine, she freely chooses the Venetian infidel as her partner. The Giaour can be read as an allegory in which Oriental despotism (Hassan) suppresses the Hellenistic principles of ancient Greece (Leila). However, the equally brutal Western imperialism (the Giaour) does not manage to reactivate the principles of the cradle of Western civilization either: the poem highlights similarities between Eastern tyrants and Western imperialists and illustrates that they are both directed against freedom. 13 4.3. The Bride of Abydos: The criticism of inefficacious freedom fighters While The Giaour addresses British imperialism and Tory foreign policy, Byron’s next poem, The Bride of Abydos, focuses on the perspective of the Whigs and thus Byron’s own position (see also Leask 1992: 38). The character constellation in this poem is similar to the one in The Giaour; it is only that all the characters are of Ottoman origin. Selim is in love with Zuleika, the daughter of the tyrannical Giaffir. Since Giaffir is directed against the love between Selima and Zuleika, and has already promised his daughter to Osman Bey, Selim wants to overthrow Giaffir with the help of his pirates. As in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and The Giaour, the representation of the Turks is largely based on exoticist stereotypes. For instance, we learn that Giaffir and Zuleika reside in a luxurious palace. Zuleika’s room is described as follows: […] round her lamp of fretted gold Bloom flowers in urns of China’s mould; The richest work of Iran’s loom, And Sheeraz’ tribute of perfume; All that can eye or sense delight Are gather’d in that gorgeous room - (II.5.78-83) 13 In allegories, the characters do not only represent themselves but also abstract ideas or concepts. In what follows, I will read Byron’s other poems as allegories as well. For alternative interpretations of The Giaour see Butler (1988), Schneider (2002) and Richardson (2006). The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 117 In addition, Giaffir is represented as a devious and proud Muslim, who, however, does not quite manage to conceal the fact that Selim’s interest in Zuleika bothers him: And though the face of Mussulman Not oft betrays to standers by The mind within, well skill’d to hide All but unconquerable pride, His pensive cheek and pondering brow Did more than he was wont avow. (I.2.26-31) Giaffir is also an authoritarian tyrant in his interactions with his daughter. At one point, he tells Zuleika the following: And now thou know’st thy father’s will - All that thy sex hath need to know - ‘Twas mine to teach obedience still, The way to love, thy lord [Osman Bey] may shew. (I.7.215-18) 14 Selim wants to free Zuleika, who reciprocates his love, from Giaffir’s tyranny. However, since Selim is far too hesitant and also because he turns around to look at his beloved Zuleika during the fight, Giaffir can easily kill Selim. 15 The Bride of Abydos critiques Selim for being a hesitant and inefficacious freedom fighter. However, this critique is not limited to freedom fighters in the East; it also extends to freedom fighters in the West. To begin with, Giaffir links Selim to Europe by describing him as being “Greek in soul, if not in creed” (I.4.87). Second, it is notably at the grave of Achilles, the hero from Homer’s Iliad, that the Westernized Selim decides to overthrow Giaffir. Third, Selim’s pirates are associated with the Greek Lambros Katsonis (II.20.380), who led the struggle for Greek independence between 1789 and 1790. Zuleika’s role in the poem is similar to that of Leila in The Giaour (see also Franklin 1992: 47-64): she is an abstract ideal (rather than a woman out of flesh and blood), and gets described in terms of a “transcendant vision” (I.6.162), a “fairy form” (I.10.286), as well as “the light of love - the purity of grace” (I.6.178). In addition, she is linked with the cultural heritage of Greece by being called “a younger Niobe” (II.22496), and she represents the desire for freedom because she wants to leave her tyrannical father to be with Selim, whose “mansion” she considers to be “secure” (II.7.108). Like Leila, Zuleika stands for the principles and values of ancient Greece, which the inefficacious freedom fighter Selim does not 14 For a discussion of further stereotypes see Marandi (2005). 15 In The Bride of Abydos, Byron uses “octo-syllabic verse,” which he describes in terms of its “fatal facility” in the preface to The Corsair (1814a/ 1981: 149). The fatal facility of the poem’s metre can be correlated with the simple-mindedness and naivety of Selim, who makes it rather easy for Giaffir to prevail. Jan Alber 118 manage to reactivate either. Despite his different mindset, he turns out to be a failed hero, an ‘impotent’ Achilles, just like the Giaour. The past greatness of ancient Greece cannot be reactivated; its absence can only be lamented. At the end of the poem, it is notably bemoaned in the form of an Oriental poem. In the final stanza, Selim (as a nightingale) sings “mournful” (II.28.695) melodies to Zuleika (as “a single rose” [II.28.672]). As Nigel Leask (1992: 42) and Mohammed Sharafuddin (1994: 232) have shown, Byron here uses the legend of the rose and the nightingale (“gul u bulbul”) from a Turkish love poem by Ibrahim Pascha, which was translated into English by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The Orientalization of the poem underlines the fact that the philhellenist idea of reactivating Athens has become a receding utopia. While The Giaour focuses on British imperialism and the position of the Tories, The Bride of Abydos laments the inefficacy of the Whigs, whose supporters were continuously shrinking under the Tory Prime minister Robert Jenkins (1812-27). Byron even dedicated the poem to his friend, the Whig politician Lord Holland (Henry Fox) (107). The Bride of Abydos might also reflect upon Byron’s frustration concerning his own political inefficacy: between 1812 and 1813, Byron spoke on three topics in the House of Lords, namely the machine-breaking in the context of the ‘Luddite’ riots, the suppression of Roman Catholics in Ireland and Major John Cartwright’s petition for parliamentary reform. However, by the summer of 1813, Byron knew that he “had been unsuccessful on every major issue on which he had spoken. Machine-breaking had been made a capital offence; Catholic emancipation was rejected […]; Cartright’s petition was rejected” (2004: 48). The Bride of Abydos illustrates that like Western imperialists, inefficacious freedom fighters are incapable of reactivating the principles of ancient Greece. The poem’s title also accentuates the fact that the reactivation of Athens is nothing but wishful thinking. An actual bride of Abydos can nowhere be found. Selim would like to marry Zuleika but he never manages to. 4.4. The apparent triumph of Oriental values in The Corsair The Corsair constitutes a climax within the Eastern Tales because, at least at first glance, Eastern/ Oriental values seem to triumph over Western/ Hellenistic ones. In this poem, the European corsair Conrad, who loves and idealizes his wife Medora, wishes to overthrow the Ottoman Seyd. As in The Giaour and The Bride of Abydos, the description of the Turkish tyrant is based on exoticist stereotypes: Seyd is represented as a hypocritical despot and slaveholder, while his palace, which also includes a harem, is dominated by excessive forms of entertainment: High in his hall reclines the turbaned Seyd; […] Forbidden draughts [alcohol, J.A.], ‘tis said, he dared to quaff, The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 119 Though to the rest the sober berry’s juice, The slaves bear round for rigid Moslem’s use; The long Chibouque’s dissolving cloud supply, While dance the Almahs [female dancers, J.A.] to wild minstrelsy. (II.2.29-36) Conrad and his European pirates storm Seyd’s palace and set fire to it. When they hear screams coming from the burning harem, Conrad decides to save Seyd’s concubines. He explains that this merciful decision is based on a code of honour which distinguishes Western from Eastern men: Oh! burst the Haram - wrong not on your lives One female form - remember - we have wives. On them such outrage Vengeance will repay; Man is our foe, and such ‘tis ours to slay: But still we spared - must spare the weaker prey. (II.5.202-6) Among other women, Conrad saves Gulnare, Seyd’s favourite concubine. He then gets caught by Seyd, who wants to kill Conrad through “impalement’s pangs” (II.9.315). Later on, Gulnare falls in love with Conrad (II.13.424), and tells him that if he wanted to, he could kill Seyd in his sleep. However, Conrad is still dominated by his (Western or Hellenistic) code of honour, which does not only involve mercy but also fair play. He puts his position as follows: [I] came in […] my bark of war, To smite the smiter with the scimitar; Such is my weapon - not the secret knife - Who spears a woman’s seeks not slumber’s life. (III.8.362-65) Gulnare, on the other hand, is dominated by a different set of values; she believes that “That hatred tyrant, […] he must bleed” (III.8.319), and “soothes[s] the Pacha in his weaker hour” (II.14.461). With regard to the overthrowing of tyrants, Gulnare’s Eastern/ Oriental values turn out to be more efficient than Conrad’s Western/ Hellenistic code of honour. 16 The Corsair deconstructs the pattern of imperialist narratives (see Spivak 2006: 33) even further than The Giaour: in The Corsair, it is notably a brown woman (Gulnare) who saves a white man (Conrad) from a brown man (Seyd) (see also Leask 1992: 51). Later on, Gulnare replaces Medora, and she and Conrad even “kiss” one another (III. 17.551). At this point, the poem celebrates the victory of Gulnare’s deed, which led to the death of the tyrant Seyd. The end of the poem, however, qualifies the triumph of the Oriental heroine by using six stanzas to describe how Conrad laments the death of Medora (III.22.656-57), whose decease was 16 In The Corsair, Byron uses heroic couplets, which played a crucial role in neoclassical poetry (Dryden, Johnson and Pope) as well as heroic tragedies (Dryden). I would like to correlate the form of the heroic couplet with Gulnare’s heroic deed of killing the tyrant Seyd. Jan Alber 120 symbolically caused by the ‘deviant’ kiss between Conrad and Gulnare: this kiss points towards polygamy and thus involves the betrayal of Western/ Hellinistic values. Like Leila and Zuleika, Medora is a passivized bodiless woman (see also Franklin 1992: 64-68). For instance, she is described as being a distant “dim and melancholy star, / Whose ray of beauty reached him [Conrad] from afar” (I.16.511-12). In addition, we learn that “in life,” she was “so still and fair, / That death with gentler aspect withered there” (III. 20.603-4). Moreover, like the other bodiless women, Medora is associated with ancient Greece. For example, she wishes to “turn the tale, by Ariosto told, / Of fair Olympia loved and left of old” (I.4.439-40) but does not quite manage to. Also, she is linked with Greece through the sinking Aegean sun (III.1.1-2): Medora’s death is foreshadowed by “twilight’s hour” (III. 18.555), while the actual state of being dead is metaphorically described in terms of dimness and darkness (III.22.656-57). The poem thus relativizes the fact that an Oriental woman manages to overthrow Seyd, an authoritarian Ottoman despot. The Corsair suggests that the crime committed by Gulnare, which involves a “guilty streak” (III. 10.426) of blood, may reduce the number of tyrants in the East. However, such deeds will never lead to the fulfilment of the dream of Philhellenists like Byron, i.e., the reactivation of the culture of ancient Greece. Indeed, in a letter to the Irish poet Thomas Moore, Byron wrote that “the Asiatics are not qualified to be republicans, but they have the liberty of demolishing despots, which is the next thing to it” (Moore 1839: 205). 4.5. Lara: Preventing the Orientalization of the West Byron’s next poem Lara, which is a sequel to The Corsair, addresses the Western fear of being Orientalized. Furthermore, Oriental values are defeated and the Occident prevails. In this poem, Conrad and the devoted Gulnare return to Europe. While Conrad pretends to be Count Lara, Gulnare is dressed up as his male Turkish page Kaled. In contrast to the other poems that I have discussed so far, Lara does not present us with a Western (or Westernized) hero who finds himself in an Oriental setting within the Ottoman Empire (examples are Harold, the Giaour, Selim, and Conrad); Lara confronts us with an Orientalized hero (namely Conrad/ Lara) in a European setting. At the beginning of the poem, we learn that the Orient has left its mark on Conrad’s psyche: Ambition, glory, love, the common aim That some can conquer, and that all would claim, Within his breast appear’d no more to strive. (I.79-81) The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 121 His connection with the East is further fleshed out by the fact that the enigmatic count screams in Turkish in his sleep: […] his words are strung In terms that seem not of his native tongue; Distinct but strange, enough they understand To deem them accents of another land […]. His page approach’d, and he alone appear’d To know the import of the words they heard. (I.13-14.229-36) During a feast organized by Count Otho, Sir Ezzelin reveals Lara as Conrad: “‘Tis he! ” (I.22.415). Conrad continues to claim that he is Lara, so that Ezzelin finally challenges him to a duel. However, on the following day, Ezzelin does not turn up. As we learn towards the end of the poem through a peasant’s tale (II.24.578-89), Conrad/ Lara slaughters Ezzelin in the most brutal manner and throws his corpse into the water. This dreadful deed is of course reminiscent of the drowning of Leila in The Giaour and underlines Conrad’s connection with the ‘violent’ Orient. Later on, Otho’s suspicions that Conrad/ Lara might be responsible for Ezzelin’s disappearance lead to a direct confrontation between the two. When Otho lies on the floor, the merciless and brutal Conrad/ Lara wants to kill him, whereas Otho’s followers ask him for mercy: […] Lara’s brow upon the moment grew Almost to blackness in its demon hue; And fiercer shook his angry falchion now Than when his foe’s was levelled at his brow; Then all was stern collectedness and art, Now rose the unleavened hatred of his heart; So little sparing to the foe he fell’d, That when the approaching crowd his arm withheld, He almost turned the thirsty point on those Who thus for mercy dared to interpose. (II.4.73-82) The poem thus posits a clear difference between Occident and Orient, or, more precisely, between Western humaneness (represented by Otho’s entourage) and Oriental brutality (represented by Conrad/ Lara). Once his wounds are healed, Otho seeks revenge. The poem then illustrates that the Western Otho can be as brutal as the Orientalized Conrad/ Lara. We learn that in the course of this battle, […] Blood is mingled with the dashing stream, Which runs all redly till the morning beam. (II.14.366-67) However, despite this similarity between Otho and Conrad/ Lara, the violence is seen as originating in the Orient: Conrad/ Lara has appropriated Gulnare’s values, which the poem considers to be alien to the ethical tradition of the West: Jan Alber 122 He [Conrad/ Lara, J.A.] at last confounded good and ill, And half mistook for fate the acts of will. (I.18.335-36) 17 Through Otho’s victory over Conrad/ Lara, who speaks Turkish in the moment of his death (II.18.444), the Orientalization of the West is prevented. In Lara, the supposedly humane Occident defeats the supposedly violent Orient. 4.6. The problematic triumph of Oriental despotism in The Siege of Corinth The Siege of Corinth, the last Eastern Tale, addresses the conflict between Occident and Orient in the context of the Ottoman-Venetian Wars (1714- 18). This poem is about the Ottoman massacre of the Venetian army holding the Acrocorinth in 1715. The Venetian renegade Alp supports the Turkish vizier Comourgi in his battle against the Republic of Venice because the Venetian Minotti refused to give his daughter Francesca, who has died in the meantime, to Alp. As in The Giaour and Lara, the Western forces can be as brutal as the Eastern ones. In The Siege of Corinth, the Christian Venetians are represented as being as bloodthirsty as the Muslim Ottomans. For example, the speaker of the poem describes the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire in terms of […] the loud fanatic boast To plant the crescent o’er the cross. (12.252-53) On the other hand, we learn that Minotti’s violent family is responsible for numerous deaths as well: His parent’s iron hand did doom More than a human hecatomb. (25.762-63) Furthermore, during the battle, Christians and Muslims kill one another in a manner which renders the two groups indistinguishable: The turbaned victors, the Christian band, […] In one wild roar expired! […] Some fell on the shore, but, far away, Scattered o’er the isthmus lay; Christian or Moslem, which be they? (33.971-75; 994-96) At first glance, one might argue that the poem illustrates how one tyrannical system (the Republic of Venice) is replaced by a different one (the Ottoman Empire). However, upon closer inspection, one realizes that the 17 As in The Corsair, Byron uses heroic couplets in Lara. The use of heroic couplets perhaps acquires a satirical quality insofar as Lara deviates from Western values and is overcome by Otho and his followers, who turn out to be the true heroes of this poem. The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 123 Orient is once again seen as being the root of the problem: the violence is argued to originate in the East rather than the West. The beginning of the poem marks a clear contrast between Occident and Orient by virtue of the counterfactual and Orientalist image of the piled bones of the dead soldiers in the shape of a pyramid. In addition, this pyramid is contrasted with the Acropolis of Acrocorinth which seems to kiss the sky. The Orient is here associated with violence, while the Occident is associated with love: […] Could the bones of all the slain, Who perished there, be piled again, That rival pyramid would rise More mountain-like, through those clear skies, Than yon-tower capt Acropolis Which seems the very clouds to kiss. (1.20-25) Moreover, in this poem, the ghost of Francesca represents the voice of ancient Greece (see also Franklin 1992: 68-71). Her spirit, which is described as “the form of grace” (20.498), speaks to Alp in a ruined Greek temple to ask him for mercy. However, Alp’s ‘Orientalization’ has already taken its course; the renegade is dominated by Oriental values: […] his heart was swollen, and turned aside, By deep interminable pride. […] He sue for mercy! He dismayed By wild words of a timid maid! […] No - though that cloud were thunder’s worst, And charged to crush him - let it burst! (21.608-17) 18 Through his pride and his desire for revenge, the Orientalized Alp makes sure that “one colonial regime” (namely the Republic of Venice) is replaced “with a worse tyranny” (namely the Ottoman Empire) (Franklin 1998: 233). Indeed, even though we are confronted with two tyrannies, the poem as a whole is highly critical of the victory of the “turban’d cohorts” (2.35) of the Ottoman Empire and bemoans the defeat of the Venetians. 5. Conclusions The specific Orientalism in Byron’s poetry is an ambivalent one. His poems illustrate that Western imperialists can be as brutal or destructive as Oriental despots. This posited similarity could imply the general rejection of qualities like power and oppression regardless of their origin, and would thus deconstruct the hierarchical relationship between West and 18 In The Siege of Corinth, Bryon returns to “the fatal facility of the octo-syllabic verse” (1814a/ 1981: 149), which I would correlate with the figure of Alp: through his misguided feelings, he brings about the victory of the evil Ottomans. Jan Alber 124 East. However, the exotic representations of the Orient in combination with Byron’s Philhellenism, which involves the ‘right’ values of the West, ultimately re-establish a hierarchy between Occident and Orient. As I have shown, the representations of the Orient in Byron’s poetry are dominated by exoticist stereotypes, which serve to separate the West from the East: uncontrollable violence, pomp, luxury, polygamy, and excess play a crucial role in this context. Ottomans such as Ali Pasha, Hassan, Giaffir and Seyd, for example, are proud warriors. In addition to this, they are polygamous patriarchs who inhabit luxurious palaces and rule over their subservient daughters and concubines with an iron fist. Poems such as The Corsair and Lara additionally contrast the excessive brutality of Oriental men with the code of honour of Western characters such as Conrad, Sir Ezzelin, and Count Otho. It is also worth noting that in his poetry, Byron discriminates between different types of Western values, namely the ‘wrong’ values of British imperialism and the ‘right’ (Hellenistic) values of ancient Greece. On the other hand, with regard to the Orient such a distinction between different types of values can nowhere be found: the Orient is consistently associated with the same set of values, and they are always presented as being ‘wrong.’ At first glance, one might argue that Leila and Zuleika, who are both interested in freedom, represent the ‘right’ values of the East. However, in contrast to the Oriental heroine Gulnare, for instance, they are not proper human beings of flesh and blood who fight for their rights; rather, these ghost-like figures represent abstract and distant ideals. Apart from this, they are not associated with the Ottoman Empire but rather with the lost paradise of ancient Greece (see also Franklin 1992: 38). Generally speaking, Byron’s poetry aims at the liberation of Greece from the Ottoman Empire and the simultaneous reactivation of the culture of Athens. The past glory of ancient Greece is either explicitly bemoaned by the speaker or it is represented by characters such as Leila, Zuleika, Medora, Ezzelin, Otho’s followers or Francesca, who stand for freedom, humaneness, individualism, fairness, or mercy. Even though the early poem Child Harold’s Pilgrimage already reveals the idealization of ancient Greece as “a school boy’s tale” (II.2.15), Byron’s Philhellenism, which I would define as a form of latent or “unconscious” Orientalism in the sense of Said (1995: 206), remains one of the most enduring characteristics of Byron’s poetry. In The Corsair the idealization of Hellenistic values even undermines the triumph of the Oriental heroine Gulnare (through the final six stanzas, in which Conrad laments the death of Medora and, by implication, ancient Greece). Despite numerous overlaps and interferences (e.g., through the Orientalized Western characters of Lara and Alp, who went through a process of ‘going native’), Byron’s poetry places the West over the East. This is especially true of the last two Eastern Tales. In Lara, for example, the Orientalization of the West is prevented, and the Occident prevails. In The The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 125 Siege of Corinth, on the other hand, the Orientalization of the West (through the victory of the Ottoman Empire) is unequivocally lamented. Generally speaking, Byron’s poetry constructs an Orient which provides Orient-ation for the Occident insofar as it enables one to contrast the supposedly more humane West with the supposedly more tyrannical East. And it was on the basis of this posited contrast that Byron decided to fight for the Greeks and against the Turks in 1823 (see also Protopsaltis 1981). 6. Bibliography 6.1. Primary texts Byron, Lord (1812/ 1980). “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 3-186. Byron, Lord (1813a/ 1981). “The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale [1813].” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 39-82. Byron, Lord (1813b/ 1981). “The Bride of Abydos: A Turkish Tale.” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 107-47. Byron, Lord (1814a/ 1981). “The Corsair.” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 148-214. Byron, Lord (1814b/ 1981d). “Lara: A Tale.” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 214-56. Byron, Lord (1816/ 1981). “The Siege of Corinth: A Tale.” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 322- 56. Byron, Lord (1819-24/ 1986). “Don Juan.” In: Jerome J. McGann (ed.). The Complete Poetical Works: Volume V. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1-662. 6.2. Secondary literature Blackstone, Bernard (1975). Byron: A Survey. Bristol: Longman. Butler, Marilyn (1988). “The Orientalism of Byron’s Giaour.” In: Bernard Beatty/ Vincent Newey (eds.). Byron and the Limits of Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool UP. 78-96. Cochran, Peter (ed.) (2006a). Byron and Orientalism. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Cochran, Peter (2006b) “Edward Said’s Failure with (inter alia) Byron.” In: Peter Cochran (ed.). Byron and Orientalism. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. 183-96. Franklin, Caroline (1992). Byron’s Heroines. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Franklin, Caroline (1998). “‘Some Samples of the Finest Orientalism’: Byronic Philhellenism and Proto-Zionism at the Time of the Congress of Vienna.” In: Tim Fulford/ Peter J. Kitson (eds.). Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire, 1780-1830. Cambridge: CUP. 221-42. Jones, Sir William (1799). The Works of Sir William Jones. Volume I. Ed. Anna Maria Shipley Lady Jones. London: J. Robinson. Jan Alber 126 Kelsall, Malcolm (1987). Byron’s Politics. Brighton: The Harvester Press. Kidwai, A.R. (1995). Orientalism in Lord Byron’s ‘Turkish Tales.’ Lewiston and Lampeter: Mellen UP. Kidwai, A.R. (1996). “‘Samples of the Finest Orientalism’: Image of the Orient in Lord Byron’s ‘Turkish Tales.’” Aligarh Critical Miscellany 9/ 1. 65-84. Kuzmic, Tatiana (2007). “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in the Balkans.” Comparative Critical Studies 4.1: 51-65. Leask, Nigel (1992). British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire. Cambridge: CUP. Leask, Nigel (1996). “Colonialism and the Exotic.” In: Stephen Bygrave (ed.). Romantic Writings. London: Open University & Routledge. 227-49. Leask, Nigel (2004). “Byron and the Eastern Mediterranean: Childe Harold II and the ‘Polemic of Ottoman Greece.’” In: Drummon Bone (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Byron. Cambridge: CUP. 99-117. Lew, Joseph (1996). “The Necessary Orientalist? The Giaour and Nineteenth- Century Imperialist Misogyny.” In: Alan Richardson/ Sonia Hofkosh (eds.). Romanticism, Race, and Imperial Culture, 1780-1834. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana UP. 173-202. Makdisi, Saree (1996). “Versions of the East: Byron, Shelley, and the Orient.” In: Alan Richardson/ Sonia Hofkosh (eds.). Romanticism, Race, and Imperial Culture, 1780-1834. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP. 203-36. Marandi, Seyed Mohammed (2005). “The Concubine of Abydos.” Byron Journal 33/ 2. 97-108. Marandi, Seyed Mohammed (2006). “The Oriental World of Lord Byron and the Orientalism of Literary Scholars.” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 15/ 3. 317-37. Moore, Thomas (1839). Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. London: John Murray. Oueijan, Naji B. (1998). “Western Exoticism and Byron’s Orientalism.” Prism(s): Essays in Romanticism 6. 27-39. Oueijan, Naji B. (1999). A Compendium of Eastern Elements in Byron’s Oriental Tales. New York [etc.]: Lang. Protopsaltis, E.G. (1981). “Byron and Greece: Byron’s Love of Classical Greece and his Role in the Greek Revolution.” In: Paul Graham Trueblood (ed.). Byron’s Political and Cultural Influence in Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Symposium. London: Macmillan. 91-107. Regan, John J. (2011). “‘Destined to Complete a Certain Cycle’: Francis Jeffrey and Byron’s Orientalism.” Keats-Shelley Journal 60. 57-76. Richardson, Alan (2002). “Byron’s The Giaour: Teaching Orientalism in the Wake of September 11.” In: Diane Long Hoeveler/ Jeffrey Cass (eds.). Interrogating Orientalism: Contextual Approaches and Pedagogical Practices. Columbus: The Ohio State UP. 213-23. Roessel, David (2002). In Byron’s Shadow: Modern Greece in the English and American Imagination. Oxford: OUP. Said, Edward (1978/ 1995). Orientalism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Schneider, Jeffrey L. (2002). “Secret Sins of the Orient: Creating a (Homo)Textual Context for Reading Byron’s The Giaour.” College English 65/ 1. 81-95. Schnepel, Burkhard/ Gunnar Brands/ Hanne Schönig (2011). “Neu-Orientierungen.” In: Burkhard Schnepel et al. (eds.) Orient, Orientalistik, Orientalismus: Geschichte und Aktualität einer Debatte. Bielefeld: Transcript. 7-14. The Specific Orientalism of Lord Byron’s Poetry 127 Sharafuddin, Mohammed (1994). Islam and Romantic Orientalism: Literary Encounters with the Orient. London: Tauris. Spencer, Terence (1973). Fair Greece, Sad Relic: Literary Philhellenism from Shakespeare to Byron. New York: Octagon Books. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2006). “Can the Subaltern Speak? [1999].” In: Bill Ashcroft/ Gareth Griffiths/ Helen Tiffin (eds.). The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London & New York: Routledge. 28-37. Todorova, Maria (1997). Imagining the Balkans. New York & Oxford: OUP. Webb, Timothy (1993). “Romantic Hellenism.” In: Stuart Curran (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Cambridge: CUP. 148-76. Young, Robert (2001). Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Jan Alber Englisches Seminar Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Deutschland