Victorian Orientalist Poetry:of Kerbala, Kerbala

           Orientalism in the Victorian era has two controversial issues, namely, origin and meaning. In relation to meaning, Orientalism has both positive and negative understandings: underestimation of the Oriental world or actual representation of that world, a fact epitomized in Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) and criticism on that work. While its origin is traced back to various sources in different periods from historians predating Homer to nineteenth century literary and cultural development. However, this short essay, and for the purpose of its construction, suggests that Oriental studies in the Victorian period have roots in four critical aspects of eighteenth–and–nineteenth century Western culture: first, Europe’s allure for and translation of The Arabian Nights; second, the Romantics’ representation of the Orient; third, the depiction of opium obsession; fourth, the rediscovery of The Epic Gilgamesh made by the English Assyriologist George Smith in 1872.                                                                                

          Orientalism has various origins and meanings, constructing its deep ambiguity, leading to a certain ambivalence in Victorian writers’ attitudes to the Orient. On one issue, one that stands at the heart of Oriental studies, the points at which Orientalism began its course or existence are enormously varied. The origin of Orientalism is traced back to the times of Greek historians like Herodotus; Oriental Antiquity; Oriental Renaissance where India and the East, from a western perspective, were rediscovered (1680-1880); European translations of Eastern texts, et cetera. In addition to its references to these aforementioned origins, I would suggest more direct responsible sources for Orientalism in the Victorian Age and its art and literature, especially poetry. These direct sources are the ambivalent reception of The Arabian Nights, Romantics’ perception of the Orient, the portrayal of Opium obsession, and most importantly and original, the rediscovery of The Epic of Gilgamesh, an event that, to a great degree, weakened the Victorians’ belief in the ancient religious texts and the Greeks as their ultimate origin.                                                                                                                                              

           On a different issue, Orientalism is understood as a Western purposeful attitude toward the East positively or negatively, sometimes a parallel between the Occident and the Orient, sometimes bearing ambiguous attitudes, especially in the Victorian poets’ works. Poets like FitzGerald, Tennyson, Arnold, Browning, Wilde, and Rossetti, used ambivalent Orientalism in their poems, recalling European misunderstanding of Oriental texts epitomized in Said’s “textual attitude,” and causing later oriental studies’ negative evaluation of the Victorian poets, therefore, neglecting their appreciation of the past Oriental glory and grandeur. By using following this suggestion, one can continue to analyze and describe various modes of ambivalent and still ambiguous Orientalism in the Victorian period and literature through the lens of Victorian poets.