The Orientalism of Edgar Allan Poe: the Allure of the Middle East in Al-Aaraaf
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BearWorks MSU Graduate Theses Summer 2015 The Orientalism of Edgar Allan Poe: The Allure of the Middle East in Al-Aaraaf Sohaib Kamal Al-Kamal As with any intellectual project, the content and views expressed in this thesis may be considered objectionable by some readers. However, this student-scholar’s work has been judged to have academic value by the student’s thesis committee members trained in the discipline. The content and views expressed in this thesis are those of the student-scholar and are not endorsed by Missouri State University, its Graduate College, or its employees. Follow this and additional works at: https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Al-Kamal, Sohaib Kamal, "The Orientalism of Edgar Allan Poe: The Allure of the Middle East in Al-Aaraaf" (2015). MSU Graduate Theses. 1145. https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/1145 This article or document was made available through BearWorks, the institutional repository of Missouri State University. The work contained in it may be protected by copyright and require permission of the copyright holder for reuse or redistribution. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE ORIENTALISM OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: THE ALLURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN AL-AARAAF A Masters Thesis Presented to The Graduate College of Missouri State University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts, English By Sohaib Kamal Mahmood Al-Kamal July 2015 Copyright 2015 by Sohaib Kamal Mahmood Al-Kamal ii THE ORIENTALISM OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: THE ALLURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN AL-AARAAF English Missouri State University, July 2015 Master of Arts Sohaib Kamal Mahmood Al-Kamal ABSTRACT This thesis explores the Orientalist discourse in four of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and two of his prose essays. The major aspects of Orientalism examined in Poe’s works rely on the theortical ideas of Edwad Said’s Orientalism and other ideas developed by important Arab writers. Said and other Arab writers agree that Islam is the locus of any study of Orientalism. This thesis focuses on the major role of Oriental imagery that it plays Poe’s early poems. It also examins two of his prose essays to help understand central aspects of Poe’s orientalia which are also reflected in his poems. The thesis centers on the elements of Oriental exoticism, Qur’anic imagery, Middle Eastern geography, ancient cities, local traditions, and intertextual relationships. The body of the thesis is mainly made up of three parts. The first part gives a brief survey of the definition of Orientalism and the role it played in the relationship between the West and the East throughout history. The second part throws light on the Orientalist reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s two essays“Review of Stephen’s Arabia Petraea” and “Palaestine” and his three poems: Israfel, To Helen, and The Doomed City. The third part extensively explores Poe’s abstruse poem Al-Aaraaf throughout the lense of the theory of Orientalism. KEYWORDS: Edward Said, Travis Montgomery, Edgar Allan Poe, Jeffrey Einboden, Orientalism, Islamicism, Middle Eastern literature, literary borrowings, anti- traditionalism. This abstract is approved as to form and content _______________________________ Dr. James S. Baumlin Chairperson, Advisory Committee Missouri State University iii THE ORIENTALISM OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: THE ALLURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN AL-AARAAF By Sohaib Kamal Mahmood Al-Kamal A Mastres Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College Of Missouri State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts, English July 2015 Approved: ____________________________________ Dr. James S. Baumlin Dr. Tita F. Baumlin ____________________________________ Dr. Jane S. Hoogestraat ____________________________________ Dr. Julie Masterson, Dean, Graduate College iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my father Kamal for all his love, support, and inspiration. I would also like to thank Michele for reading multiple drafts, and always giving me expert advices. I am using the opportunity to express my gratitude to my uncle Prof. Dr. Abdul Sattar Awad Ibrahim for inspiring me with the love of literature. I would like to thank Byron for his extensive skill in providing me with the lucrative and principal sources for my thesis, and my advisery committee of James Baumlin, Tita Baumlin, and Jane Hoogestraat for their invaluable constructive criticism during the project work. I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Matthew Calihman for his generous and discerning guidance and for introducing me to the idea of the Middle Eastern influence on the English literature. Finally, I greatly acknowledge the Department of English, for providing active support during my academic study. I dedicate this thesis to my beloved, late Mom. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Introduction to Orientalism ..................................................................................................8 What is Orientalism?................................................................................................8 Edward Said’s Orientalism ....................................................................................11 The History of Orientalism.....................................................................................17 The Orientalism of Edgar Allan Poe ..................................................................................30 Historical Background ...........................................................................................30 Poe’s “Review of Stephen’s Arabia Petraea” ........................................................40 Poe’s “Palaestine” ..................................................................................................47 Poe’s Poems: Second Edition (1831)…………………………………………….50 The Middle Eastern Influence on Poe’s Poems: Second Edition (1831) ...............53 The Allure of the Middle East in Edgar Allan Poe’s Al-Aaraaf.........................................67 Conclusions......................................................................................................................113 References ........................................................................................................................116 vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION This thesis will explore the role that Oriental imagery and the allure of the Middle East play in Poe’s poetry, particularly in his most enigmatic poem Al-Aaraaf. Copious Qur’anic imagery is dispersed over Poe’s poems, short stories, and prose essays. This can be explained by Poe’s reading of the Qur’an in the translation made by the Orientalist George Sale in 1734. And Poe’s interest in things Arabic and Islamic were not unique to him. As Jeffrey Einboden notes, the Qur’an was standard reading among American writers of the Federalist period: Qur’anic quotations are to be found diffused throughout the texts of America’s literary patriarchs, permeating the public works and private papers of not only Emerson, but also contemporaries, successors and rivals such as Washington Irving (1783-1859) and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), building an architecture of Islamic allusion within the very foundations of early US letters. (2) Whereas some American authors turned to the Qur’an in their maturity, Poe turned to it in his youth. Hence, the Qur’an, as Einboden explains, plays an important role in Poe’s early poetic development. Indeed, Poe’s poetry is “indebted not only to Islamic reference, but to specifically Qur’anic allusion” (7). Since this thesis focuses on Poe’s understanding and use of Arabic, Islamic, and Qur’anic literary culture, it is important to establish an interpretative context for Orientalism. American literary scholarship has embraced Orientalism as both a subject of study and an interpretive practice; it has a body of scholarship surrounding it and virtually all anthologies of American criticism acknowledge the importance of both the subject and the interpretive practice. However, for most American students of literature 1 Orientalism “begins and ends with” the critical writings of Edward Said (1935-2003). Said is, indeed, an important voice in Orientalist criticism. But his is not the only voice worth listening to. So, what I wish to add to the American “scholarly conversation” is an acknowledgment of some of the more salient Arabic-language scholarship, which remains inaccessible to non-Arabic speakers. And my first observation in this regard is that contemporary scholars working in Arabic have their own vision as to what constitutes Orientalism, both as a topic and as a literary-interpretive method. In Alistishraq wa Manhajiat Alnaqid inda Almuslimeen Almuasreen [Orientalism and the Methodology of Criticism for the Contemporary Moslems], Alsayad Mohammad Alshahid argues that the field of Orientalism should belong to, or at least be led by, scholars who are themselves Arab and Islamic in cultural-intellectual background. Malik Bin Nabi, a fellow Arab writer, agrees with Alshahid in placing Islam at the heart of any definition of Orientalism. Defining Orientalism, Bin Nabi writes, “by Orientalism [,we mean the literary practice of] Western writers who write about Islamic thought and the Islamic civilization” (130). In other words, Orientalism is the study of the Arab Middle East as seen (or as imagined) through Western eyes.