DOCSLIB.ORG

Once Upon a Time in the Middle Ages

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Once Upon a Time in the Middle Ages Chapter 3 Once upon a Time in the Middle Ages He who controls the present controls the past. G. ORWELL, 1984 (1949) We left off with a comment on the Bush Era, which was accused of being dark and medieval no sooner than it was over. Now we are setting off from the Ken- nedy Era. The same White House that in 2009 was called medieval for its lack of technological equipment, was between 1961 and 1963 referred to as Camelot. In the wake of the enormous success of the eponymous musical by Alan Jay Lerner, which debuted less than a month after the 1960 elections, the Presi- dent’s cabinet became the Knights of the Round Table, while John Fitzgerald and his consort Jacqueline were Arthur and Guinevere.1 Almost fifty years lat- er, various observers wondered whether Camelot had come again to the White House, weaving parallels between the smiling Kennedy and Obama families.2 Thus, within a sixty year period, the United States would see four returns to the Middle Ages: twice in the name of darkness (McCarthyism and the Bush ad- ministration) and twice in the name of Arthur’s splendid chivalry (the Kenne- dy and Obama administrations). Moreover, in recent years the Bush adminis- tration has been censured anew not just because it was perversely “medieval,” but also for the exact opposite reason: because it had completely disregarded the great tradition of the Magna Carta, whose lesson on liberty sanctioned by laws still endures today.3 George W. Bush thus becomes a disturbing character 1 The comparison was first conceived by John Steinbeck. On that subject: Br. A. Rosenberg, Kennedy in Camelot: The Arthurian Legend in America, in “Western Folklore,” xxxv (1976), n. 35, pp. 52–59; V. Ortenberg, In Search of the Holy Grail cit., pp. 167 ff. 2 For example: N. Tucker, Barack Obama, Camelot’s New Knight, in “The Washington Post,” Jan. 29, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/28/AR20080128 02730.html (cons. May 5, 2019); “Camelot” Returning to the White House?, in “The Early Show,” Nov. 7, 2008, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/07/earlyshow/main4581583.shtml (cons. Apr. 28, 2019); N. Bryant, Obama Echoes JFK’s Camelot Romance, in “bbc News,” Jan. 15, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7786440.stm (cons. Apr. 28, 2019). 3 Cf. N. Turse, Repealing the Magna Carta, in “Mother Jones,” Jan. 6, 2006, http://motherjones .com/politics/2006/01/repealing-magna-carta (cons. Apr. 28, 2019); P. Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto. Liberties and Commons for All, University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2008, pp. 11, 267; see p. 275: “Magna Carta is required to open the secret state. Magna Carta is needed for the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.” Linebaugh’s book is a study of © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004414983_005 <UN> Once upon a Time in the Middle Ages 51 both as a symbol of the dark Middle Ages and as someone ignorant of the en- lightened Middle Ages—even as he himself accused fanatical extremists of sinister, anarchical, and feudal medievalism and claimed to be a Crusader mandated with a mission to defeat them. This is where the two-sided idea of the Middle Ages has led us, even in America, a land that throughout that his- torical era remained unknown to the West. The first two chapters presented some reflections on the medieval as a nega- tive concept. In the cases previously considered, the robust Middle Ages serve as a touchstone for the modern age. Apart from the case of New Medievalism, which can take a neutral point of view, and also apart from the positive use of the idea of the Crusades (which nevertheless arises only in the context of bitter conflict), in general the medieval and its correlate the post-modern have been judged as equally sinister. The key word has been “analogy”: we are like them, equally wretched. Now, however, our conversation moves in a different direc- tion. The argument of this chapter and those to follow aligns with the preced- ing, in the sense that here too we find a critique of current events accom- plished through constant references to the Middle Ages. The metaphor stands, but turned on its head. “Medieval” becomes not a term of similarity, but a place of opposition. The key word is no longer analogy, but distance. The rhetori- cal device shifts from parallelism to antithesis. Antithesis between a corrupt civilization —the current one—and a better civilization, which is held to be the medieval one. The Middle Ages return not to frighten, but to enchant. This is made possible, and we cannot say this enough, because the word “medieval,” which has become polysemic over the course of the centuries, contains in it- self both condemnation and celebration. I now want to discuss this second aspect of the theme, examining the many ways the Medieval Era produces positive reference points for political events of the last fifty years. Readings of the Middle Ages as a positive period can be found in the vast litera- ture of the critique of progress. We are dealing with a new querelle des anciens et des modernes in which, contrary to the judgments passed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the palm of victory goes to the anciens. In this sense, our debt to late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture is immense: from Luddism, the movement against the society of machines, through Novalis and François-René de Chateaubriand, through John Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites, and William Morris, we can trace a line to contemporary environmentalism, the uses, interpretations, and omissions to which two documents from the thirteenth cen- tury (the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest) have been subjected from the sixteenth century to today. <UN>.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Towards a Poetics of Becoming: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's and John Keats's Aesthetics Between Idealism and Deconstruction
    Towards a Poetics of Becoming: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s and John Keats’s Aesthetics Between Idealism and Deconstruction Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät IV (Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften) der Universität Regensburg eingereicht von Charles NGIEWIH TEKE Alfons-Auer-Str. 4 93053 Regensburg Februar 2004 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Rainer EMIG Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Dieter A. BERGER 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION .............................................................................................................. I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................... II ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... VI English........................................................................................................................ VI German...................................................................................................................... VII French...................................................................................................................... VIII INTRODUCTION Aims of the Study......................................................................................................... 1 On the Relationship Between S. T. Coleridge and J. Keats.......................................... 5 Certain Critical Terms................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Novalis's Magical Idealism
    Symphilosophie International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism Novalis’s Magical Idealism A Threefold Philosophy of the Imagination, Love and Medicine Laure Cahen-Maurel* ABSTRACT This article argues that Novalis’s philosophy of magical idealism essentially consists of three central elements: a theory of the creative or productive imagination, a conception of love, and a doctrine of transcendental medicine. In this regard, it synthesizes two adjacent, but divergent contemporary philosophical sources – J. G. Fichte’s idealism and Friedrich Schiller’s classicism – into a new and original philosophy. It demonstrates that Novalis’s views on both magic and idealism, not only prove to be perfectly rational and comprehensible, but even more philosophically coherent and innovative than have been recognised up to now. Keywords: magical idealism, productive imagination, love, medicine, Novalis, J. G. Fichte, Schiller RÉSUMÉ Cet article défend l’idée selon laquelle trois éléments centraux composent ce que Novalis nomme « idéalisme magique » pour désigner sa philosophie propre : la conception d’une imagination créatrice ou productrice, une doctrine de l’amour et une théorie de la médecine transcendantale. L’idéalisme magique est en cela la synthèse en une philosophie nouvelle et originale de deux sources philosophiques contemporaines, à la fois adjacentes et divergentes : l’idéalisme de J. G. Fichte et le classicisme de Friedrich Schiller. L’article montre que les vues de Novalis tant sur la magie que sur l’idéalisme sont non seulement réellement rationnelles et compréhensibles, mais philosophiquement plus cohérentes et novatrices qu’on ne l’a admis jusqu’à présent. Mots-clés : idéalisme magique, imagination productrice, amour, médecine, Novalis, J. G.
    [Show full text]
  • SCHILLER, NOVALIS, and the CONCEPT of AUFHEBUNG Hammam Aldouri
    Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 15, no. 1, 2019 BEFORE HEGEL: SCHILLER, NOVALIS, AND THE CONCEPT OF AUFHEBUNG Hammam Aldouri ABSTRACT: Philosophical explorations of the concept of Aufhebung (sublation, supersession) immediately prior to its formulation in Hegel’s work have remained relatively absent within the context of both Hegel scholarship and German Idealism studies. Hegel is often simply represented as the originator of the concept and the latter is understood almost exclusively within his oeuvre. This essay addresses this lack by offering an exposition of the notion as it unfolds in two works from 1795-1796: Friedrich Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man and Novalis’ Fichte Studies. In these works, we find distinctive examinations of Aufhebung understood as the name of a process in which a subject comprehends itself in relation to its own processual development. My guiding premise is that without an adequate comprehension of the way in which Aufhebung is constructed and comprehended in the last years of the eighteenth century, we cannot establish the vantage point from which to reconstruct Hegel’s early conception of the notion, a conception which begins to emerge in his earliest Frankfurt writings in 1797, as a contribution to the constellation of post-Kantian conceptions. Keywords: Aufhebung, Schiller, Novalis, Aesthetic Education, Fichte Studies INTRODUCTION The concept of Aufhebung (sublation, supersession) is, without question, one of the most contested and discussed concepts of Hegel’s philosophical enterprise th th 1 and its critical reception in the 19 and 20 centuries. One distinctive 1 So much so, in fact, that it has led philosopher’s such as Jean-Luc Nancy to state that there is “no great study of Hegel that is not a study on the Aufhebung.” Nancy 2001, 158n7.
    [Show full text]
  • The Concept of Bildung in Early German Romanticism
    CHAPTER 6 The Concept of Bildung in Early German Romanticism 1. Social and Political Context In 1799 Friedrich Schlegel, the ringleader of the early romantic circle, stated, with uncommon and uncharacteristic clarity, his view of the summum bonum, the supreme value in life: “The highest good, and [the source of] ev- erything that is useful, is culture (Bildung).”1 Since the German word Bildung is virtually synonymous with education, Schlegel might as well have said that the highest good is education. That aphorism, and others like it, leave no doubt about the importance of education for the early German romantics. It is no exaggeration to say that Bildung, the education of humanity, was the central goal, the highest aspiration, of the early romantics. All the leading figures of that charmed circle—Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, W. D. Wackenroder, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis), F. W. J. Schelling, Ludwig Tieck, and F. D. Schleiermacher—saw in education their hope for the redemption of humanity. The aim of their common journal, the Athenäum, was to unite all their efforts for the sake of one single overriding goal: Bildung.2 The importance, and indeed urgency, of Bildung in the early romantic agenda is comprehensible only in its social and political context. The young romantics were writing in the 1790s, the decade of the cataclysmic changes wrought by the Revolution in France. Like so many of their generation, the romantics were initially very enthusiastic about the Revolution. Tieck, Novalis, Schleiermacher, Schelling, Hölderlin, and Friedrich Schlegel cele- brated the storming of the Bastille as the dawn of a new age.
    [Show full text]
  • Novalis and Hymns to the Night : ZHAO 37
    Novalis and Hymns to the Night : ZHAO 37 Novalis and Hymns to the Night JINGJING ZHAO “The division of Philosopher and Poet is only apparent, and to the disadvantage of both. It is a sign of disease, and of a sickly constitution.”1 —Novalis In this paper, I start by giving a broad introduction of the early Romantics’ break from Hegel’s systematic philosophy and their efforts to establish the authority of Art in philosophy’s claim to Truth. Then I go on to explore a key concept that lends support to the Romantics’ accreditation of the authenticity of Art—the immediacy of “feeling” as postulated in Kant’s Third Critique. The exploration of this concept will then give further clarification to similar ideas expressed in Schlegel, and especially Novalis’ works. After this I will introduce a central agency that the Romantics use to evoke the sense of the “feeling” of the infinite—“productive imagination”—as well as Novalis’ elaboration on the topic of poetic Imagination (or “romanticization,” as he calls it) in his own writing. At last, I will introduce Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, and describe how this piece of literary work, from its content to its structure, corresponds to the early Romantics’ agenda of unifying poetry and JINGJING ZHAO is a PhD student in English from Auckland University. Her PhD thesis examines the intellectual and ideological aspects of Emily Bronte’s writings in the 19th century European historical context, through comparing her treatment of several issues with that of other Romantic and Victorian authors—Holderlin, Novalis, Tennyson and Arnold.
    [Show full text]
  • GERMAN LITERARY FAIRY TALES, 1795-1848 by CLAUDIA MAREIKE
    ROMANTICISM, ORIENTALISM, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: GERMAN LITERARY FAIRY TALES, 1795-1848 By CLAUDIA MAREIKE KATRIN SCHWABE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2012 1 © 2012 Claudia Mareike Katrin Schwabe 2 To my beloved parents Dr. Roman and Cornelia Schwabe 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisory committee chair, Dr. Barbara Mennel, who supported this project with great encouragement, enthusiasm, guidance, solidarity, and outstanding academic scholarship. I am particularly grateful for her dedication and tireless efforts in editing my chapters during the various phases of this dissertation. I could not have asked for a better, more genuine mentor. I also want to express my gratitude to the other committee members, Dr. Will Hasty, Dr. Franz Futterknecht, and Dr. John Cech, for their thoughtful comments and suggestions, invaluable feedback, and for offering me new perspectives. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the abundant support and inspiration of my friends and colleagues Anna Rutz, Tim Fangmeyer, and Dr. Keith Bullivant. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my family, particularly my parents, Dr. Roman and Cornelia Schwabe, as well as to my brother Marius and his wife Marina Schwabe. Many thanks also to my dear friends for all their love and their emotional support throughout the years: Silke Noll, Alice Mantey, Lea Hüllen, and Tina Dolge. In addition, Paul and Deborah Watford deserve special mentioning who so graciously and welcomingly invited me into their home and family. Final thanks go to Stephen Geist and his parents who believed in me from the very start.
    [Show full text]
  • La Révolution Romantique De Mme De Staël Ou Une Interprétation Modérée Du Fantastique
    © Ana Pano Alamán 2004 La révolution romantique de Mme de Staël ou une interprétation modérée du fantastique Séminaire d’Histoire des Idées : La Révolution romantique Ana Pano Alamán Università degli Studi di Bologna © Ana Pano Alamán 2004 Sommaire Introduction 1. Fidèle aux Lumières, atirée par la culture du Nord 2. Idéalisme et matérialisme ou la conciliation de l’esprit avec la matière 3. La nature, un système de fragments et de correspondances 4. La religion ou le sentiment de l’infini 5. Les sciences occultes et le scepticisme de Germaine de Staël 6. Les risques de la métaphysique 7. Conclusion : la modération de Madame de Staël et le décor solide du fantastique français 2 © Ana Pano Alamán 2004 Introduction Alors que vers la fin du XVIIIe siècle la raison et l’esthétique classique s’imposent encore dans une grande partie du continent européen, en Allemagne et en Angleterre, les écrivains essaient de renouveler la littérature d’imagination pour permettre à la sensibilité d’entrer tant dans le roman que dans la poésie. La littérature européenne récupère ainsi, progressivement, le sentiment et la rêverie1. La voie au romantisme français ne sera ouverte qu’avec la publication du Génie du Christianisme (1808) de Chateaubriand2 et, notamment De l’Allemagne (1813) de Mme de Staël3, considéré comme le premier manifeste du préromantisme français. Dans les troisième et quatrième parties de son ouvrage, Mme de Staël donne un aperçu des théories des premiers romantiques allemands au sujet de la nature et du rapport de l’homme à celle-ci et à l’univers. Il s’agit notamment de postulats philosophiques et religieux que les romantiques allemands appliquent aussi bien à la littérature qu’aux beaux-arts dans le but de redonner de la force au sentiment et à l’imagination.
    [Show full text]
  • AMOR, MUERTE Y DOLOR COMO FUNDAMENTOS POÉTICOS EN VICTOR HUGO Y NOVALIS Guillermo Aguirre Martínez
    AMOR, MUERTE Y DOLOR COMO FUNDAMENTOS POÉTICOS EN VICTOR HUGO Y NOVALIS Guillermo Aguirre Martínez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) [email protected] RESUMEN: Figuras capitales del movimiento romántico, tanto Victor Hugo como Novalis dotarán a los momentos más trágicos y agónicos de su existencia de un significado simbólico capaz de elevar sus espíritus hasta cimas etéreas, dominios metafísicos en los que ahondarán en busca de un sentido tanto existencial como poético capaz de explicar y transformar sus vidas. De este modo, la amada desaparecida se tornará en Novalis imagen generatriz, impulso creador, mientras que Hugo, siempre en vilo, siempre en lucha, padecerá y ansiará todo tipo de elementos en contra para agigantar su figura tras la consabida poetización a que somete la realidad. Palabras clave: Victor Hugo, Novalis, Romanticismo, poesía. ABSTRACT: Victor Hugo and Novalis, two of the most distinguish Romantic authors, add a symbolic meaning to their most tragic and difficult periods; therefore, they manage to uplift their spirits to ethereal peaks –metaphysical lands where it is possible to look at an existential and poetical sense of life in depth. Thus, on the one hand, the definite lost of Novalis’ beloved Sofia becomes into creative impulse, while on the other hand, the combative Hugo overcomes his difficulties by means of poetizing reality. Key words: Victor Hugo, Novalis, Romanticism, poetry. 1. INTRODUCCIÓN El objetivo que nos proponemos a la hora de elaborar estas páginas consiste en realizar una aproximación a las dos pulsiones esenciales de la naturaleza, amor y muerte, en la obra de dos de los poetas románticos que más bellamente plasmaron sus vivencias en torno a estos aspectos de la existencia.
    [Show full text]
  • A Higher Language: Novalis on Communion with Animals Author(S): Alice Kuzniar Source: the German Quarterly, Vol
    A Higher Language: Novalis on Communion with Animals Author(s): Alice Kuzniar Source: The German Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 426-442 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3252241 Accessed: 28/11/2010 18:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and American Association of Teachers of German are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The German Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org ALICEKUZNIAR University of North Carolina-ChapelHill A Higher Language: Novalis on Communion with Animals Around 1800 Philipp Otto Runge fash- How is it that the dog can be emblematicfor ionedwith scissorsand paper a doggazingup human longing?Does it mean that animals at a full moon.Significantly, the dogholds his share in mankind'sintimations of a higher mouth closed,as if,were he to howl,we might being or immortality?Or is the anthropo- think him a wolf in the wild.
    [Show full text]
  • God Within": the Experience and Manifestation of Emerson's Evolving Philosophy of Intuition
    Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2014-05-21 Discovering the "God Within": The Experience and Manifestation of Emerson's Evolving Philosophy of Intuition Anne Tiffany Turner Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Turner, Anne Tiffany, "Discovering the "God Within": The Experience and Manifestation of Emerson's Evolving Philosophy of Intuition" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 4099. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4099 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Discovering the “God Within”: The Experience and Manifestation of Emerson’s Evolving Philosophy of Intuition Anne Turner A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Edward Cutler, Chair Jesse Crisler Emron Esplin Department of English Brigham Young University April 2014 Copyright © 2014 Anne Turner All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Discovering the “God Within”: The Experience and Manifestation of Emerson’s Evolving Philosophy of Intuition Anne Turner Department of English, BYU Master of Art Investigating individual subjectivity, Ralph Waldo Emerson traveled to Europe following the death of his first wife, Ellen Tucker Emerson, and his resignation from the Unitarian ministry. His experience before and during the voyage contributed to the evolution of a self-intuitive philosophy, termed selbstgefühl by the German Romantics and altered his careful style of composition and delivery to promote the integrity of individual subjectivity as the highest authority in the deduction of truth.
    [Show full text]
  • James Macpherson : an Episode in Literature
    Works on Ossian and Ossianic Literature published by David Nutt WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CELTIC TRADITION. Inedited Scotch-Gaelic Texts, with accompanying English Translations and Explanatory Notes. Argyllshire Series. 8vo. Cloth. Net prices. Vol. II. FOLK AND HERO TALES. Collected, edited (in Gaelic), and translated by the Rev. D. MacInnes ; with a Study on the Development of the Ossianic Saga and copious Notes by Alfred Nutt. 1890. xxiv, 497 pp. Portrait of Campbell of Islay, and two Illustrations by E. GRISET. 12s. 6d. [Nearly out ofprint. # *» The Study forms the first attempt to give a survey of the entire mass of Ossianic literature, and a scientific account of the origin and development of the Ossianic legend. Vol. III. FOLK AND HERO TALES. Collected, edited, translated, and annotated by the Rev. J. MacDougall ; with an Introduction by Alfred Nutt. 1891. xxx, 311 pp. 7s. 6d. Vol. IV. THE FIANS ; OR, STORIES, Poems, and Tra- ditions of Fionn and his Warrior Band. Collected entirely from oral sources by the Rev. J. G. Campbell ; with Introduction and Bibliographical Notes by Alfred Nutt. 1891. xxxviii, 292 pp. 7s. 6d. Vol. V. POPULAR TALES AND TRADITIONS. Collected in the Western Highlands by the late Rev. J. G. Campbell of Tiree ; with Portrait and Memoir of the Author, and Illustrations by E. Griset. 8vo. 1895. xx, 150 pp. 5s. [Nearly out ofprint. #% These volumes form the fullest and most valuable collection of Scotch-Gaelic traditional lore save Campbell of Islay's " Popular Tales." OSSIAN AND THE OSSIANIC LITERATURE. By Alfred Nutt. (Popular Studies, No. 3.) i6mo.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cases of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe Dissertation P
    THE MIDDLE EAST IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA: THE CASES OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, AND EDGAR ALLAN POE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ahmed Nidal Almansour ***** The Ohio State University 2005 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Steven S. Fink, Adviser Professor Jared Gardner _______________________ Professor Elizabeth Hewitt Adviser English Copyright by Ahmed Nidal Almansour 2005 ABSTRACT The presence of the Middle East in the works of American artists between the Revolution and the Civil War is pervasive and considerable. What makes this outlandish element of critical significance is that its proliferation coincided with the emerging American literary identity. The wide spectrum of meanings that was related to it adds even more significance to its critical value. In its theoretical approach, this work uses Raymond Schwab’s The Oriental Renaissance as a ground for all its arguments. It considers the rise of the Oriental movement in America to be a continuation of what had already started of Oriental researches in Europe. Like their counterparts in Europe, the American writers who are selected for this study were genuinely interested in identifying with the Oriental thought. The European mediation, however, should not be allowed to hold any significance other than pointing to the fact that French, German, and English Orientalist organizations were more technically equipped. The sentiment of identification with the East resonated equally on both sides of the Atlantic. This work investigates three cases from antebellum America: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
    [Show full text]