Ottomania: The Romantics and the Myth of the Islamic Orient

Exploring the nineteenth-century European Romantic Obsession with the Orient, Roderick Cavaliero brings on a rich cast of leading Romantic writers, artists, musicians and travellers, including Beckford, Byron and Shelley. Cavaliero analyses the Romantic vision of the Orient from Ottoman Turkey, through the Middle East, to the Vale of Kashmir-revealing a fascination with the exotic sigts, sounds and mythology of the Orient mixed with distaste for cruelty, oppression and despotic rule.

The Romantics saw the Ottoman Empire as the feebler successor to the invincible military state that threatened Europe in previous centuries; and the Ottoman Sultan as an absolute ruler living in distand splendour, stifling any democratic aspiration that might undermine his empire. But, with dualism fundamental to Romantic vision, dislike of Oriental despotism could be overlaid by the frisson of Eastern luxury, especially as the Sultans were heirs to the Caliphate of the iconic Harun ar Rashid in 'Arabian Nights Entertainments'. Cavaliero's Ottomania will delight all readers interested in tales of the Orient and the literature of the Romantic movement-a rich treasure-house of poets, novelist and travellers.