This paper explores the image of the Eastern woman in travel
literature and the subsequent treatment of her in the Restoration and
eighteenth century drama. The study shows that the travelers’ stories and
notions of the Eastern woman’s lifestyle were adopted by the English
dramatists and sometimes incorporated in their particulars. It argues that
travel literature played a profound role in constructing the image of the
Eastern woman on the English stage, in that period, as a subjugated
lascivious ‘being’ and stresses that this very negative image was based on
the misconceptions and often ill-founded narrations of the travelers.
