A Confined Amorous Being: The Eastern Woman between Travel Literature and English Drama


Abstract in English

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.

References used

Belon, Pierre. A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages. Ed. John Rat. London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1693
Bon, Ottavani. The Sultan’s Seraglio, An Intimate Portrait of life at the Ottoman Court. London: Saqi Books, c 1996
Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. Sexuality in Islam. Translated to English from the French by Alan Sheridan and published in English in 1985. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975

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