MENA in English Literature
Topic outline
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Semester: 01+02 (Master 1 LC)
Teaching Unit: Fundamental
Module: The MENA in English Literature
Teacher: Dr Souad BAGHLI BERBAR
Credits: 03
Coefficient: 03
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Contact details
Dr Souad Baghli Berbar
souad.baghli@univ-tlemcen.dz
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Syllabus
The Middle East and North Africa in English Literature
1. Introduction to the course
2. The Elizabethan Perception of North Africa and the Orient
Christopher Marlowe: Tamburlaine the Great
William Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra
3. Eighteenth-century Perception
Travellers' Accounts:
Thomas Shaw: Travels or Observations
Lady Montagu: Turkish Letters
Captivity Narratives:
Joseph Pitts: Faithful Account of The Religion and Manners of The Mahometans
James Cathcart: The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers
Royall Tyler: The Algerine Captive, or The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill: Six Years a Prisoner Among the Algerines
References
Baepler, Paul (ed). White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Baghli Berbar, Souad. “Wintering in Algeria: Mediterranean Influences on Well-to-do Victorians” in Revue LAROS n. 9. Oran: Dar El Quods El Arabi, September 2014. ISSN: 1112-5373.
Bencherif, Osman. The British in Algiers 1585-2000. Paris: RSM Communication, 2001.
Chew, Samuel. The Crescent and the Rose: Islam and England during the Renaissance. NY: OUP, 1937.
Conant, Martha Pike. The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1908.
Gawalt, Gerard W. America and the Barbary Pirates: An International Battle against an Unconventional Foe. US Library of Congress, 2011. https://archive.org/stream/Documents-On-Diplomacy/ReadingsAmericaAndTheBarbaryPirates_djvu.txt
Kabbani, Rana. Europe’s Myths of the Orient. London: Macmillan, 1986.
Maalouf, Amine. Léon L’Africain. Paris: Jean-Claude Lattès, 1986.
Nassar, Issam. “Maudrell in Jerusalem: Reflections on the writing of an Early European Tourist”. Institute for Palestine Studies, Issue 9. 2000, 62-64. <https://www.palestine-studies.org/jq/fulltext/78133>
Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 1978.
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The MENA in English literature is a Master1 fundamental literature seminar running over 2 semesters for students of Anglo-Saxon Literature and Civilization specialty. It is continued for another semester at Master2 level.
The Middle East and North Africa in English Literature deals with the description, by authors writing in English, of the MENA region referred to as “the Orient” or the East and follows the evolution of this perception in the course of time. The course is based on the study of primary sources in the form of excerpts from literary works by Anglo-Saxon authors that mention Oriental people and places. The purpose is to critically analyze the image of the MENA or the Orient in these texts and to examine the changes in perception from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The 20th century is to be covered in Master2.
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The plays of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare reflected Elizabethans’ anxious concerns with corsair activities.
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During the 18th century, the image of the Maghreb and the Orient was determined by two main sources of information: oriental tales like the Arabian Nights and autobiographies in the form of travellers’ letters and observations of Barbary and the Levant as well as captivity narratives of American and European slaves held in the Barbary States.
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Travellers’ Accounts
Thomas Shaw’s Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (1738)
Lady Montagu’s Turkish Letters
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Joseph Pitts: Faithful Account of The Religion and Manners of The Mahometans
James Cathcart: The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers
Royall Tyler: The Algerine Captive, or The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill: Six Years a Prisoner Among the Algerines
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Syllabus
Oriental Tales:
The Arabian Nights
William Beckford Vathek
The Nineteenth Century:
Romantic Novels:
Walter Scott Talisman
Benjamin Disraeli Tancred
Romantic poetry:
Southey, Byron, Coleridge, Moore, Shelley
American Orientalism: Washington Irving, Herman Melville
Victorian Travellers
Thomas Campbell, W. Scaven Blunt, Sir Richard Burton
Colonel Scott A Journal of the Residence in the Esmailla of Abdelkader
Alexander Kinglake Eothen
American Realists
William Mayo The Berber or The Mountaineer of the Atlas: A Tale of Morocco
Mark Twain Innocents Abroad
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The second source of information about the MENA which proved highly influential by the end of the 18th century on the whole of Europe is what is called the Oriental tale or Arabian tale, beginning with the Arabian Nights.
Edward Lane’s The Arabian Nights
The Book of The THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT (ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH) By Sir Richard F. Burton (1885)
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William Beckford’s The History of the Caliph Vathek
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42401/42401-h/42401-h.htm
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Sir Walter Scott’s Talisman (1825)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1377/1377-h/1377-h.htm
Benjamin Disraeli’s Tancred or the New Crusade (1849)
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Robert Southey’s “Thalaba the Destroyer”
Lord Byron “The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale” (1813) “The Corsair” (1814), THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS(1813)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “Kubla Khan” (1816)
Thomas Moore “Lalla Rookh” An Oriental Romance (1817)
Percy Bysshe Shelley “The Revolt of Islam” (1818)
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Washington Irving
Mahomet and His Successors
Herman Melville
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Thomas Campbell Letters from the South (1837)
Colonel Scott: A Journal of the Residence in the Esmailla of Abdelkader and of Travels in Morroco and Algiers (1842)
W.M. Thackeray “Abd-El-Kader at Toulon or, The Caged Hawk”
… Weep, maidens of Zerifah, above the laden loom!Scar, chieftains of Al Elmah, your cheeks in grief and gloom!Sons of the Beni Snazam, throw down the useless lance,And stoop your necks and bare your backs to yoke and scourge of France!Twas not in fight they bore him down; he never cried amàn;He never sank his sword before the PRINCE OF FRANGHISTAN;But with traitors all around him, his star upon the wane,He heard the voice of ALLAH, and he would not strive in vain.They gave him what he asked them; from king to king he spake,As one that plighted word and seal not knoweth how to break;"Let me pass from out my deserts, be't mine own choice where to go,I brook no fettered life to live, a captive and a show." tolerateAnd they promised, and he trusted them, and proud and calm he came,Upon his black mare riding, girt with his sword of fame. beltGood steed, good sword, he rendered both unto the Frankish throngcrowd,He knew them false and fickle—but a Prince's word is strong.How have they kept their promise? Turned they the vessel's prowUnto Acre, Alexandria, as they have sworn e'en now?Not so: from Oran northwards the white sails gleam and glance,And the wild hawk of the desert is borne away to France!Where Toulon's white-walled lazaret looks southward o'er the wave,Sits he that trusted in the word a son of Louis gave.O noble faith of noble heart! And was the warning vain,The text writ by the BOURBON in the blurred black book of Spain?They have need of thee to gaze on, they have need of thee to graceThe triumph of the Prince, to gild the pinchbeck of their race.Words are but wind, conditions must be construed by GUIZOT;Dash out thy heart, thou desert hawk, ere thou art made a show!Wilfrid Scawen Blunt My Diaries: Being a Personal Narrative of
Events, 1888-1914
https://archive.org/details/mydiariesbeingpe192101blun
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William Mayo The Berber or The Mountaineer of the Atlas: A Tale of Morocco
Mark Twain Innocents Abroad; or, the New Pilgrim's Progress
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm
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