Claire Gallien - Böcker

Reconfiguring and Appropriating Arabic, Persian, and Indic Literary Traditions in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain investigates the reconfigurations of literary traditions coming from Islamicate regions of the world by British orientalists. Claire Gallien explores the logics of orientalist selection, reconfiguration, and appropriation of Islamicate literary canons, and focuses on the period going from the endowment of the first chairs in Arabic at Cambridge and Oxford in 1632 and 1636 respectively to the establishment of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1784, presided by Sir William Jones until 1794. Contrary to the Saidian premise of an invention of the East by the West, Gallien argues that orientalists did not invent a canon but they transferred and translated texts and authors, which/who were already recognised as canonical across Islamicate literary cultures. Given the above, the question that preoccupies this book is what happens to the canon when partially re-created and re-purposed for European readers.Organised in three main parts, this book analyses first the constitution of collections of Arabic, Persian, and Indic manuscripts and their cataloguing in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The second part investigates the variety of linguistic and literary partitioning and assemblage proposed by orientalists and discusses how their classical literary formation underpinned theories and practices of imitation, translation, and writing. The third part examines the editing and translating of Arabic, Persian, and Indic literatures in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England as well as in British colonial India, and in particular the function of specimens and anthologies in the constitution of a corpus of Eastern literatures in English.

Brings forth the Islamicate as an aesthetic and critical force in World LiteratureDisrupts the one-way traffic in the field of World Literature studies by regarding Islam as both an alternative and a critical force behind creative processes Understands Islam as a driving creative force and situates its contribution in the development, past and present, of world imaginaries Covers a variety of global locations to discuss the Islamicate as developed in Western European, Turkic, Indo-Persian, Middle-Eastern, African Indonesian and Chinese literaturesExamines a diversity of genres including fiction and poetry, but also philosophy, and oral literatureSince its advent, Islam has been a representational force to be reckoned with, cross-pollinating world literatures in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Americas. Yet, scholarship on Islam in world literatures has been sparse despite its significant presence. This book understands Islamic literary and cultural heritages as dynamic forces, constantly enriched and enlivened by various humanistic traditions in multiple languages, spanning the lives of individuals and societies throughout history. It is also designed to incorporate a variety of themes, influences, ramifications and representations of Islam in world literatures in classical and contemporary contexts. Exploring Islam's presence in world literatures in two strands: on the one hand, examining the orientalist versions and usages of Islam; and on the other hand, analysing the presence of Islam as Islamicate, this book advances a consideration of Islam as an agent in the history of World Literature.

Since its advent, Islam has been a representational force to be reckoned with, cross-pollinating world literatures in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Americas. Yet, scholarship on Islam in world literatures has been sparse despite its significant presence. This book understands Islamic literary and cultural heritages as dynamic forces, constantly enriched and enlivened by various humanistic traditions in multiple languages, spanning the lives of individuals and societies throughout history. It is also designed to incorporate a variety of themes, influences, ramifications and representations of Islam in world literatures in classical and contemporary contexts. Exploring Islam's presence in world literatures in two strands: on the one hand, examining the orientalist versions and usages of Islam; and on the other hand, analysing the presence of Islam as Islamicate, this book advances a consideration of Islam as an agent in the history of World Literature.

The concept of resonance collapses the binary between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, evoking a sound or image that is prolonged and augmented by making contact with another surface.