Summary
Richard Burton, traveler and scholar, whose Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (1855-1856) and translation of the Arabian Nights Said presents in Orientalism as the median case between Edward William Lane and the French pilgrims — the individualist who took personal, sympathetic knowledge of the Orient as far as it would go, and whose consciousness merged in the end with the voice of Empire (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.202-206 / printed p.193-197).
Details
- Burton occupies a median position between Orientalist genres: as much the center of fantastic adventure (like the French writers) as the authoritative commentator and detached Westerner on Oriental society (like Lane); Thomas Assad considers him the first in a series of fiercely individualistic Victorian travelers in the East, the others being Blunt and Doughty (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.203-204 / printed p.194-195).
- Burton thought of himself both as a rebel against authority — hence his identification with the East as a place of freedom from Victorian moral authority — and as a potential agent of authority in the East; disguised as an Indian Muslim doctor, he accomplished the pilgrimage to Mecca, and his generalizations about the Oriental, such as the pages on Kayf for the Arab, are presented as the result of knowledge acquired by living there (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.204-205 / printed p.195-196).
- Yet Burton’s footnotes, in the Pilgrimage and in his Arabian Nights translation alike, testify to his victory over the system of Oriental knowledge he had mastered by himself: everything is presented by way of his interventions, and his consciousness is elevated to a position of supremacy over the Orient, where it merges with the voice of Empire — in the Pilgrimage, “Egypt is a treasure to be won” (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.205 / printed p.196).
- Burton’s two voices blending into one presage the Orientalists-cum-imperial agents like T. E. Lawrence, Edward Henry Palmer, D. G. Hogarth, Gertrude Bell, Ronald Storrs, St. John Philby and William Gifford Palgrave; Orientalism effectively overrules even the eccentricities of his personal style, and reduced even its most redoubtable individualists like Burton to the role of imperial scribe (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.206 / printed p.197).
Related pages
Orientalism (1978), Orientalism, Edward William Lane, T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell