Coleridge’s Orientalist View of Mahomet
Keywords:
Coleridge, orientalism, Mahomet, islam, christianity
Abstract
From an Orientalist viewpoint, Coleridge and his poems were shaped by the discursive web of the 18th century culture, and he was not free from the worldliness of historical forces. However, it is not difficult to see resistance towards dominant ideologies in his poems. One example is Coleridge’s sentiment towards the systematically-misrepresented Islam and its prophet. Coleridge’s radical interpretation of Islam in the 1790s made him feel the need, with Southey, for a model of moral regeneration after observing European corruption and having lost his radical interest in the millennial politics of the French Revolution. The radical act of composing “Mahomet†signifies Coleridge’s endeavor to change the distorted image of Mahomet and Islam that to him was the beginning of the Unitarian revolution and the symbol of the revolutionary France. However, he perpetuates the prejudice of Christianity’s superiority over Islam as a deviation of the true religion introduced by Christ. Coleridge’s approach is imaginative reconciliation of Christo-Islamic inspirations to offer his political thoughts and avoid identification with English Unitarianism.Downloads
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Bewell, A. (2004). Romanticism and colonial natural history. Studies in Romanticism, 43(2), 5-34. [CrossRef]
Bloom, H., & Trilling, L. (1973). Romantic poetry and prose. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brice, B. (2007). Coleridge and scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [CrossRef]
Brinton, C. (1962). English political thought in the 19th century. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Brown, N. O. (1982). The prophetic tradition. Studies in Romanticism, 21(3), 367-372. [CrossRef]
Burton, R. F. (2006). Tales from 1001 Arabian nights. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House.
Butler, M. (1990). Romantic revolutions: Criticism and theory (K. Johnson, Ed.). Bloomington and Indianpolis: Indiana University Press.
Coleridge, S. T. (Ed.). (1895). Anima Poetae. London: William Heinmann.
Coleridge, S. T. (1971). Lectures on revealed religion, its corruptions and political views. In L. Patton, & P. Mann (Eds.), The collected works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lectures 1795 on politics and religion (pp. 204-256). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Coleridge, S. T. (1990). Table talk (C. Woodring, Ed.). London and Princeton: Princeton University Press.
De Qunicey, T. (1971). Confessions of an English opium-eater (A. Hayter, Ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguine.
Edwards, P. (2004). The statesman’s science: History, nature, and law in the political thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ferber, M. (2005). A companion to European romanticism. Cornwall: Blackwell Publishing.
Fulford, T., & Kitson, P. J. (Eds.). (1998). Romanticism and colonialism: Writing and empire, 1780-1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [CrossRef]
Hachicho, M. A. (1964). English travel books about the Arab near East in the eighteenth century. Die Welt des Islams, 9(114), 1-206. [CrossRef]
Hedley, D. (2003). Coleridge, philosophy and religion: Aids to reflection and the mirror of the spirit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heseltine, J. E. (1953). The legacy of Persia (A. J. Arberry, Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of the world order. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kitson, P. J. (1989). Coleridge, the French revolution, and ‘The Ancient Mariner’: Collective guilt and individual salvation. The Yearbook of English Studies, 19(1), 197-207. [CrossRef]
Knellwolf, C., & Norris, C. (Eds.). (2007). The Cambridge history of literary criticism (Vol. 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Koestler, A. (1946). Thieves in the night: Chronicle of an experiment. New York: Macmillan.
Leask, N. (1998). Kubla Khan and orientalism: The road to Xanadu revisited. Romanticism, 4(1), 1-21. [CrossRef]
Lee, D. (1998). Yellow fever and the slave trade: Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. ELH, 65(3), 675-800. [CrossRef]
Loomba, A. (2000). Colonialism/postcolonialism. London and New York: Routledge.
O’Flinn, P. (1988). How to study romantic poetry (J. Peck, & M. Coyle, Eds.). London: Macmillan.
Oueijan, N. B. (2000). Orientalism: The Romantics’ added dimension; or, Edward Said Refuted. EESE, 3(1), 1-6.
Payne, R. (1987). The holy sword. New York: Dorset Press.
Renan, E. (1896). Poetry of the Celtic races and other studies. (W. G. Hutchington, Trans.). London: Walter Scott.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Penguin Books.
Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus.
Said, E. W. (2000). Reflections on exile and other essays. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Sharafuddin, M. (1994). Islam and romantic orientalism. London: I. B. Tauris.
Stubbe, H. (1975). The rise and progress of Mahometanism. Lahore: Orientalia.
Ulmer, W. A. (2004). Necessary evils: Unitarian theodicy. The Rime of the Ancient Marinere: Studies in Romanticism, 43(3), 327-356. [CrossRef]
Veeser, H. A. (1989). The new historicism. New York: Routledge.
Wylie, I. M. (1989). Young Coleridge and the philosophers of nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Published
2011-09-05
How to Cite
Abbasi, P., & Anushiravani, A. (2011). Coleridge’s Orientalist View of Mahomet. K@ta: A Biannual Publication on the Study of Languange and Literature, 13(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.13.1.1-18
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Articles
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