British Orientalisms, 1759–1835 Cambridge Studies in Romanticism Series

How did Britons understand their relationship with the East in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? James Watt's new study remaps the literary history of British Orientalisms between 1759, the 'year of victories' in the Seven Years' War, and 1835, when T. B. Macaulay published his polemical 'Minute on Indian Education'. It explores the impact of the war on Britons' cultural horizons, and the different and shifting ways in which Britons conceived of themselves and their nation as 'open' to the East across this period. Considering the emergence of new forms and styles of writing in the context of an age of empire and revolution, Watt examines how the familiar 'Eastern' fictions of the past were adapted, reworked, and reacted against. In doing so he illuminates the larger cultural conflict which animated a nation debating with itself about its place in the world and relation to its others.

Introduction: Britain, Empire, and 'openness' to the East; 1. 'Those islanders': British orientalisms and the Seven Years' War; 2. 'Indian details': fictions of British India, 1774–1789; 3. 'All Asia is covered in prisons': oriental despotism and British liberty in an age of revolutions; 4. 'In love with the Gopia': Sir William Jones and his contemporaries; 5. 'Imperial dotage' and poetic ornament in romantic orientalist verse narrative; 6. Cockney translation: Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb's eastern imaginings; 7. 'It is otherwise in Asia': 'character' and improvement in picaresque fiction; Conclusion: British orientalisms, Empire, and improvement; Bibliography; Index.

James Watt is a former Director of the University of York's interdisciplinary Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. His previous publications include Contesting the Gothic: Fiction, Genre, and Cultural Conflict, 1764-1832 (Cambridge, 1999), and an edition of Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (2003). He has published numerous essays and articles in edited collections and in journals including Eighteenth Century Life and The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation.