A Comparative Study of Magical Exoticism in One Thousand and One Night and Robert Southey’s Thalaba the Destroyer Based on Said’s Orientalism

 The effect of One thousand and One Nights on English literature, especially in Romantic period, can be regarded as magical. There are few writers or poets who have not been enchanted by this great work. The British poets of the Romantic period were influenced by this literary work and they did their best to create original works through One Thousand’s inspiring spirit. William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, and Robert Southey are outstanding poets in their poems parts of One Thousand is mirrored. The impact of this work on each of these poets and the way each of them reacted to it has particular features.This research studies the effect of magical exoticism of One Thousand in Southey’s verse romance Thalaba the Destroyer (1801) from the perspective of Edward Said’s orientalism. A prominent feature of the period, in which Southey wrote his work, was the cooperation of orientalism and colonialism. This colonial context is not only reflected in Southey’s work, but also colonialism is the strategy and orientalism the tool by which Southey encounters One Thousand. Ignoring the fact that magic is a universal literary topic and appears in one or another way in the superstition corpus of every nation, Southey by emphasizing magical exoticism in his work attempts to show its origins in One Thousand to depict west in contrast to the east. This study aims to answer the following questions: 1. How does magical exoticism emerge in Southey’s work and how has it been influenced by One Thousand’s text? 2. How does Southey base the employed magical exoticism in Thalaba on orientalist knowledge, and consequently, how are East/ Islam and West/ Christianity characterized? 

 The present research is based on American School of comparative literature. The approach of this study if that of Francois Youst in regard with exotic trend and its various types. Studing a particular type of exoticism, that is magical exoticism, the exotic affinities between One Thousand and Thalaba in colonial context are investigated. The findings are assessed based on Said’s theory of orientalism.

 Exotic representations deal less with the expression of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ of strange cultures, especially if such representations are placed within colonialist discourse. In his famous Orientalism (2004), Said explains the function of orientalism in details and shows how the knowledge of orientalism and imperial power have supported one another in the period of colonialism. The study of the internal world of Thalaba shows that the discourse of orientalism and colonialism have been active in various ways. One Thousand is limited doubly in Southey’s work. The first layer of limitation is related to the representation of One Thousand in Southey’s romance. The second layer is formed by footnotes, which they possess no literary qualities but are used to confirm the truth of events in Thalaba. Being inspired by the magical exoticism of One Thousand, Southey finds it possible to move along the colonial aims in Thalaba and it also indicateshis stance towards this eastern literary work. Establishing a sharp distinction between sorcery and faith in God, this poet implicitly depicts the position of magic in the western culture. In fact, Southey introduces East as the origin of sorcery and divine faith is as a major feature of the West. This is no illogical claim that the system of sorcery in west has further affinity with the same system of sorcery in One Thousand than in Southey’s work. Such attempts are performed paralleled with orientalism for making unreal dualities which Said reveals in his work. Choosing the near east as the milieu of Thalaba, the magical representation of One Thousand in Southey’s work, Southey’s confession that sorcery in One Thousand has inspired him all show that he considers magic as an eastern phenomenon and this is used to promote Southey’s imperial agenda” (Bolton, 2007: 199). The second form of limitation and appropriation of One Thousand in Thalaba is made possible by lengthy footnotes. These footnotes clearly assert the major role of orientalism in the representation of the eastern literature. “The exotic context can justify the events of the story or the innate intellectual principles” (Youst, 2017: 191). The ‘principle’ that Southey seeks to justify is related to the representation of magical exoticism in One Thousand: East is the land of magical powers and, in contrast, west is the cradle of faith in God.

 “One Thousand” has been the source of inspiration for many western literary works and western writers, based on the type of the relation they had with it, have tried to show its effect in a creative form. Magical exoticism is the central topic in Southey’s romance. Far from the imagery of magical exoticism in One Thousand, Southey depicts the duality of sorcery and faith in God and therefore denies magic through resorting to divine faith. To take such a position towards One Thousand, Southey makes use of the discourse of orientalism in order to present magical exoticism as an essentially eastern phenomenon, meanwhile this work is employed to make Thalaba more alluring. The cooperation of Southey with the discourse of colonialism is vivid in his work’s lengthy footnotes. Taking advantage of magical exoticism in One Thousand for the creation of Thalaba and adding orientalist footnotes to it, imposes a double limitation on One Thousand. The first layer of this limitation is formed by Southey’s representation of One Thousand by which Southey rejects sorcery and so assumes his eastern source as superstition. The second layer refers to the orientalist function of the text’s footnotes that exerts power on One Thousand and appropriates it, and thereby, tries to prove that west, unlike east, is the cradle of intellectualism and divine faith.