“Unity of opposites”, creating “Something “within a void of “Nothing;” the foundations of Poetic Orientalism in The Romantic Period

All romantics are to some degree, orientalists. However, the “other” does not

always occur in cultures external to the observer. William Blake began with his

imaginary character, Aurc, a metaphor for the erotic and nature. It was only within

the imagined space of an “other,” fantasy world, that Blake was able to realize .

Similarly, the “orient” incurred a space for romantic aspirations of libertarianism.

Wordsworth was also an avid orientalist. His orientalism differed in nature from

the typical sense of the word. It occurred in relation, not to nation, but to nature.

Nature was for Wordsworth, the imagination’s haven because it was “other” from

man and British social forms. Orients or “others” then began to develop as places

within which the poet could indulge their imaginative faculties.. To exemplify this,

Wordsworth discusses the origin of the Nile in “Prelude: Book the Sixteenth,” The

geographical origin of the Nile was at the time unknown, but largely imagined. It

was therefore an example of the mind’s ability to create imaginary landscapes from

symbols or base concepts. . Coleridge developed this orientalism and can be seen as

the first Romantic poet to really engage with imagining an “other” from an oriental

culture. In his poem Kubla Khan, Coleridge began to set a cannon for orientalist

poetry. He then defined the “other” within the framework of mysticism, eroticism

and a worship of nature. The “other” was thereby a space for “the epic,” inspiring

poems such as Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn and Byron’s Childe Herold. However, as

the orientalist epic gained interest amongst the Romantic poets, it also gained a

greater amount of analytical criticism. Keat’s Ode to a Grecian Urn is largely an

internal dialogue that questions the cannons of Greek art but also the Contemporary

British interpretation of those cannons. Byron is the most critical of epic

orientalism, perhaps because he was one of the few Romantics who travelled

throughout continental Europe. He was therefore better informed of other cultures.

He was also exposed to the Napoleonic War, which may have changed his

perspective of the epic. Byron then brought the epic and the other out from a space

of longing and into a space of reality—ultimately shattering the lure of the “other.”

Byron therefore provides a warning of the danger within “the epic.”

Perhaps the least aware of his orientalism is Coleridge. In his poem, Kubla

Khan, Coleridge engages with the Eastern China, as informed by Samuel Purchas’

book, Purchas His Pilgrimage. It therefore becomes an ekphrastic piece on an

orientalist work, denying the poem a true sense of the East. It is Coleridge’s

fascination with an imagined East that informs Kubla Khan’s landscape and perhaps

denies it the ability to comment on the process of orientalism. Only through the

examination of the dream and the wakening is Coleridge able to moderately

examine the effects of imagining an “other”. The “other,” is presented through a

fleeting dream world that is defined only within the hours of sleep. As such,

dreamscapes are not wells for inspiration. Instead it is “other” countries that are

based in reality but still unknown. This is perhaps the only reason that Coleridge can

compose Kubla Khan, for, as exemplified by “the Author,” the dreamscape cannot be

sustained. However, the dreamscape was initially brought about by the notion of the

Far East. It therefore becomes a trigger for dreamscapes and can be seen as a

sustainable route to them. The dream can therefore be looked at as the moment of

imagination subsequent to experiencing the notion of an “other” culture. Coleridge

exaggerates this process in the sentence where the Author “fell asleep in his chair

the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same

substance in Purchas’ Pilgrimage” (458). Here Coleridge suggests that dreams or

imagination is a natural response to the “other.” This reading works well within the

context of orientalism, but the plot of the poem points to anodyne as the reason for

dreaming and sleep. Anodyne however, can be seen as another form of the “other”

because it is a foreign substance to the body. Coleridge then shows the inevitability

of imagination when exposed to a foreign body.

Kubla Khan’s verse is perhaps the most interesting example of orientalism

within Romantic poetry because of its full absorption within imagination. The

imagined dreamscape is wrought with erotic and pastoral imagery but what makes

it more original within the Romantic tradition is its profound mysticism. Mysticism

is perhaps the most pronounced feature of orientalist work and it can be seen very

obviously within Kubla Khan. Mysticism may have been a feature of orientalist

works because of the East’s geographical proximitiy to the Garden of Eden. The

Garden of Eden frequently informed the landscapes within Romantic Poetry because

it was a symbol of Man before “the fall” which brought rationalism to humanity. It

therefore houses more pastoral landscapes and the behavior of a more base

humanity. The “other” is therefore characterized by pastoral and natural images,

with an attention to the ephemeral and sexual. Mysticism is further generated by

references to Pagan practices or legend. The most notable example of this occurs in

the moment where there is a “woman wailing for her demon lover” (461). This kind

of line would have been appalling to the Christian reader as it implies both bestiality

and carnal sin. The poem continues in this mystified and erotic manner, impounding

a sense of the East as a place of fantasy and wilderness. Kubla Khan can therefore be

seen as canonical to the romantic view of the East. Not only is it entrenched in the

pastoral and the erotic, but also is one of the first examples of orientalist poetry in

the Romantic period , influencing other orientalist authors.

Keats provides a more critical lens on orientalism however, his analysis is

shown through an internal landscape, therefore providing a reflection upon Keats’

own propensity to imagine the “other” within Ancient Greece. In the first stanza he

exemplifies his curiosity in the “other” by including an anaphora of questions

directed at the urn. He asks “what leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape, of

deities or mortals or of both,/ In Tempe or Arcady? What men or gods are these”

(Norton, 930). The questions collectively ask the Urn what makes it Greek. Images

that reflect the motifs of Greek Urns provide a framework within which the reader

can understand the “Greek” aesthetic. Keats’ use of imagery such as “leaf fring’d

legend[s] … deities … mortals … Tempe or Arcady,” provide the Romantic

impression of the cannons for Ancient Greek art . However, all of these images are

discussed in epic rhetoric. The words “deities” and “mortals” resound in the

Homeric tradition wherein the characters, even the mortals, existed within a

transcendental state of heroism. This epic heroism calls to attention the distance

between the plain reader and the fantastical Urn—the relic of a mighty past.

Greekness is then defined within an epic framework transcendent of the readers’

reality. However, it is this epicness that exactly Orientalizes Greek history and

legend because it creates an otherness from reality. .

The Ode to a Grecian Urn, is however, successful in realizing its own

orientalism. Though the poem is littered with epic imagery, Keats includes moments

of epiphany where the role of imagination is realized within the problem of

orientalism. In the first stanza, his questions climax at “what mad pursuit? What

struggle to escape? /What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy” (930). Other than

his reference to pipes and timbrels, the questions are abstract and devoid of image.

However the questions do provoke a sense of eroticism in the words “wild ecstasy,”

(930) suggesting creation or the creative process. The “mad pursuit” may also be a

comment on the creative process of imagining a non-existent space, such as Ancient

Greece. These lines also point to a larger problem of the poet’s unfortunate

condition: being able only to long for the reality of an Orientalized space and never

being able to escape the reality they live in. Keats then clarifies this by saying that

“heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes,

play on; /Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d/ pipe to the spirit of ditties

unknown” (930). The heard melodies here represent the physical reality around the

poet and the unheard are those imagined. The imagination of a melody must

therefore be sweeter. This may be a metaphor for the prolem of orientalism where

the imagined is more alluring than reality. Keats may therefore be noting that it is in

fact the imagination of the epic Greece that makes it seem epic. The gravity of this

notion is something that Keats mourns in the closing stanza of the poem when he

says to the Urn that as a “silent form, [it] dost tease us out of thought/ as doth

eternity: Cold Pastoral” (931). This argument shows how certain symbols like the

Urn and Eternity are conducive to thoughts of the “other,” that often transcends our

reality. However, as Keats notes, the reality of imagining something better is a “cold”

process, as there will be no escapism into the other.

Byron approaches orientalism from a more external perspective, examining

the overall effect of imagining other places. Unlike Ode to a Grecian Urn, Childe

Herold’s Pilgrimage is broader in its imagination of other cultures. However, this

works to present more of a critique of orientalism than the internalized analysis that

Keats presents. Perhaps in response to Keats, Byron writes “in Hellas deem’d of

heavenly birth,/ Muse! Form’d or fabled at the minstrel’s will!/ Since shamed full oft

by later lyres on earth,/ Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill;” (620). These

lines are fairly ambiguous as to their metaphorical meaning, however they do point

to Keats’ longing for the other. This longing is supported by the Muse’s location

within Greece. The Muse may be synonymous for the imagination and Byron

therefore acknowledges that the imagination dwells in the other. This necessitates

the poem’s reading within an orientalist framework. However, Byron elaborates on

the danger of orientalist art by including his subsequent lines where the muse is

“shamed full oft by later lyres on earth” (620). This line is problematic because

Byron shows that the imagined other will often be defiled by the poet or artist. This

relates to a later argument of his wherein imagined others can be misconstrued as it

was with his example of Waterloo and Napoleon.

Ironically, Byron gives his anti-hero the name Childe Herold. The name itself

plays on the romantic tendency towards the manifesting the imagination. This is

indicated through Childe being named in likeness of the word “child,” a romantic

emblem of the ability to imagine. Herold also plays on herald, denoting the

announcement of an oncoming event or happening. Childe Herold can then be read

as a metaphor for the poet, an announcer of the imagination. This allows for the

poem to exemplify the problem of the poet who longs for the “other.” Childe Herold

can also be read under the guise of Byron himself, sharing many traits such as

promiscuity and a will to travel. However Childe Herold, the poet, and Byron are all

described in stanza five where Childe “loathed he in his native land to dwell” (620).

This states the condition of most poets where they seek an alternate landscape.

However this can never be satiated as exemplified in Childe’s love who “could ne’er

be his” (620). The danger of ravishing his love is that he would spoil her. This

process can be seen to mimic orientalist art; the artist cannot capture fully the

“other” as a result of the alienation between one another, in addition to the artist’s

tendency to impose the self onto their piece.

In discussing Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo, Byron also articulates the

actual danger in embracing the epic “other.” Byron defines France in hyperbolic

rhetoric when saying that the battleground is a “place of skulls, the grave of France,

the deadly Waterloo” (626). In personifying France, he follows the Greco-Roman

tradition of personifying geographic location. This makes the place more epic and

defines it within legend, causing it to become defamiliarized to the reader or viewer.

However, the “other” is no longer asthetically pleasing as it was in the Ode to a

Grecian Urn and Kubla Khan. The “other” is now something deadly and devastating.

Childe Herold can therefore be read as a poem warning against the realization of an

epic.

Poets often suffer from their realities and turn to fictional realities to cure

boredom or frustration. In the Romantic Period, William Blake, a father of

Romanticism, began a cannon of literature that turned to the epic to solve 17th

Century Britain’s injustices. Abstract landscapes were then filled with Romantic

aspirations for justice and play. Perhaps Wordsworth who ushered in the new wave

of Romanticism saw this escapism in Nature. However, in an agreement between the

two Wordsworth’s close writing partner, Coleridge was told to write outside of

pastoral England. This eventually lead to a preoccupation with other cultures as

Kubla Khan canonized orientalist poems and presented the opportunity for a new,

romantic enterprise. The East and cultures external to England’s, presented a new

frontier for the romantics. Their aspirations for liberty eventually colonized the

East, Spain and Ancient Greece, and, as romanticism developed and colonization

began, these landscapes became more rooted within reality. It may be that Byron

marked the turn away from orientalism because these relatively unknown locations

became more familiar amongst British Society. The epic of the other also became

more abhorred because, with the Napoleonic war, the interesting “epic other”

became the “dangerous other.” However, something unique was brought about with

Romantic orientalism; a unity of opposites producing great poetry. The “other” was

infused with the author bringing the familiar and unfamiliar to the same page.