Eastern Resonances in Early Modern England: Receptions and Transformations from the Renaissance to the Romantic Period

Description

The concept of resonance collapses the binary between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, evoking a sound or image that is prolonged and augmented by making contact with another surface. This collection uses resonance as an innovative framework for understanding the circulation of people and objects between England and its multiple Asian Easts. Moving beyond Saidian Orientalism to engage with ongoing critical conversations in the fields of connected history, material culture, and thing theory, it offers a vibrant range of case studies that consider how meanings accrue and shift through circulation and interconnection from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Spanning centuries of traveling translations, narratives, myths, practices, and other cultural phenomena, Eastern Resonances in Early Modern England puts forth resonance not just as a metaphor, but a mode of investigation. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiv Introduction (Claire Gallien, Ladan Niayesh)....Pages 1-14 Front Matter ....Pages 15-15 “Not Fit for Any Other Pursuit”: Shifting Places, Shifting Identities in Ludovico de Varthema’s Itinerario (Supriya Chaudhuri)....Pages 17-34 “A Pattern to All Princes”: Locating the Queen of Sheba (Matthew Dimmock)....Pages 35-50 “Endued with a Natural Disposition to Resonance and Sympathy”: “Harmonious” Jones’s Intimate Reading and Cultural Translation of India (Michael J. Franklin)....Pages 51-71 Front Matter ....Pages 73-73 Ancient Persia, Early Modern England, and the Labours of “Reception” (Jane Grogan)....Pages 75-92 “Enthusiastick” Uses of an Oriental Tale: The English Translations of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan in the Eighteenth Century (Louisiane Ferlier, Claire Gallien)....Pages 93-114 The Manchu Invasion of Britain: Nomadic Resonances in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Chinoiserie Aesthetics, and Material Culture (Laurence Williams)....Pages 115-135 Front Matter ....Pages 137-137 From Jehol to Stowe: Ornamental Orientalism and the Aesthetics of the Anglo-Chinese Garden (Vanessa Alayrac-Fielding)....Pages 139-162 “A Mart for Everything”: Commercial Empire and India as Bazaar in Long Eighteenth-Century Literature (Diego Saglia)....Pages 163-181 Collecting Statues in India and Transferring Them to Britain, or the Intertwined Lives of Indian Objects and Colonial Administrators (Late Eighteenth Century to Early Nineteenth Century) (Anne-Julie Etter)....Pages 183-199 Back Matter ....Pages 201-207