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How did word of the Buddha first reach Western ears? Over the centuries, until the first reliable introduction to Buddhism was published in France in 1844, rumors and reports of this oriental idol and his teachings reached the West in haphazard but fascinating ways. A Jesuit missionary traveling with a Thai delegation to the court of Louis XIV spent months at sea with a Buddhist monk and asked him many questions. A Russian ship captain was held captive for three years in Japan and learned about the Buddha from his jailors. A Catholic priest in China dressed like a Confucian gentleman and learned in this way to disparage the Buddha. British army officers on surveys of India struggled to decip...
This collection includes: How Wand-fo was Saved, Marko's Smile, The Milk of Death, The Last Love of Princess Genji, The Man Who Loved the Nereids, Our Lady of the Swallows, Aphrodissia; the Widow, Kali Beheaded, The End of Marko Kraljevic, The Sadness of Cornelius Berg, and a Postscript by the Author. "From China to Japan, the Balkans to India, Oriental Tales addresses love, conquest, betrayal, murder, religion, and passion in an eloquent and exquisite telling."--Kirkus Reviews.
First Published in 1967. Written in 1908, this essay is a study in eighteenth-century English literature. The aim is to give a clear and accurate description of a distinct component part of eighteenth century English fiction in its relation to its French sources and to the general current of English thought. The oriental fiction that was not original in English came, almost without exception, from French imitations or translations of genuine oriental tales; hence, as a study in comparative literature, a consideration of the oriental tale in England during the eighteenth century possesses distinct interest.
This book of short stories by Goh Poh Seng tells his adventures as a young Asian student in the Ireland of the 1950s. Brought up in post-war Kuala Lumpur, the impressionable young man finds himself transported to a totally different milieu and culture. The stories follow him from the first tentative steps of his voyage to Europe, to his sojourn in a hostel for Asian students and the shock of boarding life in a boys' Catholic school; continues with his early awakening to the posibility of becoming a writer, together with a total embrace of the cultural and literary pleasures of Dublin. Along the way, he met a colourful tapestry of characters, among them a member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, the suave and charming Tom Pierre from the West Indies, and the much-loved Irish poet Paddy Kavanagh.
A comprehensive exploration of the Middle Eastern roots of Western narrative tradition. Against the methodological backdrop of historical and comparative folk narrative research, 101 Middle Eastern Tales and Their Impact on Western Oral Tradition surveys the history, dissemination, and characteristics of over one hundred narratives transmitted to Western tradition from or by the Middle Eastern Muslim literatures (i.e., authored written works in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish). For a tale to be included, Ulrich Marzolph considered two criteria: that the tale originates from or at least was transmitted by a Middle Eastern source, and that it was recorded from a Western narrator's oral pe...
First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
This engaging volume presents the complete texts of three of the most important, and historically popular, examples of the Oriental tale genre. Supporting contextual material includes samples of Orientalist writing from The Spectator, Johnson's Rambler, Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, and Edgeworth's complete tale "Murad the Unlucky," as well as a selection of modern critical essays.
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A study of romance and the Orient in Chaucer and in anonymous popular metrical romances. The idea of the Orient is a major motif in Chaucer and medieval romance, and this new study reveals much about its use and significance, setting the literature in its historical context and thereby offering fresh new readings of anumber of texts. The author begins by looking at Chaucer's and Gower's treatment of the legend of Constance, as told by the Man of Law, demonstrating that Chaucer's addition of a pattern of mercantile details highlights the commercial context of the eastern Mediterranean in which the heroine is placed; she goes on to show how Chaucer's portraits of Cleopatra and Dido from the Le...
Towards the end of the fifth century BC Ctesias of Cnidus wrote his 23 book History of Persia. Ctesias is a remarkable figure: he lived and worked in the Persian court and, as a doctor, tended to the world’s most powerful kings and queens. His position gave him special insight into the workings of Persian court life and access to the gossip and scandal surrounding Persian history and court politics, past and present. His History of Persia was completed at a time when the Greeks were fascinated by Persia and seems very much to cater to contemporary interest in Persian wealth and opulence, powerful Persian women, the institution of the harem, kings and queens, eunuchs and secret plots. Presented here in English translation for the first time with commentaries, Ctesias offers a fascinating insight into Persia in the fifth century BC.