Product details
- ISBN 9781780745664
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 06 Nov 2014
- Publisher: Oneworld Publications
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Revealing Islam’s formative influence on literary Romanticism, this book recounts a lively narrative of religious and aesthetic exchange, mapping the impact of Muslim sources on the West’s most seminal authors. Spanning continents and centuries, the book surveys Islamic receptions that bridge Romantic periods and personalities, unfolding from Europe, to Britain, to America, embracing iconic figures from Goethe, to Byron, to Emerson, as well as authors less widely recognized, such as Joseph Hammer-Purgstall.
Broad in historical scope, Islam and Romanticism is also particular in personal detail, exposing Islam’s role as a creative catalyst, but also as a spiritual resource, with the Qur’an and Sufi poetry infusing the literary publications, but also the private lives, of Romantic writers. Highlighting cultural encounter, rather than political exploitation, the book differs from previous treatments by accenting Western receptions that transcend mere “Orientalism”, finding the genesis of a global literary culture first emerging in the Romantics’ early appeal to Islamic traditions.
Jeffrey Einboden is Associate Professor in the English Department at Northern Illinois University. Most recently, he has authored Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature in Middle Eastern Languages, a study of celebrated American authors in Arabic, Persian and Hebrew translation. Einboden’s research has appeared in journals such as Middle Eastern Literatures, Translation and Literature, and the Journal of Qur’anic Studies; his article “The Genesis of Weltliteratur” was named in 2006 one of the “100 seminal articles” published by Oxford University Press Journals during the past century.
