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" Refiguring Atlantic republican fear of Asiatic despotism: Washington Irving's Machiavellian moments "
Doyle Ray Quiggle, Jr.
W. R. Fields, Carter
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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53933
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TL23887
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3223455
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| Main Entry
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Doyle Ray Quiggle, Jr.
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| Title & Author
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Refiguring Atlantic republican fear of Asiatic despotism: Washington Irving's Machiavellian moments\ Doyle Ray Quiggle, Jr.
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| College
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Washington University in St. Louis
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| Date
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2006
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2006
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| Page No
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860
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| Abstract
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The question I pursue, both within the terms of J. G. A. Pocock's analysis of Atlantic-republican tradition and upon the geographical insights of Yi-Fu Tuan, is this: is it possible that imagining Islamic civilization actually helped an extraordinary mind like Washington Irving's to transcend the founder's fear of Asiatic despotism, thereby making it psychically possible for him to develop an acute awareness of the political consequences for the US nation of the historical unfolding of the paradox of an empire of liberty in the American west? The founder's fear of Asiatic despotism apparently made Irving curious about an "orient" and sent him out on adventures into numerous landscapes of fear. Setting forth Irving's ultimate feeling and thinking about his newly rediscovered homeland, I examine his literary representations of history chronologically, observing how his unique style of Orientalism shaped the evolution of his imperial imagination. Beginning with Knickerbocker's History of New York, specifically Irving's federalist critique of the Acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, I introduce us to the Cervantes-like complexity of Irving's political irony and his employment of the stylistic resources of burlesque to address the epistemological problem of relating a closed, cyclic republican historiography. We'll discover how he transforms a generalized fear of despotism into a peculiar form of aesthetic pleasure. After sketching a brief biography of Irving's second sojourn in Europe, I review his ambitious experiments with genre in a selection of his Spanish Works, The Legend of Don Roderick, The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, and The Alhambra. That discussion is followed by successive analyses of how Irving's western trilogy--- A Tour on the Prairie, Astoria, and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville---subtly replaces the Myth of Jackson on the Frontier with James Harrington's Oceana. Finally, as a means of evaluating the success of Irving's unique, highly heuristic approach to relating the recent past of competitive imperialism in North America, I speculate broadly upon George Mile's forgotten play, Mohammed: The Arabian Prophet, interpreting it as the Marylander's critique of Polk's invasion of Mexico and a prophesy of impending civil war in the United States.
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Language, literature and linguistics; Asiatic; Atlantic; Despotism; Irving, Washington; Machiavellian; Orientalism; Republican; American literature; British and Irish literature; 0593:British and Irish literature; 0591:American literature
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W. R. Fields, Carter
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Washington University in St. Louis
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