Persia And The Victorians Rle Iran A

The impact of Persian life and literature upon Victorian England was tremendous. It found its public demonstration in the visit of the Shah, but the number of men of letters who turned to the Persian classics for inspiration were as numerous as they were great: William Jones, Charles Murray, Edward Browne, George Borrow, Richard Burton, Edward Palmer and, of course, Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat.

This volume is a fascinating portrait of a part of the world uneasily balanced between many loyalties – East and West, European and Arabic. The coronation of the Shah in 1967 marked the end of the need for foreign aid, and Iran emerged from her struggles to become the leading nation in the Middle East. Written before the crippling Iran-Iraq war broke out, this book looked forward to Iran’s great future, which, in the author’s opinion, could only be achieved if she broke with her traditions to form a new material and spiritual synthesis.

This volume gives a popular description of Iran and was the result of the author’s extensive travelling in the country and close knowledge of its people and customs over a period of 3 years at the turn of the nineteenth century.

This volume analyses British exhibitions of Middle Eastern (particularly ancient Egyptian and Persian) artefacts during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – examining how these exhibitions defined British self image in response to the Middle Eastern ‘other’. This study is an original interpretation of the exhibition space along intersectional constructionist lines, revealing how forces such as gender, race, morality and space come together to provide an argument for British supremacy. The position of museums as instruments of representation of display made them important points of contact between the British national imperialist scheme and the public. Displays in the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and Burlington House provide a focus for analysis. Through the employment of a constructionist lens, the research outlines a complex relationship between British society and the Middle Eastern artefacts presented in museums during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This allows a dialogue to emerge which has consequences for both societies which is achieved through intersections of gender, race and morality in space. This book will be of value to students and scholars alike interested in museology, cultural studies, history and art history.