Browning upon Arabia: A Moveable East by Hédi A. Jaouad

Abstract

 Reviews Browning upon Arabia: A Moveable East. By H A. J. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. . xvii+ pp. £.. ISBN ––––. Hédi A. Jaouad’s Browning upon Arabia is concerned with demonstrating that ‘Browning researched extensively the literature, history, philosophy, and culture of the East, especially the “Arab East,” to produce poetry that is sensitive to its Eastern resources and devoted to confirming the interrelation of Northern and Eastern knowledge’ (p. xii). Browning’s exploration of this ‘interrelation’, Jaouad argues, forgoes ‘traditional binaries’, and contributes to the elaboration of ‘a new form of transcendental humanism’ (p. xii). ‘In Browning’s work’, we learn, ‘the North–East dynamic is a dialogue between equal interlocutors, an intercultural, multilingual conversation’ (p. ). e study collects together a series of perceptive close readings , all of which attempt to discern the influence of Eastern culture in Browning’s writing. Viewing the poet’s works through ‘the metaphor of the arabesque’, Jaouad traces diverse intertextual and interlingual relationships and resonances (p. ). Chapters on the poems ‘rough the Metidja’ and ‘Muléykeh’, and the oen neglected plays e Return of the Druses () and Luria (), form the bulk of the book, and represent its most interesting contributions to a developing critical discussion regarding the complexity of Browning’s engagement with cultural and linguistic difference. e Browning that emerges from Jaouad’s discussion, however, seems ‘more interested in finding cultural commonalities rather than differences’ (p. ). Drawing attention to the many ‘shards and traces of Arab wisdom’ in Browning’s work (p. ), Jaouad adroitly connects the poet’s foregrounding of cultural interaction with the development of a ‘new brand of humanism’ (p. ). e study succeeds in drawing attention to a range of intertextual resonances across Browning’s Eastern poems—including an interesting comparison with Disraeli’s fiction—and is particularly impressive in its demonstration of Browning’s interest in Arabic onomastics . Ultimately, Browning upon Arabia is convincing in its central argument that Browning ‘dissociate[s] himself from the prevailing Orientalist mode of his time’ (p. ), constructing texts motivated, Jaouad suggests, by a desire ‘to give voice and visibility to those misrepresented by the triumphalist North’ (p. ). However, while Jaouad provides a thoughtful, impressively researched, and above all useful survey of Browning’s arabesque, he forgoes exploring in detail the relationship between this aspect of the poet’s intellectual life and the rest of his writing. is could have involved exploring further the relation between Victorian ‘arabesque ’ and ‘grotesque’ literary styles, for example; or even between Browning’s Eastern characters and his general use of historical figures and events to make oblique reference to contemporary politics. e study’s focus has, consequently, the unfortunate and clearly unintended effect of isolating ‘Browning upon Arabia’ from his other writing. Moreover, the study’s use of what Jaouad himself calls ‘structuralist analysis’— most obviously in the reading of ‘rough the Metidja’, ‘à la S/Z’—prevents some of the close readings from fully engaging with more recent theoretical discussions MLR, .,   (p. ). e references to the ‘nagging question of identity and nationality’, for example (p. ); or the suggestion that Browning’s ‘polyphonic, arabesque-like’, and multilingual style anticipates aspects of modernist literary practice (p. ), could have received further elaboration with reference to recent work on Victorian literature’s ‘global’ aesthetics, and translational writing more generally. Jaouad’s book will, however, prove a useful resource to students, scholars, and admirers of Browning’s poetry, and indeed to anyone interested in the manifold networks of cultural affiliation and response evidenced by Victorian literature. Its range of reference and scholarship will undoubtedly lead to the satisfaction of Jaouad’s desire to ‘excite further interest in Browning’s life-long fascination with Eastern religion, culture, and literature’ (p. ). B C, O J H Adulthood and Other Fictions: American Literature and the Unmaking of Age. By S E. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . xii+ pp. £. ISBN ––––. Sari Edelstein’s Adulthood and Other Fictions is a refreshing, thought-provoking excavation of age as an o-overlooked political tool that rose to power in nineteenthcentury US culture. Rather than treating age as a stand-alone discourse, Edelstein shows how age has been instrumental in the enforcement of social hierarchies, including race...