Abstract
The aim of the present study is to analyse the image of Iran, created by E. G. Browne (1862-1926) in his travelogue A Year amongst the Persians. In his representation, Browne vacillates between two poles of Romantic and scientific discourses. On the one hand, he is a Romantic wanderer, who embarks on a quest of Departure, Initiation and Return in the space of the Other (Campbell, 2004, p. 28) . Based on such an idealistic perspective, in his one year quest in Iran which is mainly spend among the marginalized believers of the Bahai faith, Browne (1893) seeks for a rebirth of the decaying Iranian nation, “which slumbers, but is not dead” (p. 219) . On the other hand, Browne (1893) regards himself as an “inquirer” who in his observations maintains a detached scientific perspective towards Iranian culture and society, and does not hesitate to question the principles which he finds unacceptable (p. 529) . In the course of his journey, the tension between these two discourses leads to a subversion of both of them, which finally mirrors in a breakdown of Browne’s conception of Self and the Other. Browne’s recognition of the Self and the Iranian nation, at the end of his journey is through the space of inter-subjectivity. This final state of in-betweenness makes it possible for him to recognize the Other from the perspective of cultural difference, through which a possibility is created in his image of Iran to escape the “urge to possess” that the Orientalist discourse of travel writing entails. (Ashcroft, 2009, p. 230) Keywords: representation; Self; Other; subversion; in-betweenness
Highlights
Edward Granville Browne (1862-1926) was an orientalist and lecturer of Persian in Cambridge, who in the final decades of the Victorian era proved himself to be a leading specialist on Iranian culture and society (Ross, 2009, 386)
In the introduction to his travelogue, he explains that at the beginning of the war he had no sympathy for the Turkish side; when he witnesses the bravery of the Turks and the hypocrisy of British political leaders in justification of their defeat, he becomes interested in their cause
At first my proclivities were by no means for the Turks; but the losing side, more especially when it continues to struggle against defeat, always has a claim on our sympathy
Summary
Edward Granville Browne (1862-1926) was an orientalist and lecturer of Persian in Cambridge, who in the final decades of the Victorian era proved himself to be a leading specialist on Iranian culture and society (Ross, 2009, 386). In the introduction to his travelogue, he explains that at the beginning of the war he had no sympathy for the Turkish side; when he witnesses the bravery of the Turks and the hypocrisy of British political leaders in justification of their defeat, he becomes interested in their cause. As he mentions, It was the Turkish war with Russia in 1877-8 that first attracted my attention to the East, about which, till that time I had known and cared nothing. At first my proclivities were by no means for the Turks; but the losing side, more especially when it continues to struggle against defeat, always has a claim on our sympathy
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