The British in Arabia: the Genealogy of a Romantic Discourse and the Colonial (De)construction of Palestine

Abstract

Abstract: The Romanticization of Arabia and of the noble Arab in the British imagination has long been apparent, exemplified by figures such as Richard Burton and T. E. Lawrence. However, the Romantic origins of British discourses on Arabia have never been fully explored. Tracing the evolution of the Romantic symbols of the ‘Arab’ and ‘Arabia’ in Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley and their entanglement in racial discourses of the later nineteenth century, this paper describes the mechanics of the discursive construction of the region, arguing that the morphology of the British colonization of the Arabian Peninsula is grounded in Romantic symbolism.