THE PORTRAYAL OF THE EAST VS. THE WEST IN LADY MARY MONTAGU'S LETTERS AND EMILY RUETE'S MEMOIRS

Abstract

AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), a great deal of controversy emerged that basically dealt with the West's elitist outlook and misrepresentation of the East. Very few studies concentrated on the other trend that embodied positive ideas. Some Western writers actually glorified the East and even considered it superior to the West. Geoffery Nash's study, From Empire to Orient : Travellers to the Middle East 1830-1926 (2005) falls into such a category. The author argues that the picture is more complex than the one previously proposed by Said who has mainly based his arguments on the Western 'hostile corpus.'1 Nash points to the Spirit of the East (1838), [written by the First Secretary at the British Embassy in Istanbul, David Urquhart (1805-1877)] as a pioneering work in this trend. Thus, for Nash, Urquhart stands as a 'discursive instability within Orientalism. There was also a woman who lived before Urquhart who could be considered, the pioneer in her views toward the East; namely Lady Mary Montagu (1689-1762). Many critics of Montagu focused on Montagu's presumed lesbianism or licentious description of the seraglio. However, Montagu made various insightful and important comparisons between the West and the East, whether in the manners of people and habits, or in issues like slavery and women's rights. I would also like to point out some commonalities between Montagu's views and Emily Ruete's (1844-1924) Memoirs (1880s), which is the first known autobiography of an Arab woman. Ruete or Sayyda Salme, being an Arab Muslim princess living in Zanzibar, was the daughter of Sultan Said bin Sultan Al-Busaid of Oman (1791-1856). She stated her observations of Zanzibar and Oman between 1850 and 1865. The Arab princess, who later converted to Christianity to marry a German merchant, lived the rest of her life in Germany, criticized both the German and British societies.