Pillars Of Wisdom Research Articles

Typology of the genre of military memoirs using the example of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by Lawrence of Arabia

Typology of the genre of military memoirs using the example of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by Lawrence of Arabia

Semantics of the title of the book by Lawrence of Arabia “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”

The article “Semantics of the title of the book by Lawrence of Arabia ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’” is dedicated to different meanings of the title of the book, written by an English writer, soldier and archeologist Thomas Edward Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia). The author of the article establishes the connection between the title and the previous unpublished work of Lawrence, also dedicated to Middle East, and the reasons for this succession. Also, the author discovers the other basics for the usage of the title. Among them are biblical symbolism, personal author’s attention to people of Middle East, which he was complimentary to and considered them as full of wisdom. The article shows Lawrence’s intellectualism and the reasons for the appearance of his nickname “Arabian”. This nickname was based on his actions as a participant of The Arab Revolt and the world of the East described in his book, that was the literary evidence of those events.

A SULAPA EPPE’E MODEL CONSTRUCTION FOR THE LEGAL PROTECTION OF THE LIFE ENVIRONMENT IN THE COASTAL FISHING RESOURCE EXPLOITATION AT SOUTH SULAWESI PROVINCE

This research analyzes the construction model of Sulapa Eppe'e in environmental law protection for the utilization of coastal fishery resources. This type of research uses a normative-empirical constructivism paradigm. The results of the study show that Sulapa Eppe'e adheres to a four-dimensional system of legal relations that places humans as the center in relations with God, nature (environment), society, and the government and the state. Model construction includes: concepts, philosophies, paradigms, ideologies, basic values, norms, principles, analytical methods and practices. This model gave birth to three pillars of wisdom, namely local wisdom, ecological wisdom, and the legal wisdom of the Mampanre'tasi tradition (conservation and zoning system), Rompong (protection and management system), Pemali and Palili'(prevention and repressive system), Mamia Kadialo (ecological wisdom values), Ponggawa – sawi (coordination and cooperation system). The Sulapa Eppe'e model can play an important role in overcoming tensions, integrating and harmonizing political products, ecological products and cultural products from environmental law.

Bridging the Invisible Cultural Gap

Bridging the Invisible Cultural Gap

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA: A ROMANTIC CAVALIER IN MODERN TIMES

Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was one of the most controversial figures in the field of Oriental studies. While some acclaim him as an epic hero who provoked the Arab revolt against the Turks, others criticize him for being an egocentric and embellisher who played a sideshow role during the War. Either as a popular hero characterized by speculative representations or a historical figure well documented by his biographers, Lawrence has an outstanding reputation in the area. Therefore, there are many academic studies based on his heroic fame and detailed war narratives. This study aims to illustrate how this epic heroism is represented by T. E. Lawrence in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1921-2). Through a detailed literary analysis of the book, it also hopes to reveal how Lawrence represents himself as a romantic cavalier. In this context, the study will first examine Lawrence’s aristocratic background and deep interest in mediaeval studies. His identity clashes stemming from his contact with the Arabs will also be investigated to show his quest for a new heroic identity. Then, Lawrence’s reliability as a narrator will be questioned. Some fictional incidences included in his book will be analysed to explore how these false accounts help Lawrence’s aim of representing himself as a mystic and romantic hero. Overall, the study hopes to contribute to the existent scholarship by examining a controversial political figure through the lenses of chivalry, heroism and Medieval studies.

The Ambivalent Representation of the Orient in T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (1935)

The literary output that was produced during the rise of the British Empire often reflected the imperialist spirit that dominated the world at that time. Travel writing was one of the major fields which prospered in parallel with the spread of British global paramountcy. This literary genre contributed to strengthening and legitimising the imperialist and colonialist expansion and therefore represents one of the prominent samples for the postcolonial analytical framework. This paper will focus on one of these travel accounts, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (1935), written by Thomas Edward Lawrence also known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Drawing upon postcolonial literary criticism, this paper will show the way Lawrence simultaneously reaffirms and rejects the imperialist and colonialist discourse in his portrayals. This paper will shed light on the ambivalence which prevails in Lawrence’s representations of the Orient. On the one hand, this research shows the way Lawrence showcases examples of imperialist thinking by reproducing stereotypical representations of the Orient through excessive aestheticisation or demeaning of Oriental people and landscapes. On the other hand, this paper highlights Lawrence’s departure from the conventional imperialist discourse with more nuanced portrayals. This paper contends that Lawrence’s Orientalist discourse is much more ambivalent and subtle than the conclusions elaborated by Edward Said in his critical theory of Orientalism.

The Inevitable Otherness behind the Mask in T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom

The concept of “Otherness” can be perceived in several European narrative writings. Despite the complications that the definition of the term might imply, most of the works presented have a deliberate emphasis on presenting the deleterious chauvinisms concerning the Orient. In Orientalist literature, one can notice the insistence on keeping the potentials and differences between the East and the West. The reader is presented with a variety of events that serve to indicate the Western superiority over the East in all aspects. In this conception, the social, philosophical and cultural structure of the Eastern societies is to be considered inferior to the Western one. Therefore, negation is viewed as the only way of comparison between the two. This study examines T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (SPW) as a typical orientalist text. Moreover, it sheds light on the conflicting powers in the personal identity of Lawrence himself. Through evidences and insights, it argues that though Lawrence contends that he has written a travel narrative in SPW, the novel is an autobiography of an Orientalist imperial agent, a White Man who continues the tradition of reductionism and stereotyping and technically rests on Orientalist strategies..

What You Live For

What You Live For Speer Morgan One would like to think the pandemic has inspired us to be more productively introverted, weighing what we are doing and why. But of course, the truth is that the pandemic has given us little choice but to be more introverted and self-evaluative. Regardless of the terrible way it has come about, it may be useful to look under the camouflaging dust of "normal" life and ask a few existential questions. What have we genuinely missed about normal life, what do we really care about, and how should we admit to changes? Among friends and acquaintances, I have heard the expected answers to such questions and others less expected. Parents of school-aged children complain about the schools having been closed and about being shut in with the whole family 24/7, never mind that the kids are probably complaining more colorfully among each other, and never mind that the teachers' lives are at stake. Some of us miss physically going to work or the gym or seeing friends across a table. Touching each other, if only in handshakes or comradely hugs. The other morning, I asked my wife what she missed the most, and she said glumly and without hesitation, as if she had written it out beforehand, "Travel, New York, prepandemic New York, dirty, noisy, wonderful, walking-in-the-city, eating-at-the-Met, stinking, beautiful New York. I miss that." Talking more about it, we discovered that there were in fact even a couple of activities we missed that we assumed we had done only to accompany the other, not because we liked doing them ourselves. [End Page 6] This issue's writers remind me of the question of what one really lives for, and—as we go through not just worldwide trauma but more normal changes and phases of life—how such things evolve. These are subjects deeply organic to literature because they are overarching realities of human life—transience, change, often wildly unexpected change in what matters to us. There are plenty of classic literary examples of characters who try to deny change. In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the narrator, Nick, tells Gatsby that he can't repeat the past, and Gatsby responds, "Why of course you can." Gatsby's tragically failing effort to return to the past includes his trying to rewrite it, when he pleads with Daisy to say that she never loved her husband and the father of her child. Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray dramatizes Gray's outwardly successful Faustian bargain to retain his youth, becoming a social Dracula, unaged in appearance, with an ending that is ruinous for him if not his portrait. There are models of change, as well, in characters who may fight it at first but then embrace it. In Jack London's The Call of the Wild, a spoiled domestic dog living in California, Old Buck, is kidnapped and sold as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes an alpha working dog, then eventually answers the call of the wild and returns to the forest, becoming a great "Ghost Dog" in Indian myth. In his autobiographically based Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence writes about his life as a Middle East scholar and archaeologist whose knowledge of Arab culture allows him to become a successful military leader. From introverted scholar writing about ancient cities, he turns out to be a daring field general who helps bring together feuding Arab tribes into a unified force that severs the hold of the Ottoman Turk and Central Powers over the Arab lands. Literature is the art most capable of showing the paradoxes and illogic of change in human life, revealing how the discovery of what you live for is not always simple success or failure but something in between. In Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, goes through three husbands before she finds one who treats her as an equal—and even that relationship ends up with difficulties and a tragic ending. Our nonfiction in this issue testifies to the vast range of experience and emotion that drives human...

Re-Reading T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Re-Reading T. E. Lawrence's <i>Seven Pillars of Wisdom</i>

T. E. Lawrence's Misrepresentation of the Arabs in Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Adopting postcolonial theory, this article investigates T. E. Lawrence's depiction of the Arabs in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). I argue that Lawrence displays a Western colonial discourse in which he represents the Arabs as the silent uncivilized "Other." Part of this colonial discourse is Lawrence’s presentation of himself as superior, prophet, leader and inspirer of the Arab Revolt. Arab leaders and tribes are depicted, in Lawrence's discourse, as an inferior "Other" who need the English to help them achieve their independence. In addition, I argue that Lawrence’s negative representation of the Arabs is an ideology that justifies Western domination over the East. Lawrence’s misrepresentation addresses Arab feuds, nature and atmosphere, Arabic language, Arab costume, and religion. Keywords: Arab Revolt, Colonial Discourse, Other, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

The Overcoming of the Beyng of Machenschaft: Heidegger, Jünger, and T. E. Lawrence

ABSTRACT In 1939 Martin Heidegger made the astonishing claim that the overcoming of the beyng of machination occurs in T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He arrived at this assessment in the course of his attempt to distance himself from Friedrich Nietzsche and Ernst Jünger. It is well known that Heidegger formulated his understanding of machination in part in response to Jünger's account of total mobilization, but the importance for Heidegger of Jünger's accounts of his experiences at the Front also needs to be recognized. Lawrence presented Heidegger with a very different response to a different kind of war from that of Jünger. This paper highlights some passages in Seven Pillars that help to explain what led Heidegger to believe that Lawrence provided a model of how to avoid some of the pitfalls of Nietzsche's and Jünger's attempts to overcome metaphysics.

Samiha KhraisThe Tree Stump: An Arabic Historical Novel by Nesreen Akhtarkhavari

Salo is joined by other refugees from various attacks orchestrated by the Yerezis’ malefactor and the warlord Dark Sun, with chapters regularly switching perspectives to tell an engaging story of young people growing into adulthood and newfound powers. With Scarlet Odyssey, Rwizi has written a novel that is expertly plotted, incredibly well thought out where magical and cultural systems are concerned, and also quite bloody. While not as literarily deft as Marlon James’s recent Black Leopard, Red Wolf (see WLT, Spring 2019, 80) or Jemisin ’s record-breaking Broken Earth trilogy, Scarlet Odyssey deserves to be recognized as a powerful force in the growing Afrofantasy movement. Sean Guynes Michigan State University Samiha Khrais The Tree Stump: An Arabic Historical Novel Trans. Nesreen Akhtarkhavari. East Lansing. Michigan State University Press. 2019. 174 pages. SAMIHA KHRAIS is a Jordanian novelist whose work has the imprimatur of those with heft, political and cultural, in her native land. The winner of, among other awards, the Al-Hussein Medal for Distinguished Creativity (2015), she addresses herself in The Tree Stump to the question of Jordan’s origins in the 1916 Arab Revolt against the Turks. It is perhaps inevitable, then, that one has a slight sense of reading, if not an official account, then at least one that will not displease her compatriots or the (admittedly largely benevolent) dynasty that rules over them. However, the historical background to the creation of the only surviving Hashemite dynasty, that of Iraq having been bloodily overthrown in 1958 and the Kingdom of Syria strangled at birth, is further complicated by the controversial figure of T. E. Lawrence, prominent in the minds of many putative readers of this translation because of a memorable film and in the minds of a few because of a brilliant, if idiosyncratic, autobiographical account of his role in the region, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). Indeed, the wish to provide an alternative account to Lawrence’s, one rooted in the experiences of Arabs, is avowedly central to the book. Information obtained during Khrais’s meetings with tribal elders “challenged the narrative that Lawrence and most Western historians provided,” resulting in a novel that celebrates the valor of Arab warriors fighting for their freedom and culture and the inspiration given by their strong women, whose strength, contra stereotyping views of the West, “is perceived as a source of honor and pride for the men.” One would expect the role Books in Review ANDRÉ NAFFIS-SAHELY The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature Ed. André Naffis-Sahely London. Pushkin Press. 2020. 352 pages. HARDLY A LITERARY POSITION exists that trumps that of the exile and the émigré. Of course, not every exile succeeds in fashioning from their banishment a new whole or fresh start, imprinting elsewhere; those who do succeed can acquire an aura akin to that of a saint. In this anthology, André Naffis-Sahely sizes up the phenomenon of exile across ages, cultures, and causes, from the ancient and biblical through the Dark Ages and into the age of nations, considering political, religious , and personal reasons for exile, right up to more contemporary notions of “cosmopolitanism and rootlessness.” Many, but by no means all, of the authors of passages in this volume have themselves been exiles, including Naffis-Sahely himself. Yet in every case, care is taken to present excerpts that foreground exile and related states as their topic. Sometimes these converge —author and topic—as in the passage from Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the author meets the exiled Cacciaguida, who warns Dante of his own coming 102 WLT AUTUMN 2020 exile from Florence. More often, exile is the focus but not the fate of the author. There is an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, for example, and Longfellow spells out the tragic fate of Acadie’s Evangeline, severed from her Gabriel: “Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless discomfort, / Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of existence.” Ample pages are devoted to tales of exile outside the Western canon. From ancient China, we get Du Fu, “Dreaming of Li Bai” (trans. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping): I’ve swallowed sobs of the lost dead...

Destination Levant: T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell’s narrative voice as gender transgression

One of the best-known chroniclers of the Levant is undoubtedly T.E. Lawrence, whose Seven pillars of wisdom (1926) is an adventure tale, a war-time memoir and a travelogue all at once. It describes the region and its Arab inhabitants at moments admiringly and at others through an Orientalist lens. Lawrence’s narrative voice is mercurial: it’s often heroic and confident, yet sometimes full of self-doubt, rendering it curiously fragile. In opposition, Gertrude Bell’s narrative voice in The desert and the sown (1907) is assured, controlled and masculine, as Bell uses it to solidify a career as an archeologist and a regional expert. Both are calculated attempts at defying their assigned gender roles and both participate in a gender transgression, the convoluted nature of which can be explained with the theories of masochism. For Bell this means to use her narrative voice to place herself close to the seat of masculine power, while also maintaining her upper class femininity. Lawrence’s defiance erodes the conventionally masculine, heroic image the public held of him after the Arab Revolt.

An Outside View: Illustrations to the 1926 Subscribers’ Edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

The use of illustrations in mass-produced travel narratives had become commonplace, if not to say accepted practice, by the early Twentieth Century. Advancements in printing technologies allowed such books to be experienced by readers as sensory environments constituted by textual imagery and the successive display of vantage points and objects of the illustrations. Printing techniques and aspects of the physical book contribute to this visual ecology, resulting in a readerly construction of an aesthetic environment drawing on the collective output of author, printers and illustrators. It is as just such an aesthetic environment that this article will seek to understand the 1926 subscribers’ edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, T.E. Lawrence’s account of his role in the Arab Revolt during the First World War. In order to analyse how these decisions work together to form an aesthetic whole, this article will consider its context in terms of the development of photography as the dominant illustrative mode for travel literature before moving on to an analysis of Lawrence’s own use of this medium before engaging with elements such as layout, typography, decoration and, finally, a series of illustrations produced by Eric Kennington.

Dingo singing: the howl of the advocate

World Heritage protected areas are increasingly valuable for civil society. Sectors of broader society can feel invested in such areas and engage in forms of conservation advocacy that challenge traditional formal management. Advocacy is found wherever management decisions are negotiated or contested, revealing sharp divides in positions. But there are also opportunities for partnerships in advocacy. Identifying the narrative details of advocacy positions is crucial but complicated when the parties being represented are non-human animals, plant species or broader environments: they depend on the advocate’s voice as they cannot speak in any literal sense. Thus advocates discussed in this paper are those representing scientific decision-frames: managers and scientists. Both groups frequently draw on empirical research, giving primacy to the proof of scientific voice. In this research we presented methods to build interdisciplinary literacy to move beyond traditional categorical analysis. Semantic mapping was applied to identify narrative themes as the basis for close textual analysis in a specific case study: advocacy on behalf of the K’gari-Fraser Island dingo. We differentiated three critical pillars of wisdom – Indigenous, local and scientific – but here only considered the advocacy positions within the scientific knowledge decision-making community. Thus, we compared positions taken by the formal management community (government managers) with positions taken in the scientific research community (academic researchers). Narrative themes in advocacy agendas and metaphorical strategies taken to frame positions identify differences and common ground for the two groups. Management advocacy was premised on limits to human–dingo interaction while science advocacy called for dingo welfare. The synergy was tourists, defined as the greatest threat to dingo welfare and viability. This common ground provides an effective starting point to support dingo interests. Identifying options and constraints in advocacy positions is crucial for the future of dingoes on K’gari, but also for all people who engage with World Heritage values. Implicitly, this paper defends the place of advocacy in scientific discussion. By exploring potential options for negotiation, conservation outcomes that support contested iconic species in a World Heritage context are more likely.

In this issue of Weather

We begin the April 2017 issue with Matthew Lewis’ and Nick Silkstone’s paper ‘Improvements in nowcasting capability: analysis of three structurally distinct severe thunderstorms across northern England on 1 July 2015’ on p. 91. They examine the new ways in which we can use Doppler radar data to track not only the motion of thunderstorms, but also the vertical motions within them. Along with the detection of type of hydrometeor, we are also given an in‐depth examination of the weather that developed on what was already an unusual July day.Following our usual seasonal summary on p. 101, looking back at last winter, we continue the examination of cultural differences in the perception of snow and ice in both East and West in ‘Icy hell – a history of ice and snow – part 2’ by Hisami Nakamura and Julyan Cartwright on p. 102. The effects of cold weather and cool climatic periods in literature are clearly described, not least in the Romantic period of Western literature.Continuing the literate theme, on p. 107 we move to the First World War in ‘Haboobs, dust spouts and Lawrence of Arabia’ by Gabriel Rooney. T.E. Lawrence’s descriptions of linked facets of winter desert weather – notably that of north Africa and the Arabian peninsula – are both accurate and fascinating. They also provided an inspiring backdrop to his book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

T. E. Lawrence: memórias da Grande Guerra de um herói ambivalente

Este artigo aborda tanto o homem T.E. Lawrence como suas memórias de guerra, Os sete pilares da sabedoria (1935). Lawrence era um homem ambivalente em seu trabalho, suas habilidades militares e diplomáticas, em seu papel na independência árabe e em sua sexualidade. Sua clássica obra de memórias sobre a campanha britânica contra a Turquia na Arábia é, dentre tantas outras coisas, um manual de guerrilha que visa apresentar-se como um registro fatual de uma campanha militar e também como uma narrativa heroica de discernimento, coragem e determinação.

Lawrence of Arabia’s War: The Arabs, the British and the Remaking of the Middle East in WWI

Seldom does a newly published book both enlarge our understanding of its subject and enhance our appreciation of its principal primary sources. In Lawrence of Arabia’s War, Neil Faulkner admirably achieves both objectives. In the first instance, he thoroughly and critically discusses British foreign policy and military operations in the Middle East and North Africa from 1914 through 1922, with emphasis upon British relations with the Arabs, primarily the desert-dwelling Hashemite sherifs as opposed to the landlords and officials who dominated millions of Arab small farmers and city dwellers. Whenever appropriate, he carefully examines relations between the British and their French, Italian, and Russian allies. In the second instance, Faulkner clearly illuminates the political and military context of T. E. Lawrence’s partially autobiographical Seven Pillars of Wisdom, long widely admired as one of the finest literary masterpieces of the Great War and as a somewhat impressionistic portrait of the leaders of the Arab rebellion. In doing so, Faulkner further demonstrates Lawrence’s memoir to be an informed evaluation of British strategy and of the actions of Arab and Bedouin chieftains in their relationships with the British and with one another. Furthermore, Faulkner shows how and why Seven Pillars of Wisdom is one of the few World War I memoirs that facilitate one’s comprehension of the military operations by which Arab forces during 1917 and 1918 interdicted Ottoman supply lines and effectively supported the right flank of British offensives into Gaza and Palestine.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Queer Times of Revolt, and Modernist Form

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Queer Times of Revolt, and Modernist Form

Explaining the Evolutionary Dynamics of an Insurgency : T. E. Lawrence and the Art of Tribal Warfare

Despite the advances made in social and industrial life hundreds of millions of people world-wide live in social groups that can be described as tribes. These groups translate into segments of societies that have little to do with political entities. Enemies with tribal identity are difficult to defeat, which is due to the inherent dynamics of primitive or tribal warfare that feature a strong similarity with biological evolution. In the case favourable conditions exist, these dynamics can accumulate into victory of the weaker and defeat of the stronger. In order to support this statement the authors use the Arab Revolt (1916–18) as an example, which is excellently explained in the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” written by T. E. Lawrence.