ORIENTALISM IN ‘‘THE TALISMAN ’’BY SIR WALTER SCOTT
Abstract
This article explores the manifestation of Orientalism in Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel The Talisman (1825). Drawing on Edward Said’s framework of Orientalism, the study examines how Scott constructs the East as both exotic and inferior, romanticizing the Crusades while reinforcing Western superiority. The paper argues that The Talisman reflects the 19th-century European imagination of the East, not merely as a setting for adventure, but as a vehicle for ideological expression and cultural dominance.
References
• Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 1978.
• Scott, Walter. The Talisman. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 1825.
• Macfie, A.L. Orientalism: A Reader. NYU Press, 2000.
• Kerr, James. “Historical Romance and the Invention of the Middle Ages: Scott and the East.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 33, no. 3, 1994, pp. 329–349.
• Hiddleston, Jane. “Orientalism and the Literary Canon.” Literary Studies and Postcolonial Theory, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
