A major new critical biography of Sir William Jones (1746-94), the foremost Orientalist of his generation and one of the greatest intellectual navigators of all time, whose Sanskrit researches did more than any other writer to destroy Eurocentric prejudice, reshaping Western perceptions of India and the Orient.
A survey of the voluminous writings of Sir William Jones ( 1746-1794), pioneer English Orientalist who was vitally concerned with improving conditions in the East and explaining Eastern culture to the Europeans. Jones's writings are given in chronological and topical sequence, with comments on style, sources, organization, contents, author's purpose, critics' reaction, and influence on other writers. The appendix includes bibliographies of primary and secondary sources and an index of selected editions and/or printings in English and library locations of extant copies.
Sir William Jones was one of the greatest polymaths in history. At the time of his early death, in 1794, he knew 13 languages thoroughly and another 28 moderately well. But languages were for him only a means of reaching a deeper understanding, in contrasting cultures, of law, history, literature, music, botany, and other disciplines. Elected at the age of 26 to Johnson's Literary Club and knighted at 37, Jones was a close friend to many leading English luminaries of his time. He was called "Oriental Jones" by some, and his study of middle-eastern cultures, his championship of American independence, and finally his appointment as high court judge in Calcutta, made him a truly universal figure. On the bicentenary of his death, several scholars met at University College, Oxford--his old college--to commemorate his outstanding career and achievements. They found representative themes in Jones's life and work, aiming to strike a balance therein, and to remember, especially, the view taken of Jones by his informed contemporaries. This collection of fascinating papers is a result of that meeting.
"Aryan," a word that today evokes images of racial hatred and atrocity, was first used by Europeans to suggest bonds of kinship, as Thomas Trautmann shows in his far-reaching history of British Orientalism and the ethnology of India. When the historical relationship uniting Sanskrit with the languages of Europe was discovered, it seemed clear that Indians and Britons belonged to the same family. Thus the Indo-European or Aryan idea, based on the principle of linguistic kinship, dominated British ethnological inquiry. In the nineteenth century, however, an emergent biological "race science" attacked the authority of the Orientalists. The spectacle of a dark-skinned people who were evidently civilized challenged Victorian ideas, and race science responded to the enigma of India by redefining the Aryan concept in narrowly "white" racial terms. By the end of the nineteenth century, race science and Orientalism reached a deep and lasting consensus in regard to India, which Trautmann calls "the racial theory of Indian civilization," and which he undermines with his powerful analysis of colonial ethnology in India. His work of reassessing British Orientalism and the Aryan idea will be of great interest to historians, anthropologists, and cultural critics.
In this book Professor Arberry describes the lives and labours of six great scholars - Simon Ockley, Sir William Jones, E. W. Lane, E. H. Palmer, E.G. Browne and R. A Nicholson - men who were devoted to building a bridge between the peoples of Europe and Asia. To these biographical essays, Arberry has appended a fragment of candid autobiography and an eloquent plea for the further encouragement of Oriental studies.
Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues demonstrates the continuing validity of the colonial paradigm as it maps the geographical, political, and imaginative space of 'India/Indies' from the seventeenth century to the present. Breaking new ground in postcolonial studies, Jyotsna Singh highlights the interconnections among early modern colonial encounters, later manifestations in the Raj and their lingering influence in the postcolonial Indian nationalist state. Singh challenges the assumption of eye-witness accounts and unmeditated experiences implcit in colonial representational practices, and often left unchallenged in the postcolonial era. Essential introductory reading for students and academics, Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues re-evaluates the following texts: * seventeenth century travel narratives about India * eighteenth century 'nabob' texts * letters of the Orientalist, Sir William Jones * reviews of Shakespearean productions in Calcutta and postcolonial Indo-Anglian novels
This edition provides a representative selection of the key works of Sir William Jones (1746-94), one of the foremost Orientalists and intellectual pioneers of his generation. The range of his interests and accomplishments was diverse and this volume provides convenient and reliable points of access to Jones's remarkable work which extended to 13 volumes in the collected edition of 1807 (recently reprinted by Curzon/New York University).
Orientalism and Literature discusses a key critical concept in literary studies and how it assists our reading of literature. It reviews the concept's evolution: how it has been explored, imagined and narrated in literature. Part I considers Orientalism's origins and its geographical and multidisciplinary scope, then considers the major genres and trends Orientalism inspired in the literary-critical field such as the eighteenth-century Oriental tale, reading the Bible, and Victorian Oriental fiction. Part II recaptures specific aspects of Edward Said's Orientalism: the multidisciplinary contexts and scholarly discussions it has inspired (such as colonial discourse, race, resistance, feminism and travel writing). Part III deliberates upon recent and possible future applications of Orientalism, probing its currency and effectiveness in the twenty-first century, the role it has played and continues to play in the operation of power, and how in new forms, neo-Orientalism and Islamophobia, it feeds into various genres, from migrant writing to journalism.