Georgian Terrains: The Islamic Orient in James Elroy Flecker's Hassan

Abstract

This study is mainly concerned with Georgian representations of the Islamic Orient. In placing it in a Saidian framework, it investigates how James Elroy Flecker’s Hassan treats the Islamic motifs. This play constructs the Orient as a network of destructive sexuality, alluring wealth, astonishing superstitions, and wonder in the exotic and the unfamiliar. Islam is blackly pictured, the Quran is undermined and the Abbasid Caliphate is severely attacked as an authority of corruption. By way of concluding, it can be suggested that Flecker’s misrepresentations of the Islamic Orient are attributed to his ideological hatred of Islam.Keywords: Orientalism; Georgian Poetry; The Arabian Nights; Abbasid Caliphate; the Bible; Islam, Christianity; Baghdad; Schizophrenic; Sufism; Lasciviousness; Houris; Islamic Sexuality; Oriental promiscuity; Femme fatale; Exoticism; Oriental superstition; Cruelty; Aggression; Violence