The Giaour: Images of a Fragmented Self

For next Thursday (10/6), students will provide a select close reading that focuses on the character of the Giaour as portrayed in their assigned section (each student will sign up for a section, line numbers listed below).  What does this partial narrative perspective reveal about the Giaour’s identity and about the speaker who observes him?  Please categorize under “Poetic Fragments” and create specific and relevant tags.

In class this Tuesday, students will sign up for ONE of these ten sections and will answer the above question based on that section lines alone:

1.The Muslim narrator: “I loath thy race” (ln 191) (ln 180-287)

2.Third Person Narrator (ln 288-351)

3. The Muslim boatman (ln 352-387)

4. Third Person narrator (ln 388-654)

5. Hassan’s viewpoint (ln 610-19)

6. The Giaour’s first-person account (ln 675-722)

7. Another Muslim perspective (ln 723-797)

8. The Friar speaks (ln 798-915)

9. Third-Person (ln 916-970)

10. Giaour speaks to the Abbot of the monastery (971-1334)

 

 

Greek Hellenism

There are influences of Hellenism in both Lady Mary’s 45th letter and Lord Byron’s poem, “The Giaour.” They both fantasize over the beauty of Ancient Greece, with Lord Byron’s depictions being more feminine and nostalgic as compared to Lady Mary, who’s poem evokes a feeling more of sadness. There was no visceral connection only the thoughts that fill her mind are seeing the Ottoman occupied Greece. Both writers invoke sadness in their writings of the beautiful Ancient Greece they remember, for Lady Mary it became nothing more than “ruins… inhabited by Greek peasants.” (Montagu, 184) Lady Mary’s despise of the new inhabitants of Greece is very apparent, and she doesn’t hold back when describing them saying, “They’re not all black …all mulattos, and the most frightful creatures that can appear in a human figure.” (191)
In “The Giaour,” there is a passage that describes the destructive force of the Ottoman Occupation, it describes their lack of respect for the land.
“Against the seraphs they assail’d,
And, fix’d on heavenly thrones, should dwell The freed inheritors of hell;
So soft the scene, so form’d for joy,
So curst the tyrants that destroy! ” (Lines 65-70)

Lord Byron’s tone in “The Giaour,” differs from Lady Mary’s in its femininity and the fact that he has a firsthand and deeper connection with Greece whereas Lady Mary’s experience with Greece is only from her imagination and her knowledge of Ancient Grecian history. The idea of romantic and beautiful Ancient Greece compared to the modern Greece they described under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire is definitely an example of Orientalism. In the poem, I think that Lord Byron is represented by “the Giaour,” which is a defined as a non-Muslim, fighting against Hassan. The idea of Hassan versus the Giaour is an example of the conflicts of Orientalism and conflicting ideologies, the Giaour being the east and Hassan being the west.

Reinforcing A False Teleology/Narrative by Reconstructing the Past Through Fantasizing and Ideology

Consider the act of the Eulogy. A moment in which the mourning commemorate the deceased, the dead. The Eulogy is meant to honor the subject as they were not as they are, to provide a consolation by speaking through memory rather than by displaying through sight. But: what occurs when the Eulogy attempts not merely to call forth the essence, when it instead attempts to alter it—disfigure it— so as to create or reinforce an image of the speaker or of someone else in the room so as to abuse the act of mourning, the receptivity of the listeners. These eulogies and elegies of sorts, specifically Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Letter 45 and Lord Byron’s “The Giaour”, both operate under this principle of abusing the nature of the Eulogy so as to create a propaganda of sorts.

Looking at Lady Mary’s letter 45 there is this pattern of looking at the text, whether it be Homer’s Iliad or a set of ruins, but she looks upon these texts and enters into a moment where she breathes life into it saying: “Not many leagues sail from hence, I saw the point of land where poor old Hecuba was buried, and about a league from that place is Cape Janizary, the famous promontory of Sigæum, where we anchored. My curiosity supplied me with strength to climb to the top of it, to see the place where Achilles was buried, and where Alexander ran naked round his tomb in his honour, which no doubt was a great comfort to his ghost.” This is said and done wholeheartedly, and it seems that (as will be shown) Lady Mary is less aware of what she is doing in comparison to Lord Byron. What she does is admire, but it is her mean sensibilities which then prompt her to say things such as “would not be large enough to hold it. The ruins of this great city are now inhabited by poor Greek peasants who wear the Sciote habit”. I wish more to focus on Byron, however, because the nature of his writing is more starkly ideological and makes Lady Mary’s somewhat abrasive statements seem more due to her own racist tendencies rather than any self-aware ideology.
Consider the fragment of the Turkish tale, the Advertisement, the first stanza, lines 50-68, and 145-156. To begin with the epigraph from the Turkish tale recognizes that this act of sorrowful mourning in a form of Eulogy is meant to overshadow the reality of life, it is one sorrow which is being cast making it incapable for life to cast any thing which is “darker or brighter” but more importantly it is the fact that this is prefacing the text to come along with the advertisement of Byron which mentions a young Venetian lover and his avenging the death of his love, a narrative of the West bringing vengeance for an “other” which it has absorbed into itselfby means of love, or possible infatuation. These are the most damning parts of the text, thus far, because they are epitextual elements which are blatantly saying that the purpose of the following text is to avenge. We are then allowed to look and criticisize how it is that the vengeance is conducted. Looking at lines 50-68 Byron uses and abuses the cultural significance of biblical allusion by arousing an alternate story in which the hellish angels were the victors in their uprising, in which a world is full of destruction, and from this he moves into talking about Greece and how it no longer is, making it seem as though Greece is the parallel to heaven from his alternate story. It has been inherited by “slaves—nay the bondsmen of a slave, /And callous, save to crime; / Stalin’s with each evil that pollutes/ Mankind, where least above the brutes;/ Without even savage virtue blest,/ Without one free or valiant breast.” (Lines 151-157) and it is this construct which attempts to rewrite his readers conception of the Greeks, by placing it inline with the empire’s dominant ideology of religion. By writing over what it was with his fantasy he is reclaiming and claiming, ideologically, the land of Greeks as being the empire’s ancestral lands, so as to suggest that they are rightfully there’s to avenge, to take, and to cast in a light of despair.

Of course this is not to suggest that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu does not participate in the same action, but I do believe that talking into account the sheer amount of clear signals that Lord Byron laced throughout his text, he all the more guilty by merit of his own self-awareness.

Lady Mary and Lord Byron looking at Greece from Different Points of View

Lord Byron is famous for his poetry and is also considered one paradigm of the Hellenism. In the Giaour, he is recounting the story of a woman slave who was found guilty of adultery and thrown into the sea. However, he does this in a very poetic way. In his verses, we can found beauty, nature, and death, which are elements used in the Hellenic period. At times, it is difficult to comprehend Lord Byron’s words; however, he is very delicate in selecting the right words to narrate this oriental romance. After reading Lady Mary’s letter and this marvelous poem, I observed that both of them have notion of the Greek history. For example, Lady Mary cites Homer several times, as she says, “While I viewed these celebrated fields and rivers, I admired the exact geography of Homer, whom I had in my hand” (Montagu, p.185). She is admiring all the beauty of ancient Greece and narrates about its people, the ruins that were once a great empire, and also narrates some of its romantic stories, which is very similar to what Lord Byron does in his poem.

However, they have different point of view about the city of Greece and its people. In one hand Lady Mary recognizes the history and culture behind those ruins and appreciates being there, but she would like to know the ancient Greece in all its glory. As she says, “…that ‘tis impossible to image anything more agreeable than this journey would have been between two and three thousand years since, when after drinking a dish of tea with Sappho, I might have gone the same evening to visit the temple of Homer in Chios, and have passed this voyage in taking plans of magnificent temples,” (Montagu, p. 190). The great empire of Troy is now in ruins and the people that now live there are neither rich, powerful, or gallants as they used to be thousands of years ago, which is ironic because those places used to be alive and now they are almost death. On the other hand, Lord Byron is poetically recounting the story of this female slave who die for love, but leaves hope for her sons as Byron narrates,

“And leave his sons a hope,

They too will rather die than shame;

For Freedom’s battle once begun” (Lord Byron, lines 121-123).

By reading these lines, I observe how he is referring to the future, which can be the modern Greece, and he might prefer the Greece in the modern era than the ancient Greece. The future Greece that Byron is describing has faith and believes in freedom. There will be no slaves to be killed because they fall in love. Therefore, I can say that this poet values more the Greek people and the history of them; while, Lady Mary is focusing more in the history and would have liked to meet those heroic characters, such as Homer, to increase her historical knowledge. Moreover, by looking at lines 68-102, we can find a symbol or a representation, which brings together the past and present Greece. As Lord Byron writes, “A man looks upon a day-old female corpse: Greece! her past inspires, but her present is without soul.” the word “her” can represent Greece, but also the female slave. It says that her past may motive many people to continue learning about the Greek history; however, her present, which  can symbolize the modern Greece, is in ruins-without live. These lines really got my attention because in them we can put together the different perspectives that Lady Mary and Lord Byron have about the city of Greece. In conclusion, these intelligent writers differ in their perspective of seeing Greece and its people; however, both have notion of the history and know how to narrate it in a very elegant way.

Lord Byron a nostalgic aristocrat

Lord Byron and Lady Mary both share an interest in the beauty of ancient Greece through a poetic lens. Lady Mary takes the time to explain on her letters how she is disappointed about these beautiful castles in Greece are destroyed and how now these places are being invaded by peasants. She explains all these little details still present in the ruins and how she can only imagine it was in the Hellenic time when everything was beautiful and prosper. She was excited to see a replica of a stone in Achilles tomb, she was also happy about walking around the valley where troy used to run, even though, this places didn’t look the way they were supposed to look anymore. She notices the beauty in the architecture but she also couldn’t stop noticing people in this places. She says “ the ruins of this great city are now by poor Greek who wear the Site habit..”(184). She couldn’t stop thinking how this places full of heroes and power used to live in these type of castle and now there are a lot of peasants there. Because of the tone perceived by the letters, It doesn’t seem to me that she thought these type of people deserved to be in the castles or that they are also the reason why the ruins are the way they are and not better preserved. Since she seems to know about the greek history, she takes some time to give us an idea of how different things were on the Hellenic time. Lord Byron on the other hand, shows to have very little knowledge of Ancient Greece in his poetry. He says, “these Edens  of the eastern waves… the blue crystals of the sea.. The blossom of the trees”(15-20). He is showing the appreciation of the Hellenic past and presents it as if it is still that way. Even though Lady Mary and Lord Byron see people with a similar point of view, they do differ in their opinions. Lord Byron  give us this picture “thy sons to deeds sublime; no crawl from cradle to the grave” (149-150) to me, it seems like he doesn’t give importance to the people, although, he notice them. He is not bothered by the type of people around the beautiful architecture. He does recognize that there is a difference between this people and Ancient Hellenic people but comes back to the point that the are just people and that they are somehow related to the ancient Greece.

The Beauty of Greece, ‘the greatest city’

Lord Byron lived in an era of aristocracy- this is evident in his poetic personification of a ‘feminine Greece’ in his piece, The Giaour. The Anglo-Scottish poet presents a romantic paradox found through his words and in the imagery that is experienced by readers of the story that unfolds on the beautiful land that it is told on. In the early beginnings of his piece, Lord Byron writes of a flirty, feminine character that is the ocean.

“There mildly dimpling – Oceans’s cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave;”
(The Giaour, lines 12-15)

Despite the romantic notion that is experienced with the image of a smiling, flirty woman that comes to ones’ mind, there is a feeling of irony as well. It is ironic that he sings of beauty of and the grace of the ocean when he continues on to represent the land of Greece as facing such innate evil. Destruction and evil are concurrently witnessed in the represented domain that is spoken of with so vehemently a passion. Lord Byron’s representation of Greece is one like a coin – a quarter for example: heads and tails. Heads, a side blinded by beauty, and tails, a side aware of ruins.

Lady Mary also digests the geography of Greece with romantic poetry. She is quick to express her evident disappoint in the city that she repeatedly calls “the great city.” However, with every insult, she finds a piece of history to admire through the stories that surround the sight to further express her frustrations with the once beautiful land. “All that is now left of Troy is the ground on which it stood, for I am firmly persuaded whatever pieces of antiquity may be found round it, are much more modern.” (Kindle Location 3145-3147). This piece of evidence is one that exhibits Lady Mary’s disappointment in “the great city.” Her discontentment is further experienced when she writes phrases such as, “While I viewed these celebrated fields and rivers, I admired the exact geography of Homer, whom I had in my hand.” (Kindle Location 3152-3153). The irony of this statement is that she was not even referring to the actual location she was viewing, she referred back to a pamphlet that was grasped in her hand. Her remark of admiration was positively snide. She presents a paradox through her well written words with the images that are painted. Her words leave her audience with an interpretation of their own. So upon viewing the vivid painting of James “Athenian” Stuart, we are left with disappointment caused by one reason or another.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley (2012-09-20). The Turkish Embassy Letters (Kindle Locations 3145-3147, 3142-3153). Broadview Press. Kindle Edition.

greek hellenism

Both Lord Byron and Lady Mary admire the Hellenist past of Greece, but the way in which each one talks about it differs due to the fact that they are writing in different form. Lady Mary writes her letters as a journal and therefore each letter caters to the perspectives of the person she addresses in an intellectual manner. But, this changes because Greek hellenism fits the societal and class standard Lady Mary pursues and therefore offers no critique, but simply admiration. For instance, she notes that “Not many leagues sail from hence, I saw the point of land where poor old Hecuba was buried and about a league from that place is Cape Janizary, the famous promontory of Sigaeum, where he anchored (Lady Mary 182). Here, Lady Mary’s tone is that of astonishment like “I can’t believe that I am here where Hecuba was married and that I am seeing it with my own eyes”. She writes with the intention of engaging in an conversation, while Lord Byron’s writing engages the reader aesthetically. Thus, Lady Mary approaches Hellenism as an outsider that admires its beauty, while Lord Byron embraces the beauty. For instance, in line 103 to line 107 Lord Byron states that “Clime of the unforgotten brave!-/ Whose land from plain to mountain-cave/ Was Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave-/ Shrine of the mighty! can it be,/ That this is all remains of thee?” (Lord Byron). Using words such as “unforgotten brave”, “Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave” and “Shrine of the mighty”, Byron engages in greatness of Ancient Greece as if he too took part in that greatness. He is not writing to a specific person, but is writing a story through an epic poem that would engage certain people with a high class and educational status. He is engaging Furthermore, his admiration transcends to something more than appreciation.

Lady Mary vs. Lord Byron

Both Lady Mary Wortly Montagu’s 45^th letter and Lord Byron’s The Giaour offer a nostalgic portrayal of Greece. In the beginning of The Giaour, Byron gives a female personification of Greece – a female personification that has been killed through a loss of culture. Byron romanticizes the “corpse” of Greece, saying in lines 92-96:

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start – for soul is wanting there.

Hers is the lovliness in death

That parts not quite with parting breath;

But beauty with that fearful bloom,

That hue which haunts it to the tomb

Lady Mary offers portrayals of a version of Greece which has lost its culture as well. In her 45^th letter, she writes “Alas! Art is extinct here” (190). This parallels with Byron’s assertion that “soul is wanting there”; clearly, Greece has lost its flaire. The Greece that was formerly known for art, innovation, and philosophy is gone. What is primarily different about Lady Mary’s and Byron’s descriptions is the fact that Lady Mary mostly uses prose, while Byron uses epic poetry. Lady Mary is much more straightforward and simply describes what she sees, and she sees a mediocre version of Greece that has lost its culture and its soul. Her response to what she sees is much more ethnographic, while Byron’s response is more emotional.  Byron sees the same things as Lady Mary, but uses poetry to romanticize what he sees. He emphasizes the beauty of Greece’s corpse, offering a stronger sense of nostalgia for what once was. His description provides significantly more imagery and invokes a stronger sense of emotion, showing Greece as more than just a ruined country that has lost its luster, but a beautiful female which was violated and killed in her loss of culture. Through personification, Byron shows that Greece’s dead body is still a beautiful sight, but the soul has departed from the body.

Ancient Greece: Putting it on a Pedestal (or high up on a Greek Column)

Both Lady Mary and Lord Byron are effected by the idea of Hellenism (which in class notes is described as, “a cultural movement in decorative art and the visual arts, merginh after the European Renaissance,”). This idea though is more than just a generic term that supports a love of the ancient Greek culture. It is this idea, that ancient Greece holds a sway for these authors and artists. The ancient Greek society, its architecture, its heroes, its literature, and the culture itself is put on a pedestal. As if this culture is somehow considered more ideal than the cultures that now exist. Both Lady Mary and Lord Byron (and others that ascribe to Hellenism) have this romanticized idea about ancient Greece which is at odds with what is left behind.

Lady Mary follows the land marks that Homer leaves and believes she is standing on the ground which Troy once stood, “All that is now left of Troy is the ground on which it stood. … However there is some pleasure in seeing the valley where I imaged the famous duel of Menelaus and Paris had fought, and where the greatest city in the world was situate…” (185). Lady Mary is effected by the Majesty of the idea of troy, she calls it “the greatest city in the world,” and yet what of the modern cities she has seen and lived on both sides of the world. Or later in letter 45 where she wishes to  view Arcadia and, “other scenes of ancient mythology,” but, “… instead of demigods and heroes, I was credibly ’tis now overrun by robbers,” (189). So this highlights the idea of Lady Mary setting ancient Greece on this high pedestal and the disillusionment that follows when she sees what is left. Still though, she is able to feel pleasure at just seeing these ancient sites.

Lord Byron’s, “The Giaour” at least the first 167 lines has a similar idea. “‘Tis Greece but living Greece no more!/ So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,/ We start, for Soul is wanting there./ hers is the loveliness in death,/” (91-94), speaks of this idea that  even though ancient Greece is long gone what is left still speaks to those willing to listen. So Byron too, buts the ancient Greece culture on this pedestal. Before this he writes, “The last of Danger and Distress,/ (Before Decay’s effacing fingers/ Have sweet the lines where Beauty lingers,)/” (71-73). “Decay’s effacing fingers” implies that this decay is a bad thing and the lines go on to imply that there is still a beauty there, simply because this is where ancient Greece once stood.

So while Byron is maybe a little more forgiving as to what is left, both Lady Mary and Lord Byron have this Hellenistic idea that ancient Greece is this admirable culture that should be cherished. It is certainly at odds at what is left, Lady Mary specifically laments this difference is related by the “natives” and how they treat temples and ancient ruins. What is it that Greece offers that many would honor the little that is left? I think, that the idea of heroes and great sweeping battles and this idea of these honorable people is appealing to writers who take the majesty of a world lost and try to reconcile that with what little is left for the scholars to admire.

 

 

 

Glory of a land versus its population

Both Lady Mary and Lord Byron see Greece as a land that was once great but now slumbers in mediocrity. However, the point where their opinions differ is on the (then) current population of Greece. For Lady Mary, the current residents of Greece are worthless and contribute nothing to the greatness of the state. Lady Mary prefers the ancient Greece to the present Greece, which is evident in her forty-fifth letter, where she writes: “I am running on to the very siege of Candia, and I am so angry with myself that I will pass by all the other islands with this general reflection, that ’tis impossible to imagine anything more agreeable that this journey would have been between two and three thousand years since, when after drinking a dish of tea with Sappho, I might have gone the same evening to visit the temple of Homer in Chios, and have passed this voyage in taking plans of magnificent temples, delineating the miracles of statuaries, and conversing with the most polite and most gay of humankind. Alas! Art is extinct here.” (Montagu, 189-190)

In this example we can see how Lady Mary venerates ancient Greece and its culture. Most notably, she imagines herself conversing and interacting with the people of this time period, which she could not imagine herself doing with the (then) current population. Another issue to note is Lady Mary’s declaration at the end of this passage. By claiming that “Art is extinct here,” Lady Mary is quite pointedly stating that she does not believe that the (then) current population could create anything as valuable as those from ancient Greece.

On the other hand, Lord Byron actually has hope for the (then) current population of Greece. In lines 103-141 of his epic poem The Giaour, Lord Byron calls on the (then) current population of Greece to try to attain the former glory of the land. As it is written in the poem:

“These scenes – their story not unknown-/Arise, and make again your own;/Snatch from the ashes of your sires/The embers of their former fires (The Giaour, lines 114-117).

From this we can see that Lord Byron is attempting to inspire the (then) current population of Greece to try to attain its former glory. In this sense, these lines show much more faith in the people than Lady Mary’s description. However, one of the major differences between these two ideas of the population is the position that the author has taken regarding them. For Lord Byron, his history in fighting in the war of Greek independence gave him a respect for the people he was fighting for. For Lady Mary, who only sees them as tenants of a glorious land, the (then) current population of Greece has no value. In conclusion, the difference between these writer’s views of Greece is how they see the people.