Abstract:

Vathek treats the despotic rule of caliph Al-Wathik (842-847), the ninth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, and by extension, depicts Islamic caliphate and culture as decadent. For Beckford, though exotically absorbing, eastern paradigm has its sinister aura: under despotic, necromantic, and sly rulers, ‘good’ Muslims are no more than an insipid mass. And this submissive cultural character of the East is shown as the ‘other’ of the West. Contrary to conventional English gothicists who praise in their works the Protestant moral code against ‘decadent’ Catholicism, Beckford, due to his acquaintance with European languages and cultures, assumes multicultural tone and style: through a contrastive portrayal of caliph Vathek as the wrathful, proud, greedy, slothful, lustful, envious, and gluttonous ruler of the lands of Islam, he creates the doppelgänger of the idealized enlightenment individual. Yet, this socio-cultural and psychological schematising influenced the first and the second generations of romantic poets, who, by orientalising the Orient like Beckford, further contributed to the distorted image of Islam, Muslims, and the East.

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