The Turkish Spy Letters written by Defoe as a fictitious collection would have been even more confusing for his contemporaries than they are today, which is hard to imagine. As fiction was a brand new concept, I imagine readers would not know what to make of it. A few decades after Defoe wrote these pieces, Johnson commenting on fiction still did not have an established word to describe the genre. He was often left describing it as comedy of romance, since people would not relate to the word fiction. It does not help that Defoe was very successful at impersonating a Muslim. His tactics include venerating the humble practices of Islam while then criticizing the extravagances of Christianity. This would have caused a stir for European readers, who probably believed the only person who would so boldly criticize Christianity must be a Muslim. They had already been bombarded for centuries with writings such as Mandeville, who claimed people from the East were extravagantly different from Europeans. With this in mind, a criticism was actually long overdue. In my confusion upon first reading the letters, I was almost relieved that there was finally a counterargument to the Orientalism or anti-East sentiments. Although it was a bit harsh, I thought it quite accurate. So what does it mean that the letters are actually a fiction by Defoe? The options seem to be that he wanted to cause more anti-Islam sentiments or that he wanted to criticize Christianity from a safe distance. Considering his religious curiosity, and how well thought out his criticism is, I believe his statements carry some validity. For instance, he brings up the question of Good Friday. Christians do not even know if they are celebrating or mourning, fasting or feasting, and nobody could answer the question. This is a valid point that should really be considered, so I do not believe Defoe would have thought of it just to impersonate a Muslim for the sake of causing anti-Islamic sentiments. He also calls attention to the gluttony of Christmas. To honor their prophet, the son of God, Christians drink to excess and give way to vice. He claims that Jesus would be as mad as the day he destroyed the Church because it was too interested in money. These criticisms are fair, and probably needed to be said, but it is safer to say them through the layers of fiction as well as religious separation. Defoe increases his credibility by Praising Islamic practices, such as the soulful and spiritual connection to Alla, and also by claiming the Jews are wasting their time rejecting Jesus. He writes that the Oral Law might have been perfect when presented by Moses, but anyone trying to recreate or find evidence would only be damaging the Law, since the writing would not be perfect. However, he then claims that France is free from religious injustice, which adds conflict to his other anti European sentiments. I believe that is where he makes an error in convincing audiences.
I agree with most of what you're saying, except the part about France being free from religious intolerance damaging his credibility. I'm a huge advocate for the argument of sarcasm, and in this case this seems to have a vain of sarcasm in the statement. By making a point that Christians in France are paragons of faith actually puts up a beacon to suggest the opposite, especially if he has made so many previous comments about the fallibility of the Church in other Christian European countries. Overall I think it maintains his credibility, however to the reader at the time who was struggling to understand the concept of fiction, I'm not sure that it would have aided his case for successfully critiquing Christianity, but the glorification of France would allow his book to be marketable to the majority of the common French reader, probably mostly upper classes that would be invested in the Church. Those who got the joke understood Defoe's message more clearly, and those that didn't got an enjoyable read and wouldn't try to get the book to be blacklisted.
In reading, The Turkish Spy, I was fooled by Defoe’s satirical fiction writing. I didn't understand at first that Defoe had just “continued” on previous letters and wrote as if he was a Muslim reflecting on the practices of France from that perspective. I did see discrepancies in the Muslim façade written by Defoe. While very different from the “barbarian” and “grotesque” portrayal of towards Egyptians in the travelogue by Flaubert, Defoe portrays his Muslim persona as an individual of sophistication- who is well studied and read in multiple religions. This is seen in how in letter II to Hassan Ebio Mirza Zebir, Great Muffty or High-Priest of Mahomet, he recounts the history of Christian religion and how it is similar to that of the teachings of Muhammad. However, he cannot be viewed as an objective writer and he goes on to criticize the “Infidels” (Christians) on the “Pageantry” of their devotion and how it was become corrupted and altered through the religion’s history of prosecution and practice over the generations. He calls the Christian religion “one of the greatest pieces of confusion and Buffoonery on Earth.” However, it is not just the Christian religion he comments on, rather he points his finger at Jews who, as he believes, are hypocritical in how they call out for Jesus Christ when they are in times of trouble when they don’t even recognize Jesus as the son of God or even a prophet but as an “impostor.” These criticisms were of interest to me, as a reader because I saw how Defoe pointed out the faults of “Western” religions and perspectives instead of the continuous attack on “Eastern” practices. I thought this was different than the two stark contrasts that we have seen Muslims portrayed as- both uncivilized and uneducated, or from Lady Mary Montagu, as overly advanced and spectacular. While many of his letters address what he sees is hypocritical in the Christian and Jewish faith, Defoe also does not hesitate to satirize “his own” (while he pretends to be a Muslim). In reading Professor Akman’s essay, A Turk’s Encounter with Defoe, I liked how he mentioned that “every individual is capable of learning about religion and nature oneself, free from traditional dogma.” What I gathered from that was that in order to truly understand other people’s religions, one must put aside what they have known and been taught previously. This being said, Defoe’s portrayal of a Muslim satirizing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religion itself, is not a true account of Muslim perspectives as can be expected from a fictitious piece. I saw this point extended in the fact that Muslims were not all horrible to people of other religions- but actually rescued Jews during the Inquisition in Spain, and allowed Christian churches to stand during the conquest of Constantinople. Muslims were not trying to rid the world of other religions, unlike the expansion of the “West” who saw it in their best interest and mission to convert and over power any religion that differed from their own.
I found Defoe to be quite the interesting author to be writing about the Turks. As it said in the article written by Akman, he is widely considered the father of the Western novel and he is best known for the story of Robinson Crusoe which is widely canonized. His extrapolations on the Muslim societies written as fictitious letters from the perspective of a Turkish spy masquerading as a Western monastic Christian is quite a ways away from something as canonized as Robinson Crusoe. This alone was surprising enough, but as I read these letters, I noticed his generally positive portrayals of Arabs, Turks, and Muslims. This seems like it would be surprising from an Englishman. I also found it quite interesting how much he criticizes the other religions. He is quite adamantly against Jews and Christians, or is at least trying to get his friends of other faiths to convert. Besides the overbearing sense of attempting to change the minds of the recipients of these letters, we can also see how the masses are rebelling against the Christian church with the poem placed upon the door on Good Friday. He also describes the wraths of nature that he is aware of with a special emphasis on the earthquake in Jamaica. His content is just as interesting as his style. It is a very unique aspect that he utilizes capitalization the way he does. He draws a poignant focus to certain words by capitalizing the first letter. It seemed to exemplify some of his sentiments more clearly. Overall I found the article and the fictitious letters to be a more enjoyable read than the exaggeratively bad reports of Flaubert and the flouty and somewhat accurate representations given by Montagu. Defoe manages to strike a balance between fluffy writing about other cultures and as objective as he could be representations of cultures and beliefs of others. His critiques of his own society seem to ring very clear. He wants change in very specific areas, such as the representation of Muslims and the concision of Christian church affairs. It feels as if he is resonating the words of Martin Luther for a good deal of this text.
It's also a bit strange to see an Englishman praising the French.
I don't think that his negative portrayals of Judaism and Christianity are meant as a call to conversion, or even a decrying of the religions themselves. The choice to place the piece's voice in the hands of a fictional Turkish spy changes the tone of the work as a whole. Had a westerner presented the same views that the spy does with regards to both religion and the standing of Arabs/Turks, the message would have been very strongly anti-western. By using a Muslim character, Defoe is able to present Christianity and Judaism through the eyes of an outsider, one who believes just as strongly in his own religion as the depicted Europeans believe in their own. Defoe's letters are less confrontational than they are thought-provoking. They present a view of a very rational member of an oft slandered race who calls out Europeans on basically the same things Europeans berate the Muslim world for, just with an inverted metric of judgment. While I doubt that Defoe was actually as anti-European as his Turkish spy, he could definitely see both flaws in the western system and beauty in the Muslim world. Generally, I saw the letters less as anti-European or anti-Christian but more as an early call against Orientalism.
The idea put forth in the article “Turk’s Encounter with DeFoe” of the ‘revenge of the poet on the page’ is not necessarily a personal attack on the name Bayezid, nor does it seem to be a concept aimed exclusively against the Ottoman Empire. The issue at hand is the representation of Turkish people in Western literature. Unfortunately, negative stereotypes and flagrantly untrue and unfair portrayals in the vast body of literary works before and after the publication of DeFoe’s Turkish Spy was not aimed exclusively at the Turkish. In fact, it wasn’t even necessarily aimed at real people of Turkish origin—the stereotypes and unflattering depictions were as applicable to actual Turks as the contemporary essentialist representations of the mystical ‘Arabland’-Orient were to actual Egyptians and Arabians. As much as I love Shakespeare, there’s no denying his work, too, was rife with the Anti-Semitism and Orientalist sentiment prominent in England at the time.
That being said, the portrayal of Mahmut was a revolutionary, progressive view of the accomplishments of both the Ottoman Empire, and the scientists, artists, and theorists of Islam. Mahmut is indeed represented as an educated, fashionable Turk; the objects on his desk represent the scientific, economic, and military gains made by the Empires of Islam throughout the dark ages of Europe. He defies the orientalist expectation of how Turkish men looked and acted. DeFoe’s work was psychologically complex for its time and for the format; but as a writer, DeFoe was a proven prolific satirist and social commentator. That he chose to take on Western Europe’s conception of the Turkish people is an admirable accomplishment—but the result should not be surprising, considering the author himself.
More surprising than DeFoe’s favorable depiction of the Turkish spy, was the fact that I had never heard of the work. It’s difficult to make it through high school English without at least hearing about Robinson Crusoe, but this groundbreaking work never quite made the same popular splash. I suppose, considering the substantial denial and ignorance of Eastern advances and accomplishments, the fact that this work did not define DeFoe should not come as a surprise.
The simple foundation of The Turkish Spy serves as a breath of fresh air for this class. The idea an individual negatively addressing his own culture, bridges a gap that has remained untouched all semester. We are accustom to studying writers such as Mandeville, who are self serving in their orientalist nature. Conversely, The Turkish Spy gives us insight into the the Christian Western culture from an entirely different, internal perspective. For instance, Defoe brings up strong valid criticisms such as the hypocrisy of Christmas, and the confusion surrounding Good Friday. Christians celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, with mass gluttony. They excessively eat and drink, and in our modern culture, we provide children and relatives with excessive, unnecessary gifts. These are all the exact opposite teachings of Jesus Christ, who stood for the poor. It comes directly from the bible that the poor shall inherit the earth. Additionally, Defoe speaks to Good Friday and its surrounding confusion, saying that Christians them selves do not even know if they are morning or celebrating, fasting or feasting. To have a Christian make these statements gives them weight. It gives us a true look into the society of the time, for history is generally written in favor of the white man.
I agree that it is very interesting to see someone from the so-called "West" launching the sort of criticisms of Christianity that populate Defoe's work. Certainly there is a great deal of ironic humor to his account -- as someone living in a Christian nation, he noted that there was no clear consensus on when, exactly, Jesus was born, and notes that the Alchoran has a truer and more accurate account of the life of the Christian's central prophet. These sort of jibes are definitely different when they come from a Christian rather than a Muslim or anyone else, but I don't know that it necessarily gives a "true look into the society of the time" any more than another text might. I think Defoe is bringing up a lot of valid points, and that his perspective and reflections on Christian culture are valid and worth consideration, but also that he brings just as much bias to the table as any other given source. Any claim a source makes needs to be evaluated, and while a lot of Defoe's claims may have a lot of factual evidence to back them up, I disagree that his statements have more "weight" simply by the merit of him being Christian.
I agree with what you're saying about the insight that Defoe provides about the corruption of Catholicism and the Catholic church, but I would be careful when making the claim that Mandeville is more self-serving than Defoe. Both are self-serving despite their differing opinions, and I think Defoe's work seems as if it's less self-serving because much of what he writes about Islam is positive and accurate. Like Dr. Akman said in class, Defoe uses accurate, positive portrayals of Islam as a means to an end and furthermore chooses to write his novel through the lens of a "Turkish spy" simply as a vice that essentially allows him to criticize Catholicism without the risk of persecution.
For me, the most fascinating aspect of the Continuation of Turkish Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy is the dimensionality of its authorship. Daniel Defoe, an English Christian Deist, is writing from the standpoint of a Turkish spy, a character who himself is posing as an Eastern European priest. If you approach this idea from a lens of religiosity, it is quite obvious to see the practicality in the multidimensional writing; Defoe is free to scrutinize the Catholic Church and not be fearful of the ramifications while he was abroad (he most likely did not have to worry about persecution from the Catholic Church in England because it had been a Protestant nation for close to 180 years at the time of publication). Furthermore, it allowed him to freely explore the ideas of Christian Deism and not be labelled as a heretic in his own church. Running deeper than religion however, is the transcendence of cultural boundaries in the text. As it was with religion, the layers of Turkish Letters create enough separation to where Defoe can introspectively evaluate the life and culture of a Western European. One thing I noted about Mahmut and the cultural context of Defoe’s writings is that it concerns itself with the displaced, or those that are perhaps on the fringe of their respective cultures. Mahmut is disguised as a Moldavian priest who has been granted asylum in Western Europe; in this example, the “priest” is displaced from his home country, most likely to avoid Ottoman rule (though the Ottomans were not in fact heavy-handed in their rule to the point that asylum was prudent, as Defoe would suggest). What’s more, Mahmut himself is a displaced figure, as he is an observant Muslim among a court of Christians. I don’t think it would be a stretch to attribute this theme of displacement and outsider perspective to Defoe’s own personal views as a religious and political dissenter.
I really enjoyed your post, it's always been interesting to me how authors can write something and have little parts of who they are leak through. I honestly think it's quite phenomenal that a person of his time period not only had controversial views, but somehow managed to find a means of expressing them in a way that wouldn't land him in jail. Upon further reading up on him, it becomes clear to me that he took a number of precautions - he used at least 198 pen names over the course of his writing career. I actually think he may have learned a thing or two from his experience in prison during the year of 1703. He had published his satirical criticism of the church anonymously, but that wasn't a big enough precaution to keep him from getting arrested, because they soon found out it was him who wrote it. Given that his continuation of Turkish Letters was published in 1718, I would venture to say that he may have taken greater precautions as a result of his previous incarceration.
I certainly agree that the dimensionality of Defoe’s authorship makes the letters particularly interesting and dynamic, especially as a student of literature. The authorial walls that Defoe puts up make the analysis of his letters much more intricate. That being said, while I still agree that Defoe’s writing is a nice change of pace from the ethnocentric works of Flaubert and Mandeville, is it too far for Defoe to so harshly criticize his own culture and people from behind closed doors? I’m not asking Defoe to be a martyr and die for his beliefs, but if he truly stands behind what he writes, should he not be willing to own up to his words, and even be proud of them? Perhaps I’m being too critical, and I’m not entirely sure how large of an issue this was during Defoe’s time, but I feel as though writing as impactful and opinionated as these letters loses some legitimacy without his face attached to it.
Thanks for sharing this insight Kevin! I hadn’t thought about the text too much in this light before, so I would like to expand upon your thoughts. Your idea of displacement honestly stood out the most to me. You stated very clearly how Mahmut must have felt displaced, which never crossed my mind previously. While reading the text I couldn’t get the idea of “spying” out of my head, so I read the whole story actually through that lens. But when one peels back the layers, it is almost easy to see how discouraged and perhaps sad Mahmut feels.
This “new” place he is in troubles him very much. He does believe that the core ideas of the Catholic Church are noble and pure, but he hates the way it has been corrupted by the people running the Church. One moment that honestly made me chuckle a little was when Mahmut described Christmas. Christmas is supposed to be a time to worship Jesus. However, Catholics first off don’t even know what day he was really born, and, just to put the icing on the Christmas cookie, all they do is eat, drink, and be downright gluttonous! Mahmut is so annoyed how this “holiday” has been twisted.
Yet, doesn’t this sound familiar? A plethora of people don’t even want the word “Christmas” to be in the phrase “Christmas tree.” Now, it is a “Holiday tree.” Many want to, “keep the Christ in Christmas” and don’t like what’s happening to their sacred holidays. I wonder how many feel “displaced” today as well.
This whole idea of “displacement” simply has my head rolling. Why did Defoe feel displaced? He himself was not Catholic (since England no longer was a Catholic nation), but he had very strong feelings about the Church in general. What made him this way? The only think I can think of is that when he traveled he witnessed many grievances that caused him anguish. But still. Will we ever know for sure?
Again, thanks for bringing up this point Kevin! It truly made me see the text in a different light.
Yeah what a great post! Defoe certainly has a "safe voice" to use no matter who he criticizes. I guess we would have to crack open a biography on Defoe to really answer whether he himself felt displaced in his own country or he was using the layered identity of Mahmut, as Zoraida may have done.
I want to explore the idea of The Turkish Spy being considered a reverse Orientalist text. If Orientalism is the theory of how the West comes to know the East, then reverse Orientalism would be how the East comes to know the West. When one creates something, as the West originally did the East through Orientalism, they create all aspect of said thing- the culture, the religion, everything. Writers such as Mandeville and Chaucer did exactly that in their exaggerated accounts of a "created other". The reason why Defoe's work doesn't meet the qualifications for being considered reverse Orientalism is because Defoe doesn't write for the sake of creating an "other" through describing both the religious and cultural practices of those unknown to the rest of the world, no, Defoe writes because he is critical of the religious practices that surround him. Defoe is so critical that he even feels he must write in three layers in order to feel protected enough to freely express his opinions. This three-layered mask appears in the form of Defoe writing from the perspective of a Muslim Turkish spy, who in turn is supposedly disguised as a Christian monk. Granted, this theme of hiding behind others can be seen in The Book of John Mandeville, who claims the accounts of others as his own. However, what makes Defoe different is that his voice is his own, and the fact that he criticizes the religion people in the East practice, where he himself is from, makes him a pioneer in his own right. Instead of presenting a distorted view based on personal biases, Defoe bravely points out valid flaws in the Catholic religion, flaws it's own practitioners still see today. That is why The Turkish Spy cannot be considered reverse Orientalism- it's content caused it's reader to question what they thought they were sure of in a positive light- it caused Eastern Catholics who once partook in the practice of perpetuating Orientalism to question their right to do so- based on the fact that their religious beliefs weren't perfect either.
I have always thought of Robinson Crusoe as a stand-alone novel, not influenced by other works. Now after reading both Akman’s article about Defoe and Defoe’s “Turkish Spy” I have a newfound respect for Defoe because of how knowledgeable he actually is. I never associated Defoe with having knowledge about things outside of the British Empire. The Turkish Spy clearly involved a lot of knowledge about Islam in order for Defoe to pull off portraying a Muslim who is disguised as a Catholic monk.
Defoe always seems to utilize his characters to not only tell a story, but to provide social commentary in a subtle (as in Robinson Crusoe) or disguised (literally in Turkish Spy) way. Defoe seemed to be taking advantage of the Turkish spy letter-writing genre that was very popular at the time by using it as a vehicle to convey his criticisms about the rituals of Catholicism. In Letter XIV, he accuses the Catholics of idolatry for worshipping the popes or sovereign pontiffs “who have introduced so many oral traditions in the worship of their prophet, that they have very few of his first institutions left among them”. Calling the pope’s authority a “pretend authority” is a really socially risky move as a writer in the Christian west, hence his façade of Mahmut . What I find to be somewhat problematic here is how the western public might respond to a Muslim criticizing rituals of western Christianity. Is it because a Muslim, rather than a Christian, says these things that they do not mean as much to them, or that it is okay? Would they take Mahmut seriously because he was depicted as scholarly? Granted, I do understand that Ottomanism is primarily consistent with positive views of the Ottomans and the east, but I wonder to what extent the Ottomans were respected if a Turk is used as a disguise because a Christian man does not want to make these critiques and put his own head on the line. It seems almost like a public sacrifice in a way by making the outsider say these controversial things and risking the public hating Turkish outsiders for it.
Perhaps it is the way in which Defoe makes Mahmut such an interesting, scholarly, and reliable character that the public would actually consider what he is saying. Having a foreign scholar give an outsiders viewpoint probably resonated better for the public than if Defoe were to have just made these criticisms himself and signed his name to them. Although Defoe did a fantastic job depicting Mahmut very accurately and respectfully, I wonder what Defoe’s impact and outcome would have been if he had not hid behind his character when making controversial commentary.
The Turkish Spy Letters written by Defoe as a fictitious collection would have been even more confusing for his contemporaries than they are today, which is hard to imagine. As fiction was a brand new concept, I imagine readers would not know what to make of it. A few decades after Defoe wrote these pieces, Johnson commenting on fiction still did not have an established word to describe the genre. He was often left describing it as comedy of romance, since people would not relate to the word fiction. It does not help that Defoe was very successful at impersonating a Muslim. His tactics include venerating the humble practices of Islam while then criticizing the extravagances of Christianity. This would have caused a stir for European readers, who probably believed the only person who would so boldly criticize Christianity must be a Muslim. They had already been bombarded for centuries with writings such as Mandeville, who claimed people from the East were extravagantly different from Europeans. With this in mind, a criticism was actually long overdue. In my confusion upon first reading the letters, I was almost relieved that there was finally a counterargument to the Orientalism or anti-East sentiments. Although it was a bit harsh, I thought it quite accurate.
ReplyDeleteSo what does it mean that the letters are actually a fiction by Defoe? The options seem to be that he wanted to cause more anti-Islam sentiments or that he wanted to criticize Christianity from a safe distance. Considering his religious curiosity, and how well thought out his criticism is, I believe his statements carry some validity. For instance, he brings up the question of Good Friday. Christians do not even know if they are celebrating or mourning, fasting or feasting, and nobody could answer the question. This is a valid point that should really be considered, so I do not believe Defoe would have thought of it just to impersonate a Muslim for the sake of causing anti-Islamic sentiments. He also calls attention to the gluttony of Christmas. To honor their prophet, the son of God, Christians drink to excess and give way to vice. He claims that Jesus would be as mad as the day he destroyed the Church because it was too interested in money. These criticisms are fair, and probably needed to be said, but it is safer to say them through the layers of fiction as well as religious separation.
Defoe increases his credibility by Praising Islamic practices, such as the soulful and spiritual connection to Alla, and also by claiming the Jews are wasting their time rejecting Jesus. He writes that the Oral Law might have been perfect when presented by Moses, but anyone trying to recreate or find evidence would only be damaging the Law, since the writing would not be perfect. However, he then claims that France is free from religious injustice, which adds conflict to his other anti European sentiments. I believe that is where he makes an error in convincing audiences.
I agree with most of what you're saying, except the part about France being free from religious intolerance damaging his credibility. I'm a huge advocate for the argument of sarcasm, and in this case this seems to have a vain of sarcasm in the statement. By making a point that Christians in France are paragons of faith actually puts up a beacon to suggest the opposite, especially if he has made so many previous comments about the fallibility of the Church in other Christian European countries. Overall I think it maintains his credibility, however to the reader at the time who was struggling to understand the concept of fiction, I'm not sure that it would have aided his case for successfully critiquing Christianity, but the glorification of France would allow his book to be marketable to the majority of the common French reader, probably mostly upper classes that would be invested in the Church. Those who got the joke understood Defoe's message more clearly, and those that didn't got an enjoyable read and wouldn't try to get the book to be blacklisted.
DeleteIn reading, The Turkish Spy, I was fooled by Defoe’s satirical fiction writing. I didn't understand at first that Defoe had just “continued” on previous letters and wrote as if he was a Muslim reflecting on the practices of France from that perspective. I did see discrepancies in the Muslim façade written by Defoe. While very different from the “barbarian” and “grotesque” portrayal of towards Egyptians in the travelogue by Flaubert, Defoe portrays his Muslim persona as an individual of sophistication- who is well studied and read in multiple religions. This is seen in how in letter II to Hassan Ebio Mirza Zebir, Great Muffty or High-Priest of Mahomet, he recounts the history of Christian religion and how it is similar to that of the teachings of Muhammad. However, he cannot be viewed as an objective writer and he goes on to criticize the “Infidels” (Christians) on the “Pageantry” of their devotion and how it was become corrupted and altered through the religion’s history of prosecution and practice over the generations. He calls the Christian religion “one of the greatest pieces of confusion and Buffoonery on Earth.” However, it is not just the Christian religion he comments on, rather he points his finger at Jews who, as he believes, are hypocritical in how they call out for Jesus Christ when they are in times of trouble when they don’t even recognize Jesus as the son of God or even a prophet but as an “impostor.”
DeleteThese criticisms were of interest to me, as a reader because I saw how Defoe pointed out the faults of “Western” religions and perspectives instead of the continuous attack on “Eastern” practices. I thought this was different than the two stark contrasts that we have seen Muslims portrayed as- both uncivilized and uneducated, or from Lady Mary Montagu, as overly advanced and spectacular. While many of his letters address what he sees is hypocritical in the Christian and Jewish faith, Defoe also does not hesitate to satirize “his own” (while he pretends to be a Muslim). In reading Professor Akman’s essay, A Turk’s Encounter with Defoe, I liked how he mentioned that “every individual is capable of learning about religion and nature oneself, free from traditional dogma.” What I gathered from that was that in order to truly understand other people’s religions, one must put aside what they have known and been taught previously. This being said, Defoe’s portrayal of a Muslim satirizing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religion itself, is not a true account of Muslim perspectives as can be expected from a fictitious piece. I saw this point extended in the fact that Muslims were not all horrible to people of other religions- but actually rescued Jews during the Inquisition in Spain, and allowed Christian churches to stand during the conquest of Constantinople. Muslims were not trying to rid the world of other religions, unlike the expansion of the “West” who saw it in their best interest and mission to convert and over power any religion that differed from their own.
I found Defoe to be quite the interesting author to be writing about the Turks. As it said in the article written by Akman, he is widely considered the father of the Western novel and he is best known for the story of Robinson Crusoe which is widely canonized. His extrapolations on the Muslim societies written as fictitious letters from the perspective of a Turkish spy masquerading as a Western monastic Christian is quite a ways away from something as canonized as Robinson Crusoe. This alone was surprising enough, but as I read these letters, I noticed his generally positive portrayals of Arabs, Turks, and Muslims. This seems like it would be surprising from an Englishman. I also found it quite interesting how much he criticizes the other religions. He is quite adamantly against Jews and Christians, or is at least trying to get his friends of other faiths to convert. Besides the overbearing sense of attempting to change the minds of the recipients of these letters, we can also see how the masses are rebelling against the Christian church with the poem placed upon the door on Good Friday. He also describes the wraths of nature that he is aware of with a special emphasis on the earthquake in Jamaica. His content is just as interesting as his style. It is a very unique aspect that he utilizes capitalization the way he does. He draws a poignant focus to certain words by capitalizing the first letter. It seemed to exemplify some of his sentiments more clearly. Overall I found the article and the fictitious letters to be a more enjoyable read than the exaggeratively bad reports of Flaubert and the flouty and somewhat accurate representations given by Montagu. Defoe manages to strike a balance between fluffy writing about other cultures and as objective as he could be representations of cultures and beliefs of others. His critiques of his own society seem to ring very clear. He wants change in very specific areas, such as the representation of Muslims and the concision of Christian church affairs. It feels as if he is resonating the words of Martin Luther for a good deal of this text.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a bit strange to see an Englishman praising the French.
DeleteI don't think that his negative portrayals of Judaism and Christianity are meant as a call to conversion, or even a decrying of the religions themselves. The choice to place the piece's voice in the hands of a fictional Turkish spy changes the tone of the work as a whole. Had a westerner presented the same views that the spy does with regards to both religion and the standing of Arabs/Turks, the message would have been very strongly anti-western. By using a Muslim character, Defoe is able to present Christianity and Judaism through the eyes of an outsider, one who believes just as strongly in his own religion as the depicted Europeans believe in their own. Defoe's letters are less confrontational than they are thought-provoking. They present a view of a very rational member of an oft slandered race who calls out Europeans on basically the same things Europeans berate the Muslim world for, just with an inverted metric of judgment. While I doubt that Defoe was actually as anti-European as his Turkish spy, he could definitely see both flaws in the western system and beauty in the Muslim world. Generally, I saw the letters less as anti-European or anti-Christian but more as an early call against Orientalism.
The idea put forth in the article “Turk’s Encounter with DeFoe” of the ‘revenge of the poet on the page’ is not necessarily a personal attack on the name Bayezid, nor does it seem to be a concept aimed exclusively against the Ottoman Empire. The issue at hand is the representation of Turkish people in Western literature. Unfortunately, negative stereotypes and flagrantly untrue and unfair portrayals in the vast body of literary works before and after the publication of DeFoe’s Turkish Spy was not aimed exclusively at the Turkish. In fact, it wasn’t even necessarily aimed at real people of Turkish origin—the stereotypes and unflattering depictions were as applicable to actual Turks as the contemporary essentialist representations of the mystical ‘Arabland’-Orient were to actual Egyptians and Arabians. As much as I love Shakespeare, there’s no denying his work, too, was rife with the Anti-Semitism and Orientalist sentiment prominent in England at the time.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, the portrayal of Mahmut was a revolutionary, progressive view of the accomplishments of both the Ottoman Empire, and the scientists, artists, and theorists of Islam. Mahmut is indeed represented as an educated, fashionable Turk; the objects on his desk represent the scientific, economic, and military gains made by the Empires of Islam throughout the dark ages of Europe. He defies the orientalist expectation of how Turkish men looked and acted. DeFoe’s work was psychologically complex for its time and for the format; but as a writer, DeFoe was a proven prolific satirist and social commentator. That he chose to take on Western Europe’s conception of the Turkish people is an admirable accomplishment—but the result should not be surprising, considering the author himself.
More surprising than DeFoe’s favorable depiction of the Turkish spy, was the fact that I had never heard of the work. It’s difficult to make it through high school English without at least hearing about Robinson Crusoe, but this groundbreaking work never quite made the same popular splash. I suppose, considering the substantial denial and ignorance of Eastern advances and accomplishments, the fact that this work did not define DeFoe should not come as a surprise.
The simple foundation of The Turkish Spy serves as a breath of fresh air for this class. The idea an individual negatively addressing his own culture, bridges a gap that has remained untouched all semester. We are accustom to studying writers such as Mandeville, who are self serving in their orientalist nature. Conversely, The Turkish Spy gives us insight into the the Christian Western culture from an entirely different, internal perspective.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, Defoe brings up strong valid criticisms such as the hypocrisy of Christmas, and the confusion surrounding Good Friday. Christians celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, with mass gluttony. They excessively eat and drink, and in our modern culture, we provide children and relatives with excessive, unnecessary gifts. These are all the exact opposite teachings of Jesus Christ, who stood for the poor. It comes directly from the bible that the poor shall inherit the earth. Additionally, Defoe speaks to Good Friday and its surrounding confusion, saying that Christians them selves do not even know if they are morning or celebrating, fasting or feasting.
To have a Christian make these statements gives them weight. It gives us a true look into the society of the time, for history is generally written in favor of the white man.
I agree that it is very interesting to see someone from the so-called "West" launching the sort of criticisms of Christianity that populate Defoe's work. Certainly there is a great deal of ironic humor to his account -- as someone living in a Christian nation, he noted that there was no clear consensus on when, exactly, Jesus was born, and notes that the Alchoran has a truer and more accurate account of the life of the Christian's central prophet. These sort of jibes are definitely different when they come from a Christian rather than a Muslim or anyone else, but I don't know that it necessarily gives a "true look into the society of the time" any more than another text might. I think Defoe is bringing up a lot of valid points, and that his perspective and reflections on Christian culture are valid and worth consideration, but also that he brings just as much bias to the table as any other given source. Any claim a source makes needs to be evaluated, and while a lot of Defoe's claims may have a lot of factual evidence to back them up, I disagree that his statements have more "weight" simply by the merit of him being Christian.
DeleteI agree with what you're saying about the insight that Defoe provides about the corruption of Catholicism and the Catholic church, but I would be careful when making the claim that Mandeville is more self-serving than Defoe. Both are self-serving despite their differing opinions, and I think Defoe's work seems as if it's less self-serving because much of what he writes about Islam is positive and accurate. Like Dr. Akman said in class, Defoe uses accurate, positive portrayals of Islam as a means to an end and furthermore chooses to write his novel through the lens of a "Turkish spy" simply as a vice that essentially allows him to criticize Catholicism without the risk of persecution.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the most fascinating aspect of the Continuation of Turkish Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy is the dimensionality of its authorship. Daniel Defoe, an English Christian Deist, is writing from the standpoint of a Turkish spy, a character who himself is posing as an Eastern European priest. If you approach this idea from a lens of religiosity, it is quite obvious to see the practicality in the multidimensional writing; Defoe is free to scrutinize the Catholic Church and not be fearful of the ramifications while he was abroad (he most likely did not have to worry about persecution from the Catholic Church in England because it had been a Protestant nation for close to 180 years at the time of publication). Furthermore, it allowed him to freely explore the ideas of Christian Deism and not be labelled as a heretic in his own church. Running deeper than religion however, is the transcendence of cultural boundaries in the text. As it was with religion, the layers of Turkish Letters create enough separation to where Defoe can introspectively evaluate the life and culture of a Western European. One thing I noted about Mahmut and the cultural context of Defoe’s writings is that it concerns itself with the displaced, or those that are perhaps on the fringe of their respective cultures. Mahmut is disguised as a Moldavian priest who has been granted asylum in Western Europe; in this example, the “priest” is displaced from his home country, most likely to avoid Ottoman rule (though the Ottomans were not in fact heavy-handed in their rule to the point that asylum was prudent, as Defoe would suggest). What’s more, Mahmut himself is a displaced figure, as he is an observant Muslim among a court of Christians. I don’t think it would be a stretch to attribute this theme of displacement and outsider perspective to Defoe’s own personal views as a religious and political dissenter.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post, it's always been interesting to me how authors can write something and have little parts of who they are leak through. I honestly think it's quite phenomenal that a person of his time period not only had controversial views, but somehow managed to find a means of expressing them in a way that wouldn't land him in jail. Upon further reading up on him, it becomes clear to me that he took a number of precautions - he used at least 198 pen names over the course of his writing career. I actually think he may have learned a thing or two from his experience in prison during the year of 1703. He had published his satirical criticism of the church anonymously, but that wasn't a big enough precaution to keep him from getting arrested, because they soon found out it was him who wrote it. Given that his continuation of Turkish Letters was published in 1718, I would venture to say that he may have taken greater precautions as a result of his previous incarceration.
DeleteI certainly agree that the dimensionality of Defoe’s authorship makes the letters particularly interesting and dynamic, especially as a student of literature. The authorial walls that Defoe puts up make the analysis of his letters much more intricate. That being said, while I still agree that Defoe’s writing is a nice change of pace from the ethnocentric works of Flaubert and Mandeville, is it too far for Defoe to so harshly criticize his own culture and people from behind closed doors? I’m not asking Defoe to be a martyr and die for his beliefs, but if he truly stands behind what he writes, should he not be willing to own up to his words, and even be proud of them? Perhaps I’m being too critical, and I’m not entirely sure how large of an issue this was during Defoe’s time, but I feel as though writing as impactful and opinionated as these letters loses some legitimacy without his face attached to it.
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DeleteThanks for sharing this insight Kevin! I hadn’t thought about the text too much in this light before, so I would like to expand upon your thoughts. Your idea of displacement honestly stood out the most to me. You stated very clearly how Mahmut must have felt displaced, which never crossed my mind previously. While reading the text I couldn’t get the idea of “spying” out of my head, so I read the whole story actually through that lens. But when one peels back the layers, it is almost easy to see how discouraged and perhaps sad Mahmut feels.
This “new” place he is in troubles him very much. He does believe that the core ideas of the Catholic Church are noble and pure, but he hates the way it has been corrupted by the people running the Church. One moment that honestly made me chuckle a little was when Mahmut described Christmas. Christmas is supposed to be a time to worship Jesus. However, Catholics first off don’t even know what day he was really born, and, just to put the icing on the Christmas cookie, all they do is eat, drink, and be downright gluttonous! Mahmut is so annoyed how this “holiday” has been twisted.
Yet, doesn’t this sound familiar? A plethora of people don’t even want the word “Christmas” to be in the phrase “Christmas tree.” Now, it is a “Holiday tree.” Many want to, “keep the Christ in Christmas” and don’t like what’s happening to their sacred holidays. I wonder how many feel “displaced” today as well.
This whole idea of “displacement” simply has my head rolling. Why did Defoe feel displaced? He himself was not Catholic (since England no longer was a Catholic nation), but he had very strong feelings about the Church in general. What made him this way? The only think I can think of is that when he traveled he witnessed many grievances that caused him anguish. But still. Will we ever know for sure?
Again, thanks for bringing up this point Kevin! It truly made me see the text in a different light.
Yeah what a great post! Defoe certainly has a "safe voice" to use no matter who he criticizes. I guess we would have to crack open a biography on Defoe to really answer whether he himself felt displaced in his own country or he was using the layered identity of Mahmut, as Zoraida may have done.
DeleteI want to explore the idea of The Turkish Spy being considered a reverse Orientalist text. If Orientalism is the theory of how the West comes to know the East, then reverse Orientalism would be how the East comes to know the West. When one creates something, as the West originally did the East through Orientalism, they create all aspect of said thing- the culture, the religion, everything. Writers such as Mandeville and Chaucer did exactly that in their exaggerated accounts of a "created other". The reason why Defoe's work doesn't meet the qualifications for being considered reverse Orientalism is because Defoe doesn't write for the sake of creating an "other" through describing both the religious and cultural practices of those unknown to the rest of the world, no, Defoe writes because he is critical of the religious practices that surround him. Defoe is so critical that he even feels he must write in three layers in order to feel protected enough to freely express his opinions. This three-layered mask appears in the form of Defoe writing from the perspective of a Muslim Turkish spy, who in turn is supposedly disguised as a Christian monk. Granted, this theme of hiding behind others can be seen in The Book of John Mandeville, who claims the accounts of others as his own. However, what makes Defoe different is that his voice is his own, and the fact that he criticizes the religion people in the East practice, where he himself is from, makes him a pioneer in his own right. Instead of presenting a distorted view based on personal biases, Defoe bravely points out valid flaws in the Catholic religion, flaws it's own practitioners still see today. That is why The Turkish Spy cannot be considered reverse Orientalism- it's content caused it's reader to question what they thought they were sure of in a positive light- it caused Eastern Catholics who once partook in the practice of perpetuating Orientalism to question their right to do so- based on the fact that their religious beliefs weren't perfect either.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought of Robinson Crusoe as a stand-alone novel, not influenced by other works. Now after reading both Akman’s article about Defoe and Defoe’s “Turkish Spy” I have a newfound respect for Defoe because of how knowledgeable he actually is. I never associated Defoe with having knowledge about things outside of the British Empire. The Turkish Spy clearly involved a lot of knowledge about Islam in order for Defoe to pull off portraying a Muslim who is disguised as a Catholic monk.
ReplyDeleteDefoe always seems to utilize his characters to not only tell a story, but to provide social commentary in a subtle (as in Robinson Crusoe) or disguised (literally in Turkish Spy) way. Defoe seemed to be taking advantage of the Turkish spy letter-writing genre that was very popular at the time by using it as a vehicle to convey his criticisms about the rituals of Catholicism. In Letter XIV, he accuses the Catholics of idolatry for worshipping the popes or sovereign pontiffs “who have introduced so many oral traditions in the worship of their prophet, that they have very few of his first institutions left among them”. Calling the pope’s authority a “pretend authority” is a really socially risky move as a writer in the Christian west, hence his façade of Mahmut . What I find to be somewhat problematic here is how the western public might respond to a Muslim criticizing rituals of western Christianity. Is it because a Muslim, rather than a Christian, says these things that they do not mean as much to them, or that it is okay? Would they take Mahmut seriously because he was depicted as scholarly? Granted, I do understand that Ottomanism is primarily consistent with positive views of the Ottomans and the east, but I wonder to what extent the Ottomans were respected if a Turk is used as a disguise because a Christian man does not want to make these critiques and put his own head on the line. It seems almost like a public sacrifice in a way by making the outsider say these controversial things and risking the public hating Turkish outsiders for it.
Perhaps it is the way in which Defoe makes Mahmut such an interesting, scholarly, and reliable character that the public would actually consider what he is saying. Having a foreign scholar give an outsiders viewpoint probably resonated better for the public than if Defoe were to have just made these criticisms himself and signed his name to them. Although Defoe did a fantastic job depicting Mahmut very accurately and respectfully, I wonder what Defoe’s impact and outcome would have been if he had not hid behind his character when making controversial commentary.