Bayard Taylor and American Orientalism: 19th century representations of national character and the other

The present focus of Americans with regard to the outside world is undoubtedly the Arab Islamic world. This dissertation examines the 19th century representations of Orientalism in the work of Bayard Taylor in order to understand the attitudes and images that informed one of America's first encounters with the Arab Islamic world.; Bayard Taylor, 1823-1878, was a popular distiller of prevailing cultural representations in antebellum America about Americans themselves and about other countries and peoples. Regarding Taylor's representations of other countries and peoples, the dissertation's focus is on the Arab Islamic world. Taylor's tremendous popularity as a best-selling author, lecturer, and newspaper correspondent, helped solidify his representations in the American popular mind. The weight of his authority as the "Great American Traveller" made Taylor a pivotal figure in the construction of an American national identity and of images of other peoples and countries, specifically those of the Arab Islamic world. This dissertation investigates Taylor's representations in relation to the construction of an American national identity and the characteristics of the Arab Islamic world.; To understand American Orientalism, it is necessary to also examine the development in the 19th century of what it meant to be an American and the role that identity played in coloring American perceptions of the world. Taylor's oeuvre illuminates this formation of "the American." In his writings and lectures, he both reflected and extended American perceptions of itself and its place in the world: where it had come from looking back at its European roots; where the country was in the mid-nineteenth century looking westward with its vision of manifest destiny; and where America looked ahead to its role in Asia, specifically in Japan and China. Along with defining a national identity, Taylor helped construct the identity of "the Orient" and "the Oriental." His travel books, articles, poems, and lectures gave flesh to what were at the time inchoate notions of the Arab Islamic world. The dissertation suggests that American ideas about the Arab Islamic world may be partly traced to Taylor's work and therefore his work has relevance to present American perceptions.