Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, in her text The Coherence of Gothic Conventions, claims that the Gothic text is "pervasively conventional". The reader should expect the themes of the text to include tyranny, leading to "rape or murder". The narrative technique employed by the author can be guessed, it will perhaps be "incorporating tales within tales, changes of narrators, and such framing devices as ... interpolated histories". A host of other characteristics may also be present in the text; "priesthood and monastic institutions; sleeplike and deathlike states; subterranean spaces; ... unintelligible writings ... the poisonous effects of guilt and shame; nocturnal landscapes and dreams; apparitions from the past ...", the list continues. As Sedgewick makes clear about the Gothic text at one point, "you can predict its contents with an unnerving certainty" (1). The same could be said about the Oriental Gothic. If the conventions are first exoticised (e.g. monasteries replaced with mysterious mosques), then taken away to a far away Eastern location, and finally exaggerated greatly, you would have the basis of an Oriental Gothic text. However, the Oriental Gothic also has its own set of extended conventions, with the key to these being excess. There is an excess of power concentrated in the hands of a tyrannical ruler, and excessive violence as this ruler goes about being unjust. There is an excess of luxury, the rulers live in huge palaces, owning an unlimited amount of wealth, especially in the form of gold, jewels and an army of slaves. The Oriental Gothic text must also contain a harem, and the connotations of excessive sex and sensualism that this carries. If the Gothic sometimes lacks realism, then in the Oriental Gothic realism should not be anticipated at all - instead the irrational and supernatural should be expected. Thus, the qualities of the Gothic taken to the extreme and then transferred to another place are the starting point of the Oriental Gothic. Yet the conventions mentioned above only make up the basic structure of the text, the Oriental Gothic is a much more complex form. As this essay will illustrate, in the Oriental Gothic, and in all Western narratives of the East, there is a politics at work. In this essay I will be investigating how, and indeed why, William Beckford and Richard Burton choose to present the East in the manner in which they do, in the texts Vathek, and one version of the popular Arabian Nights narrative: The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night.

Edward Said, in his essay 'The discourse of the Orient', states that: "The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences" (2). Rana Kabbani, in the text Imperial Fictions: Europe's Myths of Orient, agrees with this idea, but further articulates it, and its implications. She states that:

"In the European narration of the Orient, there was a deliberate stress on those qualities that made the East different from the West, exiled it into an irretrievable state of 'otherness'. Among the many themes that emerge from the European narration of the Other, two appear most strikingly. The first is the insistent claim that the East was a place of lascivious sensuality, and the second that it was a realm characterised by inherent violence." (3)

In Vathek and The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, the themes of lust and violence are central to the narratives. The texts therefore reinforce stereotypes, and provide nothing new in Western literature about the East, but follow the standard pattern. Indeed, the texts - in creating a barbaric 'Other' out of the East - continue a tradition which dates back to the Medieval period, and poets such as Chaucer and Gower. Vathek fulfils the conventions of the Oriental Gothic, and so the stereotypes of the East described by Kabbani above. We have the violent and tyrannical ruler in the form of the Caliph Vathek, who will do anything to satisfy his wants - at one point, when the Giaour, a representative of Eblis, or Satan, requests "the blood of fifty children ... [taken] from among the most beautiful sons of thy vizers and great men" (4), Vathek does not hesitate to fulfil the demand. Vathek also lives in extremely excessive luxury; when he inherits the palace he adds "five wings, or rather other palaces, which he destined for the gratification of each of the senses". To satisfy his sense of taste the palaces of "The Eternal or unsatiated Banquet" (Beckford's italics) is erected, where, "the most delicious wines and the choicest cordials flowed forth from a hundred fountains that were never exhausted", for his sense of sight there is "The Delight of the Eyes, or The Support of Memory", in which, "Rarities, collected from every corner of the earth were there found in such profusion as to dazzle and confound". The last of the five palaces is to satisfy his sense of touch; and this in the text represents the essential harem, of sorts:

"The fifth palace, denominated The Retreat of Mirth, or The Dangerous, was frequented by troops of young females beautiful as the Houris, and not less seducing; who never failed to receive with caresses, all whom the Caliph allowed to approach them, and enjoy a few hours of their company." (p.29-30)

Thus, Vathek, and his world, is both violent and obsessed with luxury, sex and sensuality. Vathek is also obsessed with gaining knowledge, and this is the main theme of the story. When the grotesque Giaour visits Samarah he excites the curiosity of Vathek with the strange inscribed sabres he leaves behind. Vathek does all he can for the inscriptions to be deciphered, but doesn't succeed. Soon his curiosity leads to the return of the Giaour, who requests the blood of fifty children in return for an even greater knowledge; to be permitted to enter the Palace of the Subterranean Fire beneath ancient Istakhar, where he will find the treasures of the pre-Adamite kings, and the talismans that control the world. But first he has to renounce his religion, and his faith in God. Vathek accepts this with ease, and the story progresses to his journey to Istakhar. On the way he breaks the orders of Eblis, and stops at a village, where he finds the beautiful Nouronihar. She joins him in his journey - throughout which Vathek commits countless more acts of violence. Once they reach the Palace of the Subterranean Fire they are betrayed by Eblis, they observe:

"... a vast multitude was incessantly passing; who severally kept their right hands on their hearts; without once regarding any thing around them. They had all, the livid paleness of death. Their eyes, deep sunk in their sockets, resembled those of phosphoric meteors ... some shrieked in agony ... whilst others, grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along more frantic than the wildest maniac." (p.92)

They soon learn that they will share the same fate. This supernatural and fantastical story therefore ends with a moral; "the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand crimes, became prey to grief without end, and remorse without mitigation..." (p.97).

It is clear that Vathek presents the East as a place which is uncivilised - where a backward system of government operates and tyrants rule, where morality is non-existent and where superstition is allowed to reign. However, it can be argued that the text is a work of fiction, and so does not claim to be an accurate account of the East. Such an argument could initially carry some weight, but several factors make it weak. To begin with, when the text was first published (unauthorised by Beckford), it claimed to be a translation of an Arabic manuscript - the preface stated that it was "collected in the East by a man of letters" which was then "communicated to the Editor" (5). The text therefore presented to the West an authentic narrative of the Orient; written within, and by the East. The text also claims to be based on a historical figure, Caliph al-Wathik Bi'llah, and therefore again claims to be a true narrative of the East. But maybe the way in which the text most powerfully claims to be a true presentation is in the notes provided by Beckford to accompany the text - what Byron Porter Smith in the text Islam in English Literature calls the "grotesque scheme of substantiating the incidental features of an imaginative work by means of an apparatus of learned notes" (6). Beckford provides notes in order to clarify Eastern terms and practises throughout the text, and this gives the story a grounding in reality - to the Western reader the text could almost be a real history of an Eastern land, with the many academic notes providing proof to reinforce Beckford's narrative. Here another level of misrepresentation also manifests itself in the text, as the notes themselves are largely inaccurate. Robert J. Gemmett in his critical work William Beckford claims, disputably, that Vathek "achieves a certain faithfulness to the Orient". However, he goes on to admit that, "This Orientalism does not mean ... that Beckford's knowledge of the East is always accurate or that it is always based upon reliable sources. The scholarship of the period ... was too erratic to be authoritative". Gemmett later on to states that "d'Herbelot's encyclopaedia, Biblioteque Orientale, [was] a primary source for Vathek" (7). Most of the academic notes supporting the text are provided by d'Herbelot's work, but almost every single definition of d'Herbelot's is greatly inaccurate, if not offensive to the East. The best example of d'Herbelot's inaccuracy may be when his text is used to explain the significance of the word Kaf, when we are provided with this:

"The mountain, which, in reality, is no other than Caucasus, was supposed to surround the earth, like a ring encompassing a finger. The sun was believed to rise from one of its eminances, and to set on the opposite ... The fabulous historians of the East affirm, that this mountain was founded upon a stone, called sakhrat ... described as the pivot of the earth; and said to be one vast emerald ... Such is the philosophy of the Koran!" (p.106).

D'Herbelot's explanation holds no truth to Islamic belief, yet this quote is important because it reveals d'Herbelot's attitude to the East. This absurd idea is provided as the true beliefs of a superstitious and ignorant Eastern people - and this summarises d'Herbelot's view of the East as a whole. N. A. Daniel, in Islam and the West: The Making of an Image, points out the importance of this misrepresentation of Islam:

"[the] West formed a more or less invariable canon of beliefs about Islam; it decided for itself what Islam was, and formed a view materially different from anything Muslims would recognize." (8)

Daniel therefore recognizes the denigration of Eastern religion, government, and even the way of life. Beckford's use of the unreliable d'Herbelot again illustrates the misrepresentation of the text.

The reasoning provided above illustrates that Vathek, at various levels, is attempting to present a true image of the East - it is presented as a true picture of Eastern practise. Beckford also fulfils the conventions of the Oriental Gothic, and in doing so presents the stereotypical image of the East, and this image is not only greatly inaccurate, but instrumental in portraying the East as a violent and amoral place populated by barbaric and backward people.

Many parallels can be drawn between Richard Burton's version of the Arabian Nights and Beckford's text. It should first be made clear that although Burton's work claims to be an authentic translation of an Arabic text, such a description would be untrue. Western versions of the text were always reworkings of the original stories, designed to be popular at home, and so to reinforce the beliefs held about the East in the West. Rana Kabbani, in Imperial Fictions: Europe's Myths of Orient, goes as far as to claim that the Arabian Nights as the West knew it was a "myth" (9) - that the Arabian Nights in the Arabic language as a single text, which could then be translated and presented to the West, did not even exist. Burton's The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, does not break this mould. Again we have excessive sex and violence as the key themes. The royal rulers, Shahzaman and Shahrayar, catch their queens being unfaithful to them with the black slaves of the palace. After they have achieved their revenge against their wives, the rulers leave on a journey. However, they soon encounter a lustful woman who tricks them into bed, and then robs them of their signet rings. This woman then recounts her history, of her treachery, and her insatiable sexual appetite. This convinces the rulers that all women are inherently evil, and they therefore plan to take their revenge on womankind. This they will do by taking a virgin as a wife every night, only to have her executed the following morning. The classic Arabian Nights 'tales within tales' narrative device is soon set up, as Scheherazade arrives as one of the rulers victims, and in order to save her life tells a connected tale every night to keep them interested in sparing her.

Again we see that Burton presents the East as a barbaric and backward place. The women of the text, especially illustrated by the queens who represent the highest and best class of women, have all-consuming sexual appetites, which can not be satisfied by anyone. The rulers are again violent and unjust, they lack the intelligence to practise logic, and so take out their misfortune on all womankind. Many examples from the text can again be provided to further illustrate these images. In the 'Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince' we again have a lecherous royal wife. The princess in this tale exceeds simple crudeness - to satisfy her sexual appetite she escapes unnoticed from her husbands bed every night, and visits the hovel of a 'leprous black' in the poorer part of the city. However, when she is late she is verbally abused by this enraged leper with obscenities:

"Now I swear an oath by the valour and honour of blackamoor men (and deem not our manliness to be the poor manliness of white men), from today forth if thou stay away till this hour, I will not keep company with thee ... Dost thou play fast and loose with us, thou cracked pot, that we may satisfy thy dirty lusts? stinkard! bitch! vilest of the vile whites!". (pp.71-22).

The leper even forces her to eat 'rat-stew', yet the princess is not put off. As long as she is satisfied sexually she endures his abuses, and continues to return to see him.

In the 'Reeve's Tale' another example of the excessive violence of the text can be given. When a woman in this tale finds her lover smelling of 'cumin-ragout' she becomes enraged:

"'I will teach thee how to eat cumin-ragout without washing thy hands!' Then she cried to her handmaids, who pinioned me; and she took a sharp razor and cut off my thumbs and great toes." (p. 287).

The examples illustrate how in almost all of Burton's tales both lust and violence play a central role. The crudeness of the tales also illustrates how Burton's opinions of the East are also much cruder than those of Beckford. Beckford at least gave some intelligence and emotions to the Eastern characters in his text, but in Burton's text we find none of this; instead tale after tale seems only to affirm the West's ideas about the obscene and uncultured East. As with Beckford's work, Burton again attempts to provide evidence for his references to Eastern practise. However, unlike Beckford, Burton does not turn to 'academics' for his notes to the text, because he himself is a self-professed expert on the East:

"The accidents of my life, it may be said without undue presumption, my long dealings with Arabs and other Mohammedans, and my familiarity not only with their idiom but with their turn of thought ... have given me certain advantages over the average student, however deeply he may have studied." (p.xvii).

We are therefore provided with detailed notes by him throughout the text. Yet here not only does Burton's crudeness exceed itself, but his attitudes to the East, and to all non-Europeans for that matter, are made surprisingly explicit. When the rulers queens are unfaithful with black slaves, Burton comments that:

"Debauched women prefer negroes on account of the size of their parts. I measured one man in Somaliland who, when quiescent, numbered nearly six inches. This is the characteristic of the negroe race ... whereas the pure Arab, man and beast, is below the average of Europe ...". (p.6).

In another part of the text Burton makes his racist thoughts clear, by explaining his dislike for Africans, who he describes as "the skunks of the human race" (p.191). We therefore see that Burton's expert knowledge is not accurate by any means. At another point in the text, when mention is made of a eunuch in one of the tales, Burton offers this information:

"There are many ways of making the castrato; in some (as here) only the penis is removed, in others the testes are bruised or cut off; but in all cases the animal passion remains. Almost all these neutrals have wives with whom they practise the manifold plaisirs de la petite oie (masturbation, tribadism ... etc.), till they induce venereal orgasm. Such was the account given me by a eunuch's wife..." (p.234).

The obscene sexuality of the East is again played up. Rana Kabbani pays close attention to Burton's text, and his life, in her studies - and concludes that Burton was obsessed with sexual matters. She investigates his unsavoury background, his involvement with pornography, and states that in his notes, "what the narrator felt himself unable to say about European woman, he could unabashedly say about Eastern ones. They were there for his articulation of sex" (10). Burton therefore further confirms "the myth of the erotic East" (11).

In The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night we again see the East presented as a place of perverted sexuality, and of irrational violence. Burton, like Beckford, utilises the conventions of the Oriental Gothic to present the East as a place without morals and ethics. In this text we once more see the reinforcement of the negative Western stereotypes of Eastern people and culture.

"The important thing was that it suited the West. It corresponded to need; it made it possible to protect the minds of Christians against apostasy and it gave Christendom self-respect in dealing with a civilisation in many ways its superior." (16)

Daniel's reasoning goes some lengths in providing an understanding of the Western narrative, but Kabbani continues where he leaves off. She claims that the texts objective is to justify the colonisation of the inferior East:

"If it could be suggested that Eastern peoples were slothful, preoccupied with sex, violent, and incapable of self-government, then the imperialist would feel himself justified in stepping in and ruling. Political domination and economic exploitation needed the cosmetic cant of mission civilisatrice to seem fully commendatory... The image of the European coloniser had to remain an honourable one: he did not come as exploiter, but as enlightener."

The Western narrative of the East affirmed that the civilising of those nations was "the white man's burden", and this directly sanctioned "the subjugating of entire continents" (17).

The Oriental Gothic, in furthering the negative portrayal of the East, directly contributed to the myths of Otherness, which created division and conflict between the East and the West. What is interesting is how these myths continue to exist today, hundreds of years after they were first initiated. With all the studies that have been carried out, and all the effort made towards understanding, the East - and especially its main religious and political system, Islam - still continues to be misunderstood and misrepresented, but now this has shifted to the forum of the mass media. The progress of the misrepresentation of the East really warrants its own study, but it is worth noting that the notion of the 'Other' continues to be strong in contemporary society, that texts written in the past continue to influence the present. The East and West are, to at least some extent, still in ideological conflict - and this conflict is based on misunderstanding.

(1) Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, The Coherance of Gothic Conventions (London: Methuen, 1986). pp.8-9.

(2) Edward Said, 'The discourse of the Orient', from Literature in the Modern World (ed. Dennis Walder), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). p.234.

(3) Rana Kabbani, Imperial Fictions: Europe's Myths of Orient (London: Pandora, 1994). pp.5-6.

(4) William Beckford, Vathek and Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995). p.42.

(5) Robert J. Gemmett, William Beckford (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977). p.87.

(6) Byron Porter Smith, Islam in English Literature (New York: Caravan, 1977). p.127.

(7) Gemmett, William Beckford... p.99.

(8) N. A. Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960). p.270.

(9) See pp.23-43 of Kabbani, Imperial Fictions...

(10)Kabbani, Imperial Fictions... p.59.

(11) Ibid. p.66.

(12) Ibid. See pp.27-28.

(13) Smith, Islam in English Literature... p.219.

(14) Ibid. p.224.

(15) Ibid. See p.74 onwards.

(16) N. A. Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image... p.270.

(17) Kabbani, Imperial Fictions... p.6.

Beckford, William, Vathek and Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995).

Burton, Richard, The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (London: 1885-88). Vol.1.

Daniel, N. A., Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960).

Gemmett, Robert J., William Beckford (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977).

Kabbani, Rana, Imperial Fictions: Europe's Myths of Orient (London: Pandora, 1994).

Said, Edward, 'The discourse of the Orient', from Literature in the Modern World (ed. Dennis Walder), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Sedgewick, Eve Kosofsky, The Coherance of Gothic Conventions (London: Methuen, 1986).

Smith, Byron Porter, Islam in English Literature (New York: Caravan, 1977).