The Giaour
Encyclopedia
"The Giaour" is a poem by Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...

 first published in 1813 and the first in the series of his Oriental romances. "The Giaour" proved to be a great success when published, consolidating Byron's reputation critically and commercially.

Background

Byron was inspired to write the poem during his Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

 during 1809 and 1810, which he undertook with his friend John Cam Hobhouse. While in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, he became aware of the Turkish custom of throwing a woman found guilty of adultery in the sea wrapped in a sack.

"Giaour
Giaour
Giaour, Gawur or Ghiaour written gâvur in modern Turkish, is an offensive ethnic slur used by Muslims in Turkey and the Balkans to describe all who are non Muslim, with particular reference to Christians like Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Assyrians...

" (Turkish: Gâvur) is the Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

 word for infidel or nonbeliever, and is similar to the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 word "kafir
Kafir
Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...

". The story is subtitled "A Fragment of a Turkish Tale", and is Byron's only fragmentary narrative poem. Byron designed the story with three narrators giving their individual point of view about the series of events. The main story is of Leila, a member of her master Hassan's harem, who loves the giaour and is killed by being drowned in the sea by Hassan. In revenge, the giaour kills him and then enters a monastery due to his remorse. The design of the story allows for contrast in Christian and Muslim perceptions of love, sex, death and the afterlife.

The poem was written after Byron had become famous overnight after the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...

and reflects his disenchantment with fame. It also reflects the gloom, remorse and lust of two illicit love affairs, one with his half-sister Augusta Leigh
Augusta Leigh
Augusta Maria Byron, later Augusta Maria Leigh , styled "The Honourable" from birth, was the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron, the poet Lord Byron's father, by his first wife, Amelia Osborne .-Early...

 and the other with Lady Frances Webster.

The earliest version of the poem was written between September 1812 and March 1813, and a version of 700 lines published in June 1813. Several more editions were published before the end of 1813, each longer than the last. The last edition contains 1300 lines, almost twice as many as the version first published.

Romantic Orientalism

"The Giaour" proved to be very popular with several editions published in the first year. By 1815, 14 editions had been published when it was included in his first collected edition. Its runaway success led Byron to publish three more "Turkish tales" in the next couple of years: "The Bride of Abydos
The Bride of Abydos
The Bride of Abydos is a poem written by George Gordon, Lord Byron in AD 1813. One of his earlier works, The Bride of Abydos is considered to be one of his “Heroic Poems”, along with The Giaour, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, The Corsair, and Parisina...

" in 1813, "The Corsair
The Corsair
The Corsair was a semi-autobiographical tale in verse by Lord Byron in 1814 , which was extremely popular and influential in its day, selling ten thousand copies on its first day of sale...

" in 1814 and "Lara". Each of these poems proved to be very popular with "The Corsair" selling 10,000 copies in its first day of publication. These tales led to the public perception of the Byronic hero
Byronic hero
The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings of English Romantic poet Lord Byron. It was characterised by Lady Caroline Lamb, later a lover of Byron's, as being "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"...

. "The Giaour" illustrates the idea of Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

 with its characters. Some critics consider Leila as a personification of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, for the sake of which there was a war between Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

.

Byron commented ironically on the success of these works in his 1818 poem "Beppo":

Oh! that I had the art of easy writing,
What should be easy reading (...)
How quickly would I print (the world delighting)
A Grecian, Syrian or Assyrian tale
And sell you, mixed with Western sentimentalism
Some samples of the finest Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

.


French painter Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

 used the story as the inspiration of his 1827 painting Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha. So did Ary Scheffer
Ary Scheffer
Ary Scheffer , French painter of Dutch and German extraction, was born in Dordrecht.-Life:After the early death of his father Johann Baptist, a poor painter, Ary's mother Cornelia, herself a painter and daughter of landscapist Arie Lamme, took him to Paris and placed him in the studio of...

 who painted Giaour, housed at the Musée de la Vie romantique
Musée de la Vie Romantique
The Musée de la Vie romantique stands at the foot of Montmartre hill in the IXe arrondissement, 16 rue Chaptal, Paris, France in a 1830 hôtel particulier facing two twin-studios, a greenhouse, a small garden, and a paved courtyard. The museum is open daily except Monday. Permanent collections are...

, Paris.

Importance

The poem was an influence on the early work of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

. His first major poem, "Tamerlane
Tamerlane (poem)
"Tamerlane" is an epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. That collection, with only 50 copies printed, was not credited with the author's real name but by "A Bostonian." The poem's original version was 403 lines but trimmed down to 223 lines...

", particularly emulates both the manner and style of "The Giaour".

The theme of vampires

"The Giaour" is also notable for its inclusion of the theme of vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

s. After telling how the giaour killed Hassan, the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 narrator predicts that in punishment for his crime, the giaour will be condemned to become a vampire after his death and kill his own dear ones by drinking their blood, to his own frightful torment as well as theirs. Byron became acquainted with vampires while on his Grand Tour.

The association of Byron with vampires continued in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre
The Vampyre
"The Vampyre" is a short story or novella written in 1819 by John William Polidori which is a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction...

by John Polidori
John Polidori
John William Polidori was an English writer and physician of Italian descent. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the 1819 short story, The Vampyre, the first vampire...

, which was inspired by an unfinished story by Byron, "Fragment of a Novel
Fragment of a Novel
Fragment of a Novel is an unfinished 1819 vampire horror story written by Lord Byron. The story, also known as "A Fragment" and "The Burial: A Fragment", was one of the first in English to feature a vampire theme. The main character was Augustus Darvell. John William Polidori based his novella The...

", also known as "The Burial: A Fragment", first published in Mazeppa
Mazeppa (Byron)
This article is about the poem by Lord Byron, for other uses see MazeppaMazeppa is a Romantic narrative poem written by Lord Byron in 1819, based on a popular legend about the early life of Ivan Mazepa , a Ukrainian gentleman who later became Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks...

 in 1819. The lead character Lord Ruthven
Lord Ruthven (vampire)
Lord Ruthven is a fictional character. First appearing in print in 1816, he was one of the first vampires in English literature.-Origins:There is a genuine title of Lord Ruthven of Freeland which is a subsidiary title of the Earl of Carlisle in the United Kingdom...

was based on Byron. Polidori had previously worked as Byron's doctor and the two parted on bad terms. Much to Byron's annoyance, The Vampyre was widely attributed to him and even included in the third volume of Byron's works by popular demand. Polidori is thought to have encouraged this, seeing how it increased sales considerably. Lord Ruthven was the first portrayal of the vampire as a debauched aristocrat.

External links

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