Illusion and Reality: Turkey in Nineteenth-century English Literature

This paper discusses the shifting image of Turkey in nineteenth-century English literature such as diplomats' personal recollections, travelers' accounts, monographs and some academic papers in periodicals. It shows that the image of Turkey began with the consolidation and the deepening of a negative image due to a negative stereotype which had been present from the earlier century. However, image discourse is affected by changes in the historical, cultural, political and economic contexts, and from then a positive image may be constructed, countering the negative image. This was happening in the case of Turkey in the middle of the nineteenth century. The negative image of the Turkey nonetheless mounted to a new height with the shift of Britain's strategy and the tendency to criticize Turkey from a moral perspective. It concludes that the fluctuation of the image of Turkey was a reflection of Britain's own self-image, thus displaying complexity and multi-dimensional being of the image of a nation.