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The Orientalism Of Edgar Allan Poe: The Allure Of The Middle East In Al-Aaraaf, Sohaib Kamal Al-Kamal

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis explores the Orientalist discourse in four of Edgar Allan Poe's poems and two of his prose essays. The major aspects of Orientalism examined in Poe's works rely on the theoretical ideas of Edward Said's Orientalism and other ideas developed by important Arab writers. Said and other Arab writers agree that Islam is the locus of any study of Orientalism. This thesis focuses on the major role of Oriental imagery that it plays in Poe's early poems. It also examines two of his prose essays to help understand central aspects of Poe's orientalia which are also reflected in his …