Imagini ale românilor în relatările de călătorie britanice. „Loisir-ul “ sau activităţile recreative şi „ceremonioase” (prima jumătate a secolului a
Images of the Romanians in British travel literature.“Leisure” or the Recreational and Ceremonious Activities (the first half of the 19th century)

Summary/Abstract: Travel journals offer a source of predilection for the comparative literary imagology focusing on the images of the Other in a foreign literature. Our study concentrates upon the significances of the way the Romanian rich classes were spending their free time in the first half of the 19th century under the Ottoman rule. The main impression is that of an Oriental frame of mind: extensive luxury, lack of interest in any useful activity, corruption and greed. The causes lie, in the British travellers’ opinion, in the political regime of the Oriental Despotism. These negative representations will label the Romanians from now on and the process of imaginative “orientalization” will have literary as well as political and diplomatic effects in the Anglo-Romanian relations.

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