The embattled sea : the Mediterranean myth in nineteenth-century historical novels

Abstract

In The Embattled Sea, Paul Csillag claims that historical novelists promulgated a Mediterranean Myth to support nineteenth-century imperialism in the region. From 1789 to 1914, authors reimagined mythical battles from the Fall of Constantinople (1453) to Lepanto (1571) to legitimize military and colonial expansion in the present. They conceived of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a closed temporal space that allegedly witnessed the emergence of Europe as a global power and a triumph over Ottoman Islam. By availing themselves of literary tropes and mythical figures, such as Byzantine scholars, Moorish princes, orientalized Jewish women, Maltese Knights, and Barbary corsairs, novelists created a pseudo-historical, fictionalized diegesis. This mythological world ought to function as an allegory for the nineteenth century itself. Imperialist authors narrated the Mediterranean Myth to either justify the sovereignty of their respective empires in the basin or to question the rule of others. In the book, the analysis of historical novels written in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish uncovers the imperialist motivation of historical novels which were, beforehand, often comprehended as mere escapism. Singular novels serve as case studies and examples of broader literary trends of the century. The structure of The Embattled Sea includes an analysis of (1) the Constantinopolitan myth during the Greek Revolution, (2) the figure of the Mediterranean Jewess in British imperialism, (3) the story of La Toma during the Spanish War on Tetuan, (4) the myth of Lepanto in Italy during the fin de siècle, (5) the Maltese Order as a contested imperial heritage, and (6) the corsair as an anti-imperial antagonist. The goal of The Embattled Sea is to uncover and better understand the origins of the imperial Mediterranean Myth that still coins popular, as well as academic, history today.