Global Awareness
Dr. Khwaja & Dr Morris
Presentation
Wenli Yuan
Well, I have to say that I am so lucky to give my presentation here. Oxford, I mean, god knows if I will get chance to be here and give another presentation again. So forgive me for overexcited, nervous and other typical mental disorder I have at this moment. I choose William Jones as a subject to show how does the Eastern Culture and Western Culture met at that period.
Sir William Jones, always refers as the Oriental Jones, is a great linguist, poet, translator as well as a politician. During his life, Sir William Jones has an unique interaction with India, which also reflects in his works. Encountering with Eastern religious and other literature from multiple Eastern countries, such as India, Persia, and pre-Islamic Arabia, Sir William Jones enlightens their literature and awareness of their own culture and customs while interacts each other’s idea (Waqas Khwaja, p1). In my presentation, I would like to show how does William Jones and Indology, which is a study exploring the area of Eastern knowledge and understanding which defined by British scholars during that time influences each other. Sir William Jones and his connections toward Eastern civilizations and how does that contribute to other authors during that time as well as his role on preserving Indiology.
Dedicating his life for translation work and creating, Sir William Jones has a deep knowledge about Classics as well as mythology. Later on, his interest also expands to “the literary texts of Arabia, Persia, and India when the western world knew very little of them” (Khwaja, p1). Before Sir William Jones, the Westerners already established their own literature and mythology system by founding Classics and requiring potential government officials (often male children in middle or high class family) to study these. However, India and other Eastern countries does not share this idea. Imagine if Easterners call English literature as Engliology or whatever name which does not make much sense. During that time, only few people care about India’s civilization,Sir William Jones certainly contributes a lot to the Oriental studies and helps to preserve their culture and customs.
Here is a little bit background information about Sir William Jones. He was originally born in a well-educated family. His father, another William was a math tutor who introduces the notation of the math sign pie for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. However, Sir William Jones’s father passed away when he was 3 but manages to leave them a fair amount of money to settled down with his sister. Although not really a very healthy kid, Sir William Jones nevertheless did not limit himself with the limited places he could go and later on in his life he even think of settling in America. He joined University College in Oxford in 1764 and made friends with George John by letters who latter on keep communicating with him even when Sir William Jones was newly married to Anna Maria and knighted before a six- month passage to India. In one of the letters Jones written to George from Atlantick, he describes the place he lives in India as “All circumstances considered, we have no reason to complain of our accommodations. The Crocodile is almost new, and though small, an excellent sea boat: the captain intelligent and experienced, eager to oblige…” (Jones, letters)
Before we digging into this delicate connection, I would like to clarify the idea of Oriental studies. After my research to this field (and by asking Dr Khwaja), I understand Oriental studies as a study among subjects in the humanities, which introducing students to civilizations that are different from the Western ones that form the basis of the curriculum in most British schools and colleges (From Oxford online department introduction).That means, Oriental studies is the study of Eastern civilizations including their art, history, literature, religion, philosophy and social sciences. Although nowadays there are still so much debating about whether Oriental studies should be narrowed down to some certain areas and subjects, there are still not clear definitions for it. For Indiology, as well as Siology (which is study toward Chinese civilization), they have a certain limitation which may contains the different ideas among different civilizations as well as how they try to understand each others. (With a lot of ridiculous mistakes, this we are pretty sure at this moment.) Most of us may have the experience of studying a second language, and to be honest, a lot of time the languages which is not other mother tone just don’t make any sense at all. This is because some of the old saying is actually connected with some history background that spread from generation to generation, which is very hard for foreigners to understand.
If one would like to study Oriental studies, he or she might need to look into an important collection of folk tales, which is called One Thousand and One Nights, or another name, Arabian Nights. (I would like to ask if there anyone read this during their childhood?) For me, I pretty much read this book during my 8~12 years old when most of my peers were in primary school. This book, accompanied by Grimms’ Fairy Tales (written by Brother Grimm), and children stories written by Andersen, who is a great story teller from Denmark. Those three books contribute a lot to my colorless childhood and enrich my idea toward the so called real life. Some of the ideas in the stories are things like never trust strangers, do not eat food provide by strangers or you will get poisoned, and you should always be kind to others contribute a lot to my way of dealing with the world. So many of you may wonder at this moment, how does William Jones to do with these folk tales?
Arabian Nights has inspired English authors to write with an awareness of cultural and Arabian Orientalism. The Arabian Nights has been very popular with the Western readership like the contemporary stories of Harry Potter. Arabian tales were the fairy godmother of English novels. It has been both a shaping influence on and an instance of malleable Oriental literary material for the British/Western creative writers. This presentation draws on the influence of the Nights on the production of English literature. Besides, on a scholarly level, the translation of the Eastern religious and literary works into English by such scholars as James Atkinson, Edward William Lane, William Gibb, Richard Burton, and Godferey Higgins prompted a deeper understanding of the Arabian civilization.
Sir William Jones (1746-1794) is influenced by theArabian Nights.There is a comparison between Jones’ poem ‘The Seien Fountains’ and theArabian story of ‘PrinceAgib,’ the Second Calendar (Meester: 17). In the Arabian Nights, the young Prince spends a year of pleasure with ‘forty damsels, and is then left to the temptation of the hundredth door of gold.
In Sir W. Jones’s tale, the same story happens but when the Prince Agib comes in the seventh door, he finds behind it an old man. His name is Religion, and has to take Prince Agib to Heaven. As Prince Agib’s eye is hit by the magic horse, the horse puts him on the top of the palace, and the Prince realizes that the old man is a mendicant. So here is the start of the poem, I would like to read it to you to show the similarity and the story plot.
In Sir William Jones’s case, we could easily prove “the Arabian Nights combines the knowledge of the Oriental culture with dramatic, gothic and ironic elements which eventually help any English writer to produce a work that suits his own formula. As far as the consequence of the Arabian Night son English literature is concerned, its authority has a substantial ground under foot. “(Fahd Mohammed Taleb Saeed Al-Olaqi, page 384~396)
Sir William Jones has no doubt on successfully adopted a story from the Arabian Nights and created a poem to show his readers how does religion save a young man from rooted and materialism life. From this presentation, I hope I could at least share my interest toward the similarity and differences among multiple civilizations with you and hope you have enjoyed this presentation so far.
Thank you and please let me know if you have any further questions.
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