"The Meaning of the Orient in Keats's Consciousness"

Abstract

This study discovers more than one Orient in Keats’s consciousness, a historical, fictional, and political one. The variety is a direct result of Keats’s exposure to different sources of knowledge about that world. The amalgamation of the three Oriental realms in Keats’s mind allows fictional elements to overshadow historical knowledge. A geographically fluid Orient in which Greece is included emerges in Keats’s poetry. This concept challenges the dominant view of ancient Greece as the source of Western civilization.