[...]ral world, way of a comparison with foreign marvels,
religious relativism in Olearius's orientalism
-he is also a forerunner to the comparative religious studies (when he uses the word “Gott/God” rather than the name “Allah”)
-manipulating Hakwirdi's voice in the propagandistic confrontation between the great religions
‘other's blindness’
(in Persianischer Rosenthal the entire)
“Die Persianer” in Olearius is an ambiguous term, it could stand for either Sa'di or the text of the Golestan, or Hakwirdi, but this “Persians” is to be “let inside, wearing a German coat,” Olearius's body is charged with teaching “the Persian to speak German” (
other translations of Golestan
taut and well-translated epigrams
end-rhyme poems
a ‘treasury’ of rhetorical and poetical motifs
a voluminous index of sayings
-
(clever and)
practical advice for individuals (members of the bourgeois, merchants) who wanted to climb the social ladder and learn
Golestan was considered a rich sourch of (such) “oriental wisdom”
(why Olearius is so into Sa'di's Golestan
(frontispiece
relation to the soverign in Sa'di
in Golestan, the tales speak of the love or affection between a man and a young male. however, in the introduction to his translation, Olearius notes that he has subsituted the term “girl, lover, person, or human being” for “youth,” so that it will not offend young people who read the book
Olearius normalizes the discourse (of sufi) for fear of offending the sensibilities of his reading public
angelic piety
Englische Frömmigkeit
the lionskin story
lion symbolizing the element of fire as well as purification
astrological relationship between lion and sun, in the image of Mithras, entwined by snake, symbolizing the path of the sun
mithraic influences survived into the islamic era as well, and became even more prevalent with the safavid dynasty
cosmic imagery and forms of address
the persian sun/lion symbol becomes intelligible for a european audience, when it is represented as a symbol of royalty
the lionskin, in Olearius's title, Persianischer Rosenthal
the animal's interior surface contains the writing, which provides the information about Persian society
Finn and Jake (given to wanderlust and creative risk) in Adventure Time
(this tradition goes back to Hercules, trophy, skin of the beast,)
“slain and flayed, exposed to the European audience, the lion/skin serves as a background on which the German author inscribes the story
...superfluity of details mannered and cluttered with unread decorative motifs set in an unreadable space
‘stretched-out animal skin with the head in the top center’
lion
Olearius's choice of lionskin
deictic
the rigor mortis of the body
the dramatic pose of the Persian husband
the curtain-like skin
the “emblematic corpse” on a “stage”
to serve as ‘exemplum’ tamsil
bellicosity (amade be jang
reader/viewer is horrified & fascinated
less obviously, from standard geographical texts of the Islamic world. yet with its emphasis on direct observation and critical objectivity, the map also points the way toward the more exacting “scientific” standards of the Enlightenment.
maps are cultural artifacts
Persia
map
a map
maps are never completely translatable (nor readable)
language translates into historical practice
rhetorical device, ekphrasis
the cartographic enterprises under Duke Frederick III of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf
mathematical principles
14th century, seeks to include “ancient and modern discoveries in one verbal and visual description”
early modern age military and strategic situation of europe
establish fortifications
(Harley
mapping so became the business of the state and cartography is early nationalized
-global empire building
-preservation of the nation-state
-local assertion of individual property rights
individual niches
in Newe Landesbeschreibung
illustrious predecessors
through their patronage and linked to the noble art of geography
the map is framed by scale bars (the cartouche
(graticules, more details,)
typography plays a role in emphasizing (novelty?)
geographical purview (meydan-e did,
map and approval
different layers of information in the map
(this visual rhetoric is also what i am using in my storytellings) (i also need to be careful with my collages
grid, superimposed on the map
a common topos in Persian painting
this ‘anticipation of drink’ is construed (in the title of Olearius map of persia) as a gesture of welcome and hospitality; providing the viewer with an iconic image of two “typical” inhabitants and their form of dress
this continues today
on the Persians’ inner nature and customs
the dedicatory cartouche's
establishing the Duke's geographical purview
through ‘knowledge’ and ‘discovery’
(Conley)
(cartography during early modern age afforded to) the emerging self and the self's relation to
between raw perception and creative imagination
surveying and plotting the world
the drama of european literature
-the self seems to be produced in the form of a subject, as a paradoxical being divided between a representation of the conditional relations it is producing and the composite nature of the simultaneously aural and visual medium of print
-growth of cartography parallels that of the coming of autobiography
rise of
Olearius multiplicity of roles
artist, geographer, historian, tourist, merchant, diplomat,
mantle of artist is passed on to the author, who asserts himself and his new status in pictorial form
he stick to his calculations despite the criticism he receives from colleagues and friends
Olearius's scientific reticence (kam-guyi
he quotes (without attribution) Athanasius Kircher
therefore the waters were driven by a natural power through the hidden veins of the earth and rose up into the mountains, just as in a human being the blood rises from the liver to the heart and moves upward to the head through the vena cava.
...cartographic literature both reflected and brought about changing perceptions of the world
Gabriel
the shape-shifting Caspian sea
Olearius's travel account also seeks to be encyclopedic
...describe and judges the deviations from the European norm
common
barbarous
destruction of the body itself
Munster's final judgment
“
discourse of analogy
cartographic evidence
a book of others
the ways it fashions received information
“Ortelius's innovation in the science of cartography is that he attends less to the “big picture” of the world than to putting together an illustrated summery of possibly infinite number of fragmentary parts (Conley)
Blue Map of Persia
influence of Ptolemy on the early islamic cartographers, in the time of Ma'mun
system of Climes
(book of) notification
...pioneer on the road toward a (geographically) correct picture of Persia
_Persienbild_
“drawn from life”
the imagery and allegorical figures found on the frontispiece are learned signifiers belonging to a visual world that reflects and prefigures the verbal description that forms the body of the work
Olearius designs a brilliant visual program
visual table of contents
his nascent (dar tavalod
he translates both
traces of the author within the map
signs of the hidden power relation
depiction of the exotic “other”
patronage
naming
“es gab eine lustige perspective”
of note in this scene
the monarch's true nature is laid bare
“you see me from the outside, as a pleasant young man in years, but on the murderous interior i am a tyrant.”
the scene of Eastern opulence and decadence corresponds to a 17th century (or even 21st century) Westerner's conception of an Oriental court
oriental stage
he met another celebrated traveler, Ibn Haukul
[...]