The little Leila, with her orient eyes,
And taciturn Asiatic disposition
(Which saw all western things with small surprise,
To the surprise of people of condition,
Who think that novelties are butterflies
To be pursued as food for inanition),
Her charming figure and romantic history
Became a kind of fashionable mystery.
—Don Juan, Canto XII
Lord Byron was hardly the only Westerner infatuated with the mystique of the “orient.” Others, like Andre Gide and Pier Paolo Pasolini, wrote about their affairs with the culture of the exotic eastern “Other”—as well as about their sexual affairs with young Arab and North African boys. Yet Byron was among the main culprits targeted during the dawn of post-colonialism for his blatant Orientalism. He was accused of having “exoticized” the cultures of Turkey, Albania, Greece, and Arabia, promoting reductive stereotypes that—in addition to being patronizing and dismissive—had adverse political consequences.
Read Full Article »