"Iran and Persian culture hold a distinct place in the imagination of nineteenth-century France; from the poetry of Victor Hugo and Armand Renaud to the travel writing of Jane Dieulafoy. This is the first monograph on the French reception of Iranian culture, history, and literature in the period spanning from Romanticism to the turn of the twentieth century. Covering both canonical and forgotten authors and comprising four genres: lyric poetry; history and historical fiction; travel-writing; and the performing arts, the book brings a new approach to the analysis of nineteenth-century French Orientalism: one that focuses on an individual civilisation rather than a generic 'Orient', looks beyond France's colonial empire, and considers the impact of genre. This results in a more nuanced picture, in which the dehumanising 'othering' famously described by Edward Said in Orientalism exists alongside examples of admiration, familiarisation, and identification. Nineteenth-century French writers tested the Occident/Orient dichotomy, emphasising it or eroding it based on the image of Iran that they sought to promote. These narratives ranged from the Aryan myth to an enthusiasm for Sufi poetry. The book also analyses the author's sources, which ranged from Persian literature, Islamic theology and Iranian cultural customs to Iranian architecture. The case of Iran thus gives us new transnational insights into nineteenth-century France's ambivalent definitions of cultural difference and their exploration in literature and the arts"--

Introduction
Iran in Nineteenth-Century France: Competing Narratives
Iran and Orientalism
Beyond the Paradigm of Difference
The Politics of Genre
Chapter 1: Poetry
Translation and Poetic Innovation
From Paris to 'Persia' and Back Again (Hugo, Théophile Gautier, Noailles)
Persian Poems Made in France (Renaud, Lahor/Cazalis)
Intertextuality and Universalism: The Case of 'Les Roses de Saadi' (Desbordes-Valmore)
Conclusion
Chapter 2: History and Historical Fiction
Rewriting Human History
'Nos parents, les Aryas' (Arthur de Gobineau, Ernest Renan, Jules Michelet)
The Persian Alexander: Hybridity and Queer (Anti-)Imperialism (Judith Gautier)
Ancient History? Iran as Mirror for French Feminism (Jane Dieulafoy)
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Travel-Writing
'Tout chemin ne conduit pas en Perse'
Defining the Persians
Among Women: Scenes from the Harem
Understanding Shiism
'Esfahan, Nesf-e Jahan'
Remembering 'the Great of the Earth'
Plagued by the West
Books versus Reality
Conclusion

Chapter 4: Performing Arts
Orientalism and the Stage
A Tale of Two Peris : Iran, the Imaginary Orient, and Ballet (Théophile Gautier, Paul Dukas)
Of Poets, Prophets, and Kings: French Opera's love affair with Iranian men (Lalla Roukh, Le Mage, and Thamara)
A Puppet Play about Omar Khayyam (Maurice Bouchor)
Rebuilding Susa: Jane Dieulafoy and Camille Saint-Saëns's 'Parysatis' (1902)
Conclusion
Conclusion

Julia Hartley is a Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow. She was previously Laming Fellow at the Queen's College Oxford and Edward W. Said Visiting Fellow at Columbia University. She is the author of Reading Dante and Proust by Analogy (2019) and peer-reviewed articles in Iranian Studies and Nineteenth-Century French Studies.