Enlightenment fantasies of foreign monsters persisted well into the eighteenth century

Evidence

The Enlightenment was populated with fantasies about magical lands occupied by foreign monsters, including Muslims. Until James Cook’s second voyage during the years 1772–1775, the myth of terra australis incognito remained a formative influence on European map-making. The theory was that this continent, located in the Southern Hemisphere, balanced the earth so it would not tip over. Even when this myth was disproved, others emerged—for instance, of the perfect humans who lived in Otaheite (accompanied by exaggerated reports of public orgasmic rituals and massive cannibalistic occasions), the giants of Fiji, and other magical places and peoples. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 368

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ‘fear without an object’ thesis — the South Pacific myth precedes observation just as the Muslim monster does.

Related

• Enlightenment cartography projected invented monsters onto unknown regions before real contact (similarity 0.89)
• The Age of Exploration expanded rather than ended European monster-making (similarity 0.82)
• Modern Muslim monsters rest on medieval fantasies (similarity 0.81)
• Enlightenment science and Romanticism both renewed medieval Muslim-monster fantasies rather than ending them (similarity 0.80)
• Foreign landscapes themselves, not their inhabitants, triggered European monster projections (similarity 0.80)
• Colonial encounters projected monsters onto new territories rather than dispelling them (similarity 0.79)
• Enlightenment and Romanticism both generated new Muslim monsters via different means (similarity 0.79)
• Enlightenment rationalism generated new monsters instead of eradicating them (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial landscapes were feared as wild before any monsters populated them (similarity 0.78)
• Muslim monsters were located in distant God-forgotten lands beyond the borders. (similarity 0.78)
• Manufactured myths about distant peoples persist into modern tourism exhibits (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• History invents phantasms — fantasies attached to Muslim bodies — that remain powerful #corroborates (0.60) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 66
• Medieval Muslim-monster imagery persists today through Gothic horror and Orientalism #expands (0.55) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 75
• Enlightenment critique domesticated monsters into pathological human degenerates #expands (0.50) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 379
• Medieval Muslim monsters inherited Classical categories and predated real encounters. #expands (0.50) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 54