Orientalism passed medieval Muslim horrors into modern Gothic fiction

Evidence

It is probably safe to say that Orientalism created more villains than monsters, in romantic Orientalist literature, painting, and architecture. It also influenced larger European and American attitudes toward the East, Islam, and Muslims through its promotion of fantasies, including frightening depictions of landscapes inhabited with all manner of terrible things. Ideas of a fantastic East full of marvelous wonders, a desert wasteland occupied by monsters, and the differences represented in Muslim bodies informed modern horror, particularly through Orientalism’s presence in Gothic fiction. Orientalism’s influence on this genre relies on a resurrection of medievalism, including its Muslim horrors. In Gothic fiction, we find a number of frightening Muslim monsters, from a Muslim demon called Zofloya to a blood-sucking vampire named Dracula. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 359

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the key monsters Zofloya and Dracula as the Gothic carriers of the medieval Muslim monster lineage.
• XREF: Connects to Said’s Orientalism argument about manufactured fantasies of the East; the reader’s whole frame of the image preceding contact.
• SHARE: The claim that Dracula belongs to a lineage of Muslim monsters in Gothic fiction is a striking tidbit for anyone interested in vampire lore or monster studies.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how exactly does Dracula fit as a ‘Muslim’ monster — through the Eastern/foreign-body phantasm — and which anxiety does he carry?