{"id":383,"date":"2018-03-07T15:31:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T20:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/?p=383"},"modified":"2020-12-23T19:39:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T00:39:51","slug":"leonowens-anna-life-and-travel-in-india-by-anna-harriette-leonowens-project-gutenberg-www-owl-english-purdue-edu-owl-resource-747-08-accessed-2-march-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"Leonowens, Anna. \u201cLife and Travel in India by Anna Harriette Leonowens.\u201d\u00a0Project Gutenberg, www.owl.english.purdue.edu\/owl\/resource\/747\/08\/.\u00a0Accessed\u00a02 March 2018."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/52896\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This work is available for free online through Project Gutenberg:\u00a0http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/52896<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-CA\"><b>Anna Leonowens (1834-1915)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anna Leonowens is an intriguing historical figure. She is most popularly known as the inspiration behind Anna in the musical\u00a0<span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>The King and I<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">, which was based on her travel writing in\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>The English Governess at the Siamese Court.<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">\u00a0She often wrote in support of women&#8217;s rights.\u00a0Although she is commonly thought to be white and British,<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">Leonowens was born in India, and her grandmother was probably of Anglo-Indian mixed race. This heritage, if discovered, would surely have negatively impacted Leonowens\u2019s opportunities in British-occupied India; she appears to have gone to some lengths to hide it, including by claiming she was born in Wales (Morgan).<\/span><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b><i>Life and Travel in India<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>Life and Travel in India\u00a0<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">is a richly-descriptive book describing Leonowens\u2019s experiences traveling in India. It is lesser-known than her writings about Siam. As a woman, Leonowens was allowed entry to women\u2019s-only areas in India; she has therefore written about spaces that British male travel writers could not see.\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"en-CA\">Our readers might be particularly interested in her observations of dancing girls and devadasis (referred to in this book as \u201cbayahdiers\u201d). In Chapter VIII, she watches a performance of dancing girls, speaks to the owner of an establishment of dancing girls, and develops a fascination with a particular girl, who she says she has \u201cfallen in love with, half in earnest, half in jest\u201d (187). She also explains her understanding of the devadasi dedication process in detail.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><span lang=\"en-CA\"><b>Questions to Consider<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"en-CA\">Travel writing and other forms of nonfiction are commonly understood to contain\u00a0unbiased observations. Does Leonowens simply observe India, or attempt to interpret it?<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small\"><span lang=\"en-CA\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">Is anyone just an observer?\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"en-CA\">Can we consider Leonowens a reliable narrator? What limitations might she have as a narrator, if any? Is she cognizant of these limitations? How might<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">\u00a0her subject position (race, gender, class, birthplace, profession,\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">etc.) colour her narrations<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">? Is she cognizant of her subject position? Is she critical of it?<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"en-CA\">Consider the following sentence: \u201cThese poor devotees [devadasis] often accept their fate with that stolid indifference peculiar to the Orientals.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">Is this sentence sympathetic or demeaning? Is it descriptive or prescriptive? Can it be both?<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Male British travel writers often presented harems as a location of pure exotic pleasure and indulgence (DelPlato); Leonowens, by contrast, refers to the behind-the-scenes life of dancing girls as a &#8220;sad and dreary picture&#8221; (193).\u00a0\u00a0Is one depiction more true than the other? Can they both be true? Are they complete?\u00a0Who determines the depictions\u2019 trueness and completeness? What impacts might have these perceptions had on how Leonowens\u2019s British readers viewed and treated Indians and dancing girls?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>Works Cited<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>DelPlato, Joan.\u00a0<span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>Multiple Wives, Multiple Pleasures: Representing the harem, 1800-1875.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2002.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Morgan, Susan.<span lang=\"en-CA\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the\u00a0<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">King and I\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\"><i>Governess.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-CA\">U of California P, 2008.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This work is available for free online through Project Gutenberg:\u00a0http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/52896 Anna Leonowens (1834-1915) Anna Leonowens is an intriguing historical figure. She is most popularly known as the inspiration behind Anna in the musical\u00a0The King and I, which was based on her travel writing in\u00a0The English Governess at the Siamese Court.\u00a0She often wrote in support of <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/?p=383\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-devadasis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/courtesansofindia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}