Oriental Flânerie: Fürst Pückler-Muskau’s Aus Mehemed Alis Reich

This article analyzes the construction and nature of the narrator in the popular 1844 travelogue Aus Mehemed Alis Reich by Fürst Hermann von Pückler-Muskau. This travelogue features an unconventional narrator, one who puts himself at the center of his narrative. Pückler’s narrator openly reflects on his own role as author and narrator throughout the text. This kind of literary posing, although unusual in travel writing, is the norm in feuilleton literature of the period and corresponds to the figure of the flâneur. Comparing the features of flânerie with Pückler’s narrative highlights the author’s ability to blend existing stereotypes of the Orient with adventurous first-hand encounters resulting in a narrative which played not only with aspects of the foreign and exotic, but also with the class differences between an aristocratic narrator and a middle-class readership.