In Search of an Ireland in the Orient: Tom Moore's Lalla Rookh

In 1861, Sir John Tenniel created a sequence of sixty-nine illustrations for Lalla Rookh. More than any other illustrator before or since, Tenniel's images succeed in revealing Moore's unique blend of Gothic theatricality inflected by Islamic culture. In this image of Feramorz, "The Minstrel from the Beautiful Country," the young Cashmerian with a kitar provides an unmistakable Oriental mirror image of the Irish Minstrel himself. From Lalla Rookh (London: Longmans, 1861); collection of the author.

Tom Moore's immensely successful 1817 poem Lalla Rookh—a book-length work comprising four interwoven stories sung to an Indian princess, Lalla Rookh, by a Cashmerian poet naned Feramorz—has been often mentioned in the context of the Irish poet's friendship, and competition with, Lord Byron. It is only in recent times that closer critical attention has been given to the Irish political and cultural contexts of a work that now calls out to be more fully interpreted as a key work in Moore's lifelong search for an understanding of the old and new Ireland.

The earliest indication that the poem shows Moore in search of an Ireland in the distant Orient—that is, of a parallel or analogous national story through which he might encode his commentary on the contemporary Irish situation—surfaced in exchanges between Byron and Moore while the long-poem-in-progress Lalla Rookh was still in the early days of its extended gestation. In June, 1813, Byron published his first oriental poem, The Giaour. Ironically, the instant success of Byron's Oriental poem discouraged Moore. In August, 1813, he wrote to his friend Mary Godfrey that

Never was anything more unlucky for me than Byron's invasion of this region, which when I entered it was as yet untrodden . . . instead of being a leader as I looked to be, I must dwindle into a humble follower—a Byronian. This is disheartening.¹

By the end of that same month, Byron was writing to Moore, urging him to press on with his own Oriental poem:

Stick to the East . . . The little I have done in that way is merely "a voice in the wilderness" for you; and if it has had any success, that also will prove that the public are orientalizing, and pave the path for you.²

In 1814, Byron's The Corsair appeared with an effusive dedication to Tom Moore that declared that Moore was among the foremost of Ireland's patriots, and that he, too,would soon find parallels in the East for the wrongs of Ireland, for the fiery spirit of her sons, and the beauty and feelings of her daughters.

Your imagination will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, tenderness, and originality are part of your national claim of oriental descent, to which you have already thus far proved your title more clearly than the most zealous of your country's antiquarians.³

When Byron first showed the dedication to John Murray, the publisher objected to the reference to Ireland, and asked Byron to rewrite it. Byron did so, but showed the original wording to Moore—who urged him to submit it again unchanged. Byron wrote to Murray, "Let those who cannot swallow chew the expressions on Ireland."⁴ Murray agreed and awaited the predictable outrage in the Tory newspapers at the Byronic endorsement of Ireland's cause with which Moore had become associated.

On the very day of the publication of The Corsair, the Tory-supporting newspapers Courier, Morning Post, Daily Herald and Sun began hurling, on a daily basis, abuse and ridicule in prose and verse against Byron and Moore as traitorous Whig enemies of the Prince Regent. The Courier of February 17, 1814, published a poem accusing Byron of forming an alliance with Moore, "the low and indecent composer of jigs . . . the son of the seller of Figs." The poem concluded with a stern warning to parents to protect their daughters from the work of this pair of serpents, "their infernal attacks...