Combat Between Giaour and the Pasha

Like the poem on which it is based, Lord Byron’s The Giaour (1813), this print exhibits Europeans’ contemporary fascination with the Middle East, a trend known as Orientalism that often depended on stereotypes of violence and sexuality. In the poem, a Venetian giaour (a Turkish term for a non-Muslim) falls in love with Leila, a member of a Turkish harem controlled by the pasha (master), Hassan. When Hassan discovers this affair, he kills Leila. In the scene depicted here, the giaour fights the pasha to avenge his lover.