William Beckford’s Vathek and the Uses of Oriental Re-enactment

William Beckford typifies the Englishman who wishes he were something else: an Oriental ruler of a type inspired by reading the *1001 Nights* and Ottoman and Safavid court poetry. His novel *Vathek* is an attempt to re-enact his previous *Arabian Nights Entertainments* re-enactment: his twenty-first birthday party celebrations at Fonthill. Even at his most private, Beckford writes from an Eastern repository of tropes, while at his most Oriental, he satirises English rural society, especially the hunting-mad set represented by his cousin Peter Beckford. Even the figure of the camel Alboufaki signifies both Eastern learning and English gentry folly, typifying the complexity of Beckford's literary achievement.