Orientalism- By Edward Said (1977)

Name: Solanki Pratiksha M.

Roll No: 21 

Enrolment No: 13101032

Sem : 3 (2014-2015)

Paper No: 11. The Postcolonial Literature

Subject: Assignment

Title: Orientalism- By Edward Said (1977)

Submitted to:

Smt. S.B.Gardi

Department of English

M.K.Bhavnagar University

pratikshasolanki068@gmail.com

Orientalism

>>>Edward Said:

Edward Said was a Palestinian American Literary theorist and public intellectual who helped found the critical theory field of postcolonialism. Orientalism, by Edward Said is a foundational text for the academic field of post-colonial studies.

+ Born: 1^st November,1935

           Jerusalem, Israel.

+ Died: 24^th September,2003

            New York City, New York

            United States.

+ Published: 1978

+ Genre: History

>> Orientalism as a Term:

Orientalism is a term used by art historians and literary and cultural studies scholars for the imitation of aspects of Middle Estern and East Asian cultures by writers, designers, and artists from the west. Orientalism the word come from the Orient. Orient, came into English from Middle French Oreint.

>>>What is Orientalism?

According to Said.

“Orientalism dates from the period of European Enlightenment and Colonization of the Arab world Orientalism provided a rationalization for European colonialism based on a self-serving history in which “the west” constructed “the east” as extremely different and inferior, and intervention or rescue.

+ For Example: 

Early Orientalism can be seen in European paintings and photographs and also in images from the world’s fair in the U.S in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The paintings created by European artists of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries depict the Arab world as an exotic and mysterious place of sand. Harems and belly dancers, all those things are reflecting a long history of Orientalism fantasies.

 

As demonstrated in, The colonial Harem, these photographs were circulated as evidence of the exotic, backwards and strange customs of Algerians, when in fact they reveal more about the French colonial perspective than about Algerian Life in the early 1900s. 

+ For Example: of how Arab Women  have been exoticied and exoticied for the pleasure of the  European male Voyeur, as these photographs makes visible French colonial fantasies.

>> Orientalism:

“ The word orientalist and orientalism broadly described something a kind words to what we known how as , “area studies”.. Said outlines... What he perceived to be the consistent pattern of Orientalism in European Literature; that throughout Literature all images of the east derive not from actual encounters or direct knowledge. But the  creation and affirmation of preconceived, resulting in a imaginized  orient, instead of an actual/East.

+ The Orient was almost a European invention. And had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences. 

“One of the most important things is that Orient has helped to define Europe.”

And can say that none of this Orient is merely imaginative.

>> Reasonable qualification:

Said said that...

+ 1^st qualification ... It would be wrong to conclude that the Orient was essentially an idea, or a creation with no corresponding reality.

+ 2^nd qualification... Ideas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configuration of power.

There are three aspects of contemporary reality.

+ The distinction between pure and political knowledge

+ The methodological question

+ The personal dimension

>>> The distinction between pure and political knowledge:

It is very easy to argue about Shakespeare or Words-worth is not political whereas knowledge about contemporary China or the Soviet Union is. The distinction between humanist and persons whose work has policy implications, or political significance. Orientalism is not a mere political subject matter or field that is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institutions, nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and expressive of some nefarious “western” imperialist plot to hold down the Oriental world.

“Orientalism is a cultural and political fact.”

>>> The Methodological question:

Analysis to the methodological importance for work in the human sciences of finding and formulating a first step, a point of departure, a beginning principal. 

>>> The Personal dimension:

Much of the personal investment in this study derives from my awareness of being an Oriental as a child growing up in two British colonies. In many ways study of orientalism has been an attempt to inventory the traces upon me, the Oriental subject, of the culture whose domination has been so powerful a factor in the life of all Orientals. 

>>> There are three principles of Orientalism as Said defines it..

+ The East is different from the West

+ The West is better than the East

+ All Easter cultures are similar.

>>> The East is different from the west:

The West is oppositional and there are logical, organized and scientific views where The East is exotic, unknown so there are many views which define that The East is different from the West.

>>> The West is better than the East:

Oriental exhibitions and description are usually of barbarism, backwardness and ignorance. The western reader, writer bring enlightenment and civilization progress and social reform.

>>> All Eastern cultures are similar:

Because,

The West is inherently better than the orient, they follows oriental cultures are similar. There are many characteristics and by those characteristics, are shown in contrast to a Western enlightenment tradition.

>>> Conclusion:

This results in conflation of multiple cultures into one giant amorphous region known now as “The Orient”, where all are equally backwards, ignorant. This is not just a literary trend, it is an attitude, a fashion and a statements.

Thank You..