Page 248 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes considerably low in him. On the other hand, Renan who took advantage of Sacy's work was as
biased as any previous orientalist. He believed that the science of orientalism and the science of
philology have a very important relation; and after Renan this idea was given a lot attention and
many future orientalists worked of in its line.

21.3 Orientalism Now

This section starts off by telling us that how the geography of the world was shaped by the
colonization of the Europeans. There was a quest for geographical knowledge which formed the
bases of orientalism.
The author then talks about the changing circumstances of the world politics and changing approach
to orientalism in the 20th century. The main difference was that where the earlier orientalists were
more of silent observers the new orientalists took a part in the every day life of the orients. The
earlier orientalists did not interact a lot with the orients, whereas the new orients lived with them
as if they were one of them. This wasn't out of appreciation of their lifestyle but was to know more
about the orients in order to rule them properly. Lawrence of Arabia was one of such orienatlists.
Then Edward Said goes on to talk about two other scholars Massignon and Gibb. Though Massignon
was a bit liberal with orientalists and often tried to protect their rights, there was still inherited
biased found in him for the orientals, which can be seen in his work. With the changing world
situation especially after World War 1, orientalism took a more liberal stance towards most of its
subjects; but Islamic orientalism did not enjoy this status. There were constant attacks to show
Islam as a weak religion, and a mixture of many religions and thoughts. Gibb was the most
famous Islamic orientalist of this time.
After World War 1 the centre of orientalism moved from Europe to USA. One important
transformation that took place during this time was instances of relating it to philology and it was
related to social science now. All the orientalists studied the orientals to assist their government to
come up with policies for dealing with the orient countries. With the end of World War 2, all the
Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more orientals and occidents,
but this was surely not the case. Western prejudice towards eastern countries was still very explicit,
and often they managed to generalize most of the eastern countries because of it. For example
Arabs were often represented as cruel and violent people. Japanese were always associated with
karate where as the Muslims were always considered to be terrorists. Thus, this goes on to show
that even with increasing globalization and awareness, such bias was found in the people of the
developed countries.

21.4 Influence

Orientalism is considered to be Edward Said's most influential work and has been translated into
at least 36 languages. It has been the focus of any number of controversies and polemics, notably
with Bernard Lewis, whose work is critiqued in the book's final section, entitled "Orientalism
Now: The Latest Phase." In October 2003, one month after Said died, a commentator wrote in a
Lebanese newspaper that through Orientalism "Said's critics agree with his admirers that he has
single-handedly effected a revolution in Middle Eastern studies in the U.S." He cited a critic who
claimed since the publication of Orientalism "U.S. Middle Eastern Studies were taken over by
Edward Said's postcolonial studies paradigm". Even those who contest its conclusions and criticize
its scholarship, like George P. Landow of Brown University, call it "a major work." The Belgian-
born American literary critic Paul De Man supported Said's criticism of such modern scholars, as
he stated in his article on semiotic rhetoric: "Said took a step further than any other modern
scholar of his time, something I dare not do. I remain in the safety of rhetorical analysis where
criticism is the second best thing I do."
However, Orientalism was not the first to produce of Western knowledge of the Orient and of
Western scholarship: "Abd-al-Rahman al Jabarti, the Egyptian chronicler and a witness to
Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, for example, had no doubt that the expedition was as much

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