ORIENTALISM-EDWARD SAID

ORIENTALISM-EDWARD SAID

1-Orientalism is a term refers to the quality ,mannarism or custom specific to  or characteristic of the orient.It is a scholarly knowledge of asian cultures,language and people.It is a historic term applied to a category of subject matter refering to the depiction of the near east by the western artists,particularly in the 19^th century.Images of the life,history and topography of turkey,syria,iraq,iran,the arabian  peninsula,jordan,israel, labanon,egypt, algeria,morocco and countries like greece,cremia,sudan etc constitute the field of orientalism.Most of the work befor 19^th century fails to present a any specifically near eastern details or atmosphere and are not orientalists.

2-The word Orientalism derives from the latin word “oriens” meaning EAST.The idea of a cultural division between east and west or orient and occident goes back to the greeco raoman times,where texts as diverse as herodotus”histories” or Varro’s “on the lattin language” distictions were made between asia nad europe.Throughout the middle ages,there was a growing perception of a distiction between a civilization that was the heir of the Judaism,christian,greeco-roman tradition and the one that was heir of the indian and chinese religious traditions .The islamic civilization of the middle east fits uncomfortebly into this polarity.Eventhough east and west ,whatever cultural labels one may assign to them,were in contact through trade ,explorations, cultures and intellectual exchanges and military activities fronm early roman times and eventhough they shared economic ,cultural,intellectual influence,the idea of orientalism took root during the late middle middle ages with the portuguese voyages of discovery .

3-From that point on western exploreres ,scholars ,writers ,artists and colonial administraters undertook to study,represnt artistically,govern and economically exploit the orient.

4-Traditional orientaism focussed on the literary and scholarly results of that enterprise,and included grammers,dictionaries,encyclopedia,texts,translation,travel accounts,novels and paintings and films.The most important study of this process is that of RAYMOND SCHWAB.The artistic extention of orientalism is the school of orientalist painters,a group of 19^th century academis painters ,who focused on real and imagined scenes of middle eastern exotism in their work.

5-The field f orientalism changed radically with the publication of ORIENTALISM by Edward Said,although focussing solely on the islamic middle east ,exposed orienatlism as a colonial enterprice “a western style for dominating ,restricting  and having authority over the orient”.

6-His work exercised a vast influence over the other field of traditional orientalist studies including india,china ,japan,south asia etc.in the orientalist debate Said added a new dimension especially literary criticism.Said was able to bring the different strands of critiques under a single interdisciplinary framework which transformed disciplinary critique of orienatalism into multidisciplinary cultural analysis.He defined orientalism as the classical tradition of study the region by means of its language, and writings;thus anyone who teaches ,researches or write about orient is an orientalist.It is in this form that orientalism lives on through its doctrines and thesis with expert orientalist as its main authority.

7-To Said Europeans see orientals as phenomenon possessing regular characteristics.So orientalism is a system of representation framed by a whole set of forces that brought the orient into the western learning,western consciousness and later western europe.To him orientalist text can creat not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe.A common criticism of Said is that he has presented  orientalism as  an unchanging monolithic ,predominantly male orientated discourse.