Orientalism - Meaning of The Term

Meaning of The Term

"Orientalism" refers to the Orient or East, in contrast to the Occident or West, and often, as seen by the West. Orient came into English from Middle French orient (the root word is oriēns, L). Oriēns has related meanings: the eastern part of the world, the part of the sky in which the sun rises, the east, the rising sun, daybreak, and dawn. Together with the geographical concepts of different ages, its reference of "eastern part" has changed. For example, when Chaucer wrote "That they conquered many regnes grete / In the orient, with many a fair citee" in Monk's Tale (1375), the "orient" refers to countries lying immediately to the east of the Mediterranean or Southern Europe; while in Aneurin Bevan's In Place of Fear (1952) this geographical term had already expanded to East Asia — "the awakening of the Orient under the impact of Western ideas".

"Orientalism" is widely used in art to refer to the works of the many Western 19th century artists, who specialized in "Oriental" subjects, often drawing on their travels to Western Asia. Artists as well as scholars were already described as "Orientalists" in the 19th century, especially in France, where the term, with a rather dismissive sense, was largely popularized by the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary. Such disdain did not prevent the Société des Peintres Orientalistes ("Society of Orientalist Painters") being founded in 1893, with Jean-Léon Gérôme as honorary president; the word was less often used as a term for artists in 19th century England.

Since the 18th century, Orientalist has been the traditional term for a scholar of Oriental studies; however the use in English of Orientalism to describe the academic subject of "Oriental studies" is rare; the Oxford English Dictionary cites only one such usage, by Lord Byron in 1812. The academic discipline of Oriental studies is now more often called Asian studies.

In 1978, the Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said published his influential and controversial book, Orientalism, which "would forever redefine" the word; he used the term to describe a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the East, shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Said was critical of this scholarly tradition and of some modern scholars, particularly Bernard Lewis. Said's Orientalism elaborates Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Michel Foucault's theorisation of discourse and relationship between knowledge and power. Said was mainly concerned with literature in the widest sense, especially French literature, and did not cover visual art and Orientalist painting. Others, notably Linda Nochlin, have tried to extend his analysis to art, "with uneven results". Said's work became one of the foundational texts of Postcolonialism or Postcolonial studies.