Orientalism

2.1 Redrawn Frontiers, Redefined Issues, Secularized Religion

In the second chapter of Orientalism, Said illustrates the various ways that the West interprets the Orient for its own purposes. Historically, Western investment in the Orient was as much about cultivating knowledge about the East as it was about developing a sense of Western advancement. Using Gustave Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet as an example, Said argues that Orientalist imagination was particularly interested in the East as a vehicle for Western progress. Flaubert’s novel offers a conversation between two main characters about the possibility of Europe’s regeneration through Asia, justifying further Western colonial intervention in the East.

This section also introduces Said’s four elements of 18th-century Orientalist tendencies: “expansion, historical confrontation, sympathy, [and] classification” (120). These moves represent a secularizing tendency wherein the religious and cultural specificity of Eastern countries were homogenized to accommodate a generalized Western view of the Orient.

2.2 Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan: Rational Anthropology and Philological Laboratory

In this section, Said discusses two influential figures of modern Orientalism: philologists Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan. The two figures are notable for bridging philology and public policy through the vehicle of Orientalism.

For Silvestre de Sacy, his knowledge of the Arabic language made him a crucial figure of the French occupation of Algiers in 1830, as he was able to translate on behalf of the Algerian population and facilitate French presence in the country.