- Modern Orientalism was influenced by scholars like Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan. Sacy systematized Orientalism and established it as a scholarly field of study, though he presented only fragments of information about the Orient tailored for a European audience. - Renan applied philology to the study of Oriental Semites and Semitic languages, treating them as inferior specimens in his linguistic laboratory experiments. He constructed polarized views of Semitic and Indo-European languages that reinforced European superiority. - Later Orientalists built upon this framework, reducing the Orient to a set of generalized characteristics that could be scrutinized and explained according to European analytical methods and perspectives. They presented selective representations of

1. Orientalist structuring and Restructuring
I
Redrawn Frontiers, Redefined
Issues, Secularized Religion
Post-colonial theory owes a lot to works of two intellectuals i.e. Franz Fanon with his
Wretched of the Earth and Edward Said's Orientalism. Although a lot of criticism has been
directed at Edward‟s nearly one-dimensional portrayal of the European Imperialism and its
debated, but his feat really lies in successfully redefining the term Orientalism to mean
myriad of false assumptions constructed by West about the East. The book revolutionized the
way Western scholars and critics viewed the representations of the non-Western subjects and
cultures.
Edward Said through example of Gustave Flaubert's unfinished comic novel, comes to
highlight "discipline or type of knowledge changes from hope and power into disorder, ruin
and sorrow". The Western mind of nineteenth century envisioned quite naively, a Europe
regenerated by Asia, a sort of Romantic ideals, an utopist imagining of a reconstructive world
according to some scientific or secular religion. And roots of such reconstructive outlook can
be traced back to late eighteenth century romanticism which idealized the concept of death
and rebirth, of paradise lost and paradise regained in Christian beliefs, and sought to revive
them by reconstituting them in a secular light; that they be intellectually acceptable in the
context of newly enlightened minds of Enlightenment period. Thus this idea of " regeneration
of Europe by Asia" is essentially a Romantic ideal; which pervaded the mindset of early
Orientalists hose hopes of rejuvenation of European Occidental culture, lied in studying
Orient; They believe it could defeat the materialism that plagued the culture by bringing back
the sense of "holy mission" they had now lost, basically bringing back their lost Christian
identity under the mask of secularized enlightenment.
However, this idealism was flawed as both Flaubert and Edward point out by an
unconscious arrogance for what mattered was not Asia, rather its "use to modern Europe",
Europe defined itself in relation to Orient, just as it had created Orient. At the end of the day,

2. it was "our Europe" and "our Asia" which was to be pragmatically divided into smaller,
manageable geographical units and ruled. What these visionaries failed to consider was that
their utopian theories could not be reconciled with reality. For example, the power their
scientific advancement had bestowed upon them was not without vanity or ego. Europe
considering itself superior was not about to deal with the primitive Orient as equals. As such
there could be no regeneration of Europe by Asia.
Said has been influenced by Foucault's notion of power and knowledge and Gramsci's
concept of hegemony; which manifests itself in his Orientalism where he exposes how
knowledge has been constructed, either wittingly or unwittingly, Orientalists have been a part
of this Foucauldian discourse which has ascribed meaning to orient and defend the stereotype
associated with it of being sensual, irrational, primitive, exotic, wild undisciplined and
backward. These stereotypes have been unchallenged in every succeeding generation of
so-called Orientalists who have only uncritically rephrased these discourses. They have
nothing original to offer as their whole field of Oriental studies has from the very beginning
been based on reconstructing and repetition of stereotypes. What this unvaryingly biased
study of orient managed was that complex with imperial power it was presented as absolute
knowledge imposing negative meaning upon the orient. It justified the imperialist expansion
of the west and also worked to convince the natives of their backwardness, whilst the Western
culture represented the universal culture. Such was the general scope? of Orientalism till start
of eighteenth century, when Orient was generally associate with Islamic Middle East and
these notions were passed down medieval and Renaissance period. However during
eighteenth century a newer and more modern view of orient came into being owing to
expansion of European exploration and colonies beyond Muslim lands, widening their
horizon with exploration of India China, Japan etc which introduced them to Sumer,
Buddhism, Sanskrit, Zoroastrian and Manu. Thus the Christianity or Judaism no longer
formed a framework of European outlook. however, Europe's ethnocentric perspective were
fortified as colonies were created through companies like East India Company, for Europe
remained in the privileged center as the main observe, "othering" the rest of the world. The
second Factor that helped form the modern oriental view was the fact that history was viewed
through a perspective other then Judeo-Christian one, which was a shift towards objectivity,

3. something historical narratives of past lacked and history being solely subjective to
imagination and biases of historians narrating it. Now however, Europe instead of educing
these oriental histories allowed them to speak for themselves. Arab history! As dealt with in
terms of their sources, Holy Quran commented upon by Islamic religious scholars. This
detachment where previously they had had antagonism was probably motivated by European
man's curiosity to "know himself better". He thus employed the overly simplistic technique of
comparatism, which only served the marginalization of the other. The differences were only
ever taken to be abnormal, even in this newfound objectivity. On the other hand there was a
kind of selective identification with different cultures and with the common "spirit" which
binds them all together. This sympathetic attitude in comparison, led to e possibility of seeing
beyond the limiting borders of doctrines or religions between West and Islam and establishing
a kinship between West and Orient. Representation of Orient varied vivid images of luxury
and exoticism was still associated with orient. It was still mainly a region of "sensuality,
promise, terror, sublimity, idyllic pleasure, intense energy". Thus "Oriental was referred to
"chamelion-like quality. The pre-romantic notions of Orient still existed.
The forth element which played a part in forming the modern Orientalist structure was
classification of human beings further beyond the binary of Christian and non-Christian, (or
gentile sacred nations vs. barbarians). The nations were classified on basis of race, color,
origin, temperament and character. particular characteristics, both physical and moral, were
associated with particular races e.g. the American is "red, choleric, erect" , an Asian is
"yellow, melancholy, rigid" and the African is "black, phlegmatic, lax". By nineteenth century
these classification gather power and authority as they became attached to genetic type. Thus
an Oriental was genetically "primitive".
Even as the view of Orient was modernized and somewhat secularized, old religious
dogmas still haunted the field of study. 18th century patterns of religious framework of
history weren't discarded but reconstituted; it remained alive in the undercurrent of Oriental
discourse, through structures of language and vocabulary it had created for Orient. The
modern Orientalist may congratulate himself for saving the Orient from so-called historical
obscurity and bringing to light the alienated and strange cultures but in fact this cultural
decoding at best managed to reconstruct the classical Orient. He was to become the authority

4. on Orient, speaking for the Orient, such are the ways power and knowledge operate: "it put
into cultural circulation a form of discursive currency by whose presence the Orient
henceforth would be spoken for". By the end of First World War, 85% of the world had been
colonized and Orientalism formed a major part of this encroachment. From intellectual
accumulation West went on to accumulate both human beings and territories of Orient.
II
Silvestre de Sacyand Ernest Renan:
Rational Anthropology andPhilological Laboratory
Modern Orientalism owes its initial credit to Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan.
Sacy‟s works are known for their „heroic effort‟ and „rational utility‟. As a master of Arabic,
he had a good exposure of the orient. He laid the foundations of modern Orientalism by
giving it a systematic shape. His work based this institution on educational grounds and
scholarly tradition. For the first time, the subject matter was taken from the Orient itself.
Most of his works are not novel rather revised form of the earlier material. He wrote with a
didactic purpose and with the intention of conveying the best for his students. He attempted
to bring into limelight the facts about the Orient which have remained hidden from Europe.
By using „powerful‟ examples from the Orient, which have the ability to signify it, he has
displayed the Orient for his disciples.
Sacy introduced a historical consciousness in the study of Orientalism. In this
continuum, he wrote the book Tableau historique de l’eruditionfrancaise, which brought the
knowledge about the Orient within the range of the people. A great addition was done by
Napoleon‟s expeditions of the Orient, which helped to enhance the modern geographical
knowledge. In addition to that, the relationship between an Orientalist and his „subject matter‟
was explained as well. Sacy introduced a well-defined vocabulary in this field that was to lay
foundations of modern Orientalism. As a result, formal methods were defined to study the
Orient and such examples were quotes „that even Orientals didn‟t have‟. Designing the
Orientalism as a field is on Sacy‟s credit.
Sacy explained how the Arabic poetry needed to be transformed to suit the taste of
the Europeans‟ and it was the job of the Orientalist to take this pain. He also believed that the

5. Orient was too crude to appreciate the high interests and taste of the Europe. He introduced
his theory of fragmentation which stated that since Orient could not be presented as a whole,
only fragments should be picked up that are appropriate for the interest of the European
audience. Hence a new genre, namely „chrestomathy‟, was introduced. His anthologies
expertly cover the censorship carried by the Orientalists and give an impression of
naturalness despite being a collection of the fragments. Thus the reader only takes in the
reconstructed image of the Orient as portrayed by the Orientalist. The thin distinction
between the original Orient and that of the Orientalist becomes indistinguishable. Sacy‟s
works „canonized the Orient‟. Pioneer of this field though he was, however, he was soon
replaced by the newer versions of the Orientalists after many texts from the Orient were
translated.
Philology has been defined by Renan as "science of humanity" whereas Nietzsche
considered himself a philologist. Words and the history of the impressions and indentations in
meanings they have gone through, for him conveyed an adventure. Philology provided the
insight into language where history of words have both aesthetic and historical power. Renan
was interested in the scientific historical narration philology offered as opposed to
constructed history propagated by Catholic Church (Renan once considered clergy as a
career). He saw philology and modern culture intertwined stating "the founders of modern
minds are philologists". Philology offered "rationalism, criticism, liberalism" and as a
comparative discipline it clearly sees through supernaturalism (of religion) to reality of
scientific developments. And Above all else it offers a powerful position to philologists who
through "judging, comparing, combining, inducing" arrive at the system of things. Philology
studies evolution of language, when language itself is a symbol of power, forming the very
structures through which power operates , indirectly it is a study of evolution of power. In this
view, Renan's contribution to Orientalism is significant, for Orientalism was developed on
scientific and rational basis. The claim of divine origin of language was discarded
philologically, and Sanskrit was found to out-date Hebrew. Renan studied Orient
philologically and infused into the field a scientific attitude. Orientalism owes much of its
technical terminology and vocabulary to him
Up till now, India and China was considered to constitute the Orient but now Renin

6. opted to devise another form, which came to be known as Semitic Orient. He aimed to bring
the previously unknown „inferior‟ languages of the Semitic into limelight and study them as a
science. He was of the view that Semite and Semitic were the „creation‟ of philosophy.
Creation was taken in the sense that these languages were taken out of their hidden places and
given voice. They were also made available for comparison by devising a system for
classifying languages into Indo-European and Semitic. To study about the origins of
Christianity and Semitics was his field of specialization.
Semitic, considered to be a crude phenomenon held the central position as a branch of
the Orient. It was placed in the inverse relation to the „normal languages‟. In this discourse,
Renan achieved expertise through extensive reading along with observation. However, Renan
treats everything related to the Orient or the Semitic to be below the standards. The Semitic
was, therefore, he declares to be inferior to human race in every course of life. At the same
time, he reminds his readers that his depictions are merely on „prototypes‟ rather than
anything from real life. Hence, the tenants of Semitic are reduced to laboratory „specimens‟
instead of being regarded living creatures.
In his book Histoire generaleetsysteme compare des languages semitiques, Renan draws
an analogy between anatomy and linguistics. Like anatomy discovers the internal
arrangement of things which is mostly hypothetical, linguistics constructs the paradigm of
proto-Sematic and Proto-Indo-European. They are the products of laboratory available in the
exaggerated form for the public. The Orientalists take out only those examples of the Orient
which depict their inferiority and then use it as a base to give their verdict on it. Since
linguistics does not have the ability to classify like anatomy, it uses the binary structure of
comparative nature for this purpose. This makes the Indo-European and the Semitic stand in
contrast to each other where the former is more live; in fact, „organic‟ while the latter,
„inorganic‟.
In Renan‟s view, Semitic is all about comparing the infant phenomenon with more
developed languages of rest of the world. Ironically, on one hand he preaches that all
languages belong to the people of the nature, while on the other, he completely discards the
Semitic as a „live language‟ or Semites as „live creatures‟. The Orientalist scientist, thus,
„constructs‟ a vision that keeps these polar phenomenon at one place. This authority to define

7. the world reflects the imperial power Europe enjoys and the philological laboratories are the
powerhouse of generating ethnocentrism. Renan‟s genius, however, lies in the fact that he
gives life to the artificially fabricated image of the Orient so much so that it seems real.
Appearing in textual form, such images have a glimpse of live cultures.
Philology changed in its nature from being the „study of words‟ to a more complex arena
of knowledge and philosophy. Renan believed in the power of words as they shackled the
otherwise „free Man‟ into the chains of morality and other forms of awareness. It was the lab
of this philology, which declared the culture to be a constructed phenomenon, hence denying
the Orient any right to generate itself on its own. It was the philological laboratory that Renan
introduced new aspects of culture and society but added to the lucidity in the subject matter
of the Orient and gave it a scholarly shape. However, this lab failed to maintain an objective
view in the presence of its sense of superiority.
III
Oriental Residenceand Scholarship:
The Requirements ofLexicography and Imagination
Renan‟s views of Oriental Semite belong, less to prejudice and common anti-Semitism and
more too scientific Oriental philology. Both Renan and Saucy‟s works observe the way
cultural generalization had begun to acquire a new phase of scientific statement and
corrective study. Modern Orientalism defines its subject matter in a viselike grip which held a
power to sustain everything. Thus a new vocabulary and its function developed and placed
Orient in a comparative frame work which is rarely descriptive and more evaluative and
explanatory. Renan comparing involve analogies of Indo- European families as „what a pencil
sketch is to painting, it lacks that variety, that amplitude, that abundance of life which is the
condition of perfectibility‟. Renan view Indo-Europeans as an incomplete race which has
never been able to achieve height of sensibility and maturity attained by Indo-Germanic races.
Renan and Saucy reduce the Orient to a kind of human flatness by removing from it its
humanity, which easily expose its characteristics to scrutiny. Renan took his concepts from
philology, in which ideological beliefs encourage the reduction of language to its roots and
connect these linguistics roots to race, mind, and temperament. In Renan works there are

8. many anti-Semitic strictures. His works attack on the sensitive issues like Islam as in one of
his work he says that “the sword of Muhammad and the Kor‟an, are the most stubborn
enemies of Civilization, Liberty, and the Truth which the world has yet known”. The
professional Orientalist job is to piece together a portrait of the Orient, their work is only
confine to supply the material, but the narrative shape, continuity and figures are constructed
by the scholars. Their scholarship consists of avoiding the unruly (un-Occidental) nonhistory
of the Orient with orderly chronicles, portraits and plots. Many of the earliest amateur
Orientals began by welcoming the Orient as a beneficial „derangement‟ of their European
habits of mind and spirit. The Orient was misinterpreted for its pantheism, its spirituality, its
stability, its longevity, its primitivity, and so forth. Orientalism as a profession grew out of
compensation, and correction based on inequality
Caussin de Perceval‟s EssaisurPhistoire des ArabesavantPlslamise, pendant de Mahomet, is
one such example which is wholly professional in nature. The information present in the
book depends for its sources on documents made available internally to the field by other
Orientalists or documents like ibn-Khaldun. Caussin‟s thesis is that the Arabs were made a
people by Mohammed, Islam being essentially a political instrument, not by any means a
spiritual one. The consequences that merge out of the study of Islam are quite literally one
dimensional portrait of Mohammed. A nonprofessional correspondent to Caussin‟s
Mohammad is Carlyle‟s, a Mohammed. In a quite different light he overlooked all the
historical and cultural circumstances. His essay argues on some general ideas like sincerity,
heroism, and prophet hood.
Within the comparative field that Orientalism became after philological revolution of the
early nineteenth century, the Orient in itself was subordinated intellectually to the West. The
Orient acquired all the marks of an inherent weakness, and became a subject to various
theories. Many orientalists used Oriental Islam justifying the British intrusion in the Crimean
War. The Orient was usefully employed as conversation in the various salons of Paris. What
the early Orientalist achieve, what the non-Orientalist in the West exploited, was the reduced
model of Orient suitable for the prevalent dominant culture. Karl Marx identified the notion
of an Asiatic economic system in his 1853 analysis of British rule in India and beside that the
human plunder introduce into this system by English colonial outright cruelty and

9. interference. His articles pose conviction to the idea that even after destroying Asia, Britain
was making possible there a real social revolution. Marx style focuses on the difficulty of
reconciling our natural hatred as fellow creatures to the suffering of Orientals while their
societies are transformed violently by the historical necessities. “Oriental despotism has
restrained the human mind with in the smallest compass making it the unresisting tool of
superstition enslaving it beneath the traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and
historical energies […] England was the conscious tool of history in bringing about the
revolution”. In the end Marx conception about the Orient had Romantic or messianic sources.
Even though Marx had sympathy for human misery but his analysis were perfectly fitted for
the Orientalist lens advocating Romantic Orientalist views. “England has to fulfill a double
mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating __the annihilation of the Asiatic
society and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia”. The idea of
regenerating fundamentally lifeless India is purely a Romantic Orientalism. The reason why
Marx left his sympathy and dispatched himself to Goethe as a source of wisdom on the Orient
was the individual mind was overpowered with precollective and preofficial individuality in
Asia.
In nineteenth century a modern professional terminology and practice were created whose
existence dominated discourse about the Orients, whether by Orientalist or non-Orientalist.
An arduous mechanism was created specifically for Orient which consists of omnicompetent
definitions based solely on personal human experiences. There is another tradition that
claimed its lawfulness from the peculiarly compelling fact of residence in actual existential
contact with Orient. The Napoleonic expedition defines the tradition‟s earlier contours which
influence all Orientalist residence later on. To reside in the Orient is to live the privileged life,
not of an ordinary citizen, but of representative European whose empire (French or British)
contains the Orient in its military, economic, and above all, cultural arms Oriental residence.
These scholarly fruits fed into the bookish tradition of the textual attitudes found in Renan
and Sacy. These personal events and testimony gets converted into official codes of
Orientalist science.
To be a European in the Orient always involves being a consciousness set apart from, and
unequal with, its surroundings and the main thing is to note the intention of this

10. consciousness. There are small number of intentional categories which proposed themselves
systematically. One: the writer who intend to use his residence for a specific task of providing
professional Orientalism with specific material, taking his residence as a form of scientific
observation. Two: the writer who intends the same purpose but is less willing to sacrifice the
eccentricity and style of his individual consciousness to impersonal Oriental definitions.
Three: the writer for whom a real or metaphorical trip to the Orient is the fulfillment of some
deeply felt and urgent project. His text is therefore built on personal aesthetic, fed and
informed by the project. These three categories are not so separate from each other as they
rely upon the sheer egoistic powers of the Europeans at their center. The vision of Orient is
seen as a place of pilgrimage, or as a spectacle.
Lane‟s book on the Egyptians was influential as it established its author‟s reputation as an
eminent figure in Orientalism scholarship. He is quoted as a source ok knowledge about
Egypt or Arabia. The function of author in his book Modern Egyptians is less strong as his
work was disseminated into profession and institutionalized. Lane was able to submerge
himself among the natives to live as they did to conform their habits, and “to escape exciting,
in strangers any suspicion of… being a person who had no right to intrude among them”. He
lives among them as a native and wrote about them for the Europeans observing their rituals,
festivals, customs, adulthood and burial. As a narrator Lane is working on both scale he is
exhibiting and exhibitor, winning both confidences at once: the Oriental one for engaging
companionship and the Western one for authoritative useful knowledge.
On the one hand Orientalism acquired Orient as literally and as widely as possible; on the
other hand, it domesticated the knowledge of Orient to the West for the West. Thus the Orient
was converted from the personal testimony of valiant voyager and residents into impersonal
definitions of scientific workers. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Orient had
become, as Disreali said, a career, one in which one could remake and restore not only the
Orient but also oneself.