Victorian Orientalism

Victorian Orientalism Synopsis

The European encounter with Eastern languages, literatures and civilizations is now the subject of intense academic debate: more than at any time since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism. Bernhard Maier here examines the different facets of Victorian Orientalism, and explores the wider questions of identity and cultural imperialism relating to Britain in the 19th century. Specifying individual regions of encounter, Maier describes the very different responses which Palestine, Egypt, India, China and Japan evoked in the Victorian mind, and sheds light on the attitudes prevalent among administrators and military men, missionaries, philologists and historians, travellers, writers and artists towards the Orient. Exploring the wealth of secondary literature relating to Orientalism, from scholarly monographs and archival material to original fiction, prose and poetry, Maier illuminates a crucial stage in the history of cultural encounters between Europe and the East.