The Scope and Tradition of Orientalism: 

Orientation and Background

م. عبد الله قاسم صافي

Department of English, College of Education for Humanities, University of Kerbala

          European exploration of other parts of the world began with the actual movements out of Europe by land routes and by sea to the East Mediterranean. Apart from the many accounts of early voyages and substantial historical evidence of extensive–and intercontinental–travel by the Vikings in the Dark and Middle Ages, European physical exploration and travel beyond the original fringes of the Mediterranean since the early Renaissance through the nineteenth century became more a construction of otherness, physically and imaginatively, commercially and religiously. Sea voyages throughout the Renaissance resulted in the widespread seizure of indigenous peoples’ property. During that time, exploration and travel were viewed as purely and shamelessly exploitative and commercial endeavors. However, new types of travelers started to appear during the eighteenth century, particularly missionaries who started traveling more frequently to propagate Christianity and scientists who were looking for fresh biological and geographical data. People and places were explored as if they had not existed beforehand. However, in all instances these places were already known to local indigenous peoples. Therefore, the fictitious representation of other people and places—the whole idea of discovery and exploration—is exceedingly Euro-centric. Accounts of European exploration and travel to the East helped produce and maintain Europeanization of the historical picture that suggests European culture, in contrast to all others, is intelligent and superior. Then came the role of the early fictional works in the eighteenth century to make use of these explorations and travel accounts. For example, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is considered the first modern novel that is closely aligned with the discovery of new lands and their imaginative transformation. Postcolonial studies are directed principally against what they considered the prejudices and imperial interests of the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in their assessment of the history and culture of the Middle East and in their engagement with the lands there. However, their general statement is usually that the “Orient” is a result of a long process of cultural colonialism since Greeks came into being.