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Alphonse Lamartine
Gérard de Nerval was a 19th-century French writer. Like Flaubert, Nerval’s contributions to Orientalist discourse include an account of a trip to Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey (following a nervous breakdown) in 1842 and 1843, as well as works of fiction set in his version of the Orient and perpetuating racist and essentializing stereotypes of Oriental subjects.
Gérard de Nerval Quotes in Orientalism
The Orientalism quotes below are all either spoken by Gérard de Nerval or refer to Gérard de Nerval. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2, Part 4
Quotes
In the system of knowledge about the Orient, the Orient is less a place than a topos, a set of references, a congeries of characteristics, that seems to have its origin in a quotation, or a fragment of a text, or a citation from someone’s work on the Orient, or some bit of a previous imagining, or an amalgam of all these. Direct observation or circumstantial description of the Orient are the fictions presented by writing on the Orient, yet invariably these are totally secondary to systematic tasks of another sort. In Lamartine, Nerval, and Flaubert, the Orient is a re-presentation of canonical material guided by an aesthetic and executive will capable of producing interest in the reader.
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Gérard de Nerval Quotes in Orientalism
The Orientalism quotes below are all either spoken by Gérard de Nerval or refer to Gérard de Nerval. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2, Part 4
Quotes
In the system of knowledge about the Orient, the Orient is less a place than a topos, a set of references, a congeries of characteristics, that seems to have its origin in a quotation, or a fragment of a text, or a citation from someone’s work on the Orient, or some bit of a previous imagining, or an amalgam of all these. Direct observation or circumstantial description of the Orient are the fictions presented by writing on the Orient, yet invariably these are totally secondary to systematic tasks of another sort. In Lamartine, Nerval, and Flaubert, the Orient is a re-presentation of canonical material guided by an aesthetic and executive will capable of producing interest in the reader.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
