A European term, now generally considered archaic and often pejorative, that ordinarily denotes all of Asia but has been associated with different nations and regions throughout history. In the mid-1800s, a body of European Orientalist literature and poetry emerged, with a focus on the Middle East. The idea of the exotic, mystical, chaotic “Orient” inspired Gustave Flaubert to visit Egypt (of which, notably, only a small and sparsely-inhabited portion actually lies within Asia). Later, the term became more closely associated with East Asia.
The Orient Quotes in The Art of Travel
The The Art of Travel quotes below are all either spoken by The Orient or refer to The Orient. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
Yet none of this meant that Flaubert’s original attraction to Egypt had been misconceived. He simply replaced an absurdly idealized image with a more realistic but nevertheless still profoundly admiring one, he exchanged a youthful crush for a knowledgeable love.
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The Orient Term Timeline in The Art of Travel
The timeline below shows where the term The Orient appears in The Art of Travel. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: On the Exotic
...the Middle East” in the early 1800s. Writers like Victor Hugo wrote extensively about “the Orient,” and Europeans became so fascinated with the Middle East’s seemingly-exotic customs that they even started...
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...the French novelist Gustave Flaubert was one such European captivated by the idea of the Orient. He hated his “sterile, banal and laborious” life in the city of Rouen, wrote about...
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...for Egypt with his friend Maxime Du Camp. Flaubert recalled his “first sight of the Orient” as his ship approached the Egyptian shore, and he was thrilled to find himself amidst...
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...London, Flaubert’s hatred for the French bourgeoisie was what drove him to obsess over the “Orient.” He found France’s “extreme prudery, snobbery, smugness, racism and pomposity” so obscene that he wrote...
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...expectations, he claimed to have “few illusions” and even wrote to his mother that the Orient “extends far beyond the narrow idea I had of it.”
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