The Solitude of Edward Said: The Fate of Gibb, Lane, and Massignon in ‘Orientalism’
Author(s)
Brown, James
Abstract
Though concerned with representation and misrepresentation, ‘Orientalism’ encounters problems in its own representation of several of the figures it discusses. This paper considers Said’s treatment of three of them: H.A.R. Gibb, Louis Massignon and E.W. Lane. It shows that Said’s handling of the evidence about these figures can be less than generous, and is occasionally questionable. This is partly because Said’s implicit criterion for judging their encounters with the cultures they studied unreasonably demands their transcendent identification with those cultures. However, the point of the paper is less to berate Said than to read his treatment of these figures as symptomatic of an underlying sense of isolation.
