Americans will not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East (China and Japan, mainly). Unlike the Americans, the French and the British-less so the Germans, Russians, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, and Swiss-have had a long tradition of what I shall call Orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's special place in European western experience. The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe's greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. Yet none of this Orient is merely imaginative. The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles. In contrast, the American understanding of the Orient will seem considerably less dense, although our recent Japanese, Korean, and Indochinese adventures ought now to be creating a more sober, more realistic Oriental awareness. Moreover, the vastly expanded American political and economic role in the Near East (the Middle East) make great claims on our understanding of that Orient.
1.The main purpose of the author in using the term Orientalism is to describe
- A.the Oriental perception of the Orient
B.the Oriental mode of discourse
C.the European perception of the Orient
D.European adaptations of Oriental culture
E.Oriental adaptations of European institutions
- A.imaginative
B.self-centered
C.arrogant
D.privileged
E.objective
- A.Europe's dislike of the Orient
B.Europe's domination of the Orient
C.Ancient trade routes connecting the Orient and Europe
D.The proximity of the Orient to Europe
E.Europe's relationship to the Orient is a more political one than that of America