Even sympathetic writers approached the Orient pre-formed by European reading

Evidence

Against the transcendent quasi-national egoism of Lamartine we must place Nerval and Flaubert in contrast. Their Oriental works play a substantial role in their total oeuvre, a much greater one than Lamartine’s imperialist Voyage in his oeuvre. Yet both of them, like Lamartine, came to the Orient prepared for it by voluminous reading in the classics, modern literature, and academic Orientalism … More important, however, is the fact that both writers (Nerval in 1842–1843 and Flaubert in 1849–1850) had greater personal and aesthetic uses for their visits to the Orient than any other nineteenth-century travelers. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 459

Categorization

• XREF: Instantiates the core Orientalism claim that the Orient is a discursive construct prepared by prior texts, carried forward into later Islamophobia readings.
• DEFINE: Shows the Orientalist traveler as culturally overdetermined: reading precedes and shapes the actual encounter.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 459