Orientalist description gets obliterated by the imperial ego’s projections

Evidence

Where his release allows him to go is directly back into the realm of imagination and imaginative interpretation. Description of the Orient is obliterated by the designs and patterns foisted upon it by the imperial ego, which makes no secret of its powers. … If in Lane’s prose we watch the ego disappear so that the Orient may appear in all its realistic detail, in Chateaubriand the ego dissolves itself in the contemplation of wonders it creates, and then is reborn, stronger than ever, more able to savor its powers and enjoy its interpretations. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 438

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘imperial ego’ as a mechanism that effaces empirical description of the Orient in favor of self-generated interpretations.
• XREF: The Lane-vs-Chateaubriand contrast frames two poles of Orientalist prose that will recur in how different Islamophobic texts either efface or project the subject.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 438