Romantic orientalism rejected Enlightenment reason in a search for lost wholeness
Evidence
Hammer-Purgstall’s enthusiasm for Persian mystical poetry and his fantasies about sinister Oriental sects were both alike part of a Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment values of the late eighteenth century. Reason and science were at a discount among those who sought wisdom in the East and who dreamt of finding a lost wholeness situated in an ideal Oriental past. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 272
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the ‘Grafting & Growth’ and immodesty articles’ motif of projecting Western desires onto the exotic; also to the civilization-decline theme in The Bias of Communication. — connects to: Enlightenment thinking sought the indubitable and lost sight of the undeniable — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 657
Related
- Romanticism projected an exotic Orientalist fantasy rather than accurate knowledge (similarity 0.82)
- Orientalist science masks an egoistic will to power (similarity 0.82)
- Orientalism’s ontological rigidity makes its fantasies nearly impossible to dismantle (similarity 0.81)
- Romantic restorative reconstruction shaped Orientalist writing’s form and intent (similarity 0.80)
- Romantic adventurers challenged the institutional authority of professional Orientalists. (similarity 0.78)