The Salon’s Seraglio

Abstract

In 1829, in the preface to his poem ‘Les Orientales’, Victor Hugo mentioned the East’s modish attractiveness, saying:

On s’occupe aujourd’hui beaucoup plus de l’Orient qu’on ne l’a jamais fait. Les études orientales n’ont jamais été poussées si avant. Au siècle de Louis XIV on était Helleniste, maintenant on est Orientaliste.¹

Europe was charmed by an Orient that shimmered with possibilities, that promised a sexual space, a voyage away from the self, an escape from the dictates of the bourgeois morality of the metropolis. The European reacted to the encounter as a man might react to a woman, by manifesting strong attraction or strong repulsion. E. W. Lane described his first sight of Egypt, the Egypt he had dreamed of since boyhood, thus:

As I approached the shore, I felt like an Eastern bridegroom, about to lift the veil of his bride, and to see, for the first time, the features that were to charm, or disappoint, or disgust him.²