One of the most criticized aspects of Edward Said’s Orientalism, the
great classic in the field of postcolonial studies, has been its remarkable oblivion
of German Oriental studies. This article proposes to analyze German Orientalism
in order to allow a re-evaluation of Said's conclusions. To this end, we will focus
on the areas referred to as India. In the first part, the text gives an account of the
character of the early German contacts with the Indian world. Here we will see
how German Romanticism begins to approach India under the strength of its
enthusiasm. We will revisit the major intellectual bearers of this Indian bias
(Herder and F. Schlegel) and some other attitudes to this phenomenon (Goethe,
Schelling or Heine). Without a clear perception of how German Romanticism
envisaged India it is impossible to understand the very roots of Orientalism.
The point of connection between the enthusiastic love of German
Romanticism for India and the acid denigration of the Indian and the Oriental3
Other2 in the works of Hegel lies in the position that this Other was reaching in
the historical thought of that time. Herder’s or F. Schlegel’s deep Orientalism, in
Said’s sense, is not hidden in their poetical works but in their reflections on
Philosophy of History, which will prepare the field for Hegel’s wild attack in his
Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Geschichte. History, inextricably linked to
ethnocentrism, will be from then on the real underpinning of Orientalism. But
India would also become a battlefield for post-Romantic German thinkers. We can
see it paradigmatically in the works of Schopenhauer and, above all, in those of
Hegel, whose strike against India can also be seen as a vicarious strike against the
Romantics.
One of the most criticized aspects of Edward Said’s Orientalism, the
great classic in the field of postcolonial studies, has been its remarkable oblivion
of German Oriental studies. This article proposes to analyze German Orientalism
in order to allow a re-evaluation of Said's conclusions. To this end, we will focus
on the areas referred to as India. In the first part, the text gives an account of the
character of the early German contacts with the Indian world. Here we will see
how German Romanticism begins to approach India under the strength of its
enthusiasm. We will revisit the major intellectual bearers of this Indian bias
(Herder and F. Schlegel) and some other attitudes to this phenomenon (Goethe,
Schelling or Heine). Without a clear perception of how German Romanticism
envisaged India it is impossible to understand the very roots of Orientalism.
The point of connection between the enthusiastic love of German
Romanticism for India and the acid denigration of the Indian and the Oriental3
Other2 in the works of Hegel lies in the position that this Other was reaching in
the historical thought of that time. Herder’s or F. Schlegel’s deep Orientalism, in
Said’s sense, is not hidden in their poetical works but in their reflections on
Philosophy of History, which will prepare the field for Hegel’s wild attack in his
Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Geschichte. History, inextricably linked to
ethnocentrism, will be from then on the real underpinning of Orientalism. But
India would also become a battlefield for post-Romantic German thinkers. We can
see it paradigmatically in the works of Schopenhauer and, above all, in those of
Hegel, whose strike against India can also be seen as a vicarious strike against the
Romantics.