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18.04.2018

New EGO article published
In her article, now available at EGO, Anne Duprat examines the circulation and transfer of literary themes, techniques and motifs between Europe and Arab Muslim countries and gives an overview of the aesthetic foundations of the orientalist discourse.

She focuses on the time between the 17th until the 20th century, before literary knowledge was used to support colonial ambitions of European countries. The article illustrates the mutual philosophical and religious foundations of the orient and the West, which can also be found in literature. Duprat uses the Arabic fairy tale as an example for mutual literary motifs. At first European fairy tale traditions borrowed narrative motifs from Arabic stories. During the 16th century these motifs were increasingly christianized. Duprat also examines the “Oriental renaissance” in poetry, where the orient is often depicted as the point of origin of civilisation. In Germany these motifs were used for example by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Friedrich von Schlegel or Novalis. She also shows the importance of the lyrical tradition of imitating foreign poets. One famous example is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who set his “West-Östlicher Divan” under the aegis of the Persian poet Hafez (1326-1390).