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East/West: appropriation of aspects of the Orient in Maupassant's Bel-Ami.(Critical Essay)

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From: Nineteenth-Century French Studies
Date: 20020322
Author:Barrow, Susan M.

   Voir l'Afrique etait un de mes vieux reves; et je voulais la voir, cette 
   terre du soleil et du sable, en plein ete, sous la pesante chaleur, dans 
   l'eblouissement furieux de la lumiere. 
 
   --Guy de Maupassant "Alger a vol d'oiseau," Le Gaulois, July 17, 1881 

The signifier "l'Orient" in French denotes a vast geographical area encompassing the Near, Middle and Far East and portions of Africa, a territory of mythic proportions. Within this broad context, the designation "oriental" may be applied to peoples as diverse as the Arabs, Chinese, Greeks, Indians, Japanese, ...

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