A Study Of The Said Phenomenon

In the 20^th century western even world literary theory, Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism are inescapable keywords; Edward W. Said is even more indispensable. During over 30 years, he successfully opened up a path of cultural criticism, and became a celebrity of the whole academia and the post-colonial cultural criticism. His works have a huge readership, attract extensive attention, and arouse a series of ardent discussions. His paradoxical personality, hybrid identity and political activities also invite extensive interest and fierce contentions. As statistics show, the study of Said has become a prominent field worldwide; the number of post-colonialism researchers is becoming bigger and bigger, with hundreds of relevant monographs and even unaccountable papers published. Owing to the complexity of Said's thought, the researches and reviews include the perspective studies of pure literature, of social political criticism, of postcolonial theory, and of culture and history, of psychoanalysis, of language analysis and of feminist consciousness, etc. The cross-discipline, cross-nation, richness, variety and complexity of the researches present a prosperous scene. However, few scholars pay attention to Said as a phenomenon. On the whole, in spite of some papers on "the Said Phenomenon", this kind is scarce compared with other researches on Said. Some people see some of its representations, and some others see some causes of it, but the comprehensive and systematic study of it has not appeared thus far. With the deepening of the researches, the exploration of the representations, deep contexts and...