Study On The Thought Of Edward Said

Said, the important contemporary American critic who has played a distinctive position on contemporary criticism, has blended the academic research and political concern into one, which has had an effect on the field of humanities, and is recognized as the important founder of the Postcolonial Theory. In the United States, he is an avant-garde critic, one of the earliest scholars who has put the theory of phenomenology and existentialism into literary criticism and has investigated on French structuralism. He has combined the humanist values with traditional theory and culture politics. Said is the landmark person of the postcolonial criticism. He has been always concerned about one of the important dimensions of postcolonial criticism, the political criticism. From this dimension, Said paid a special attention on the relationship of politics and social awareness with literature or the arts. This article discusses parts of Said's theory. It involves several aspects of the following: the Orientalism of Said; Identity construction of the third world people; Views of Hybrid Culture. has created a new study field about postcolonial directly, which has been in the center of the postcolonial research area and won a high recognition. This book has an epoch-making significance and has been looked as the landmark of the contemporary empire study. The concept of Orient is a construct that roots in the language and gradually complicatize. The Orientalism is a manner of power discourse which has been formed with the exchange of politics, culture, ethics and knowledge. Understanding connotation and essence of the Orientalism is helpful for us to absorb the west disparate cultures and recognize the culture status of the third world. Speaking on the human identity, Said holds on the opinion that human identity does not take into shape naturally and is not stable, but is a course that constructed by humanity. Construction of identity is often closely related to the operation of power. On the treatment of binary opposition between east and west culture and the nationalism stance, Said considers that all thoughts and theories do not hold on their contents, orders and structures statically. They are not a piece of iron plate, but would change with the changing of context. He pays more attentions on the specific meaning expressed by the theory on specific context, and also more attentions on the differences of meaning on the same theory under different contexts. Thus, Said presented a perspective of "Travelling Theory". He thinks that a kind of "Hybrid View Angle" should be taken into use. The third world could absorb the merits of west technology culture, with a selective selection, and transform the merits into their own, but not with the logic of exclusion and negation. From this, a positive and healthy national culture concept could be set. For Said, true scholars should exceed narrow national boundaries with broad mind and build an equal and harmonious culture of the humanity.