The Study Of Maugham's Oriental Writing

William Somerset Maugham(1874-1965),a famous modern English novelist and playwright,was known as "the first man after Shakespeare".He'd been travelled to so many places that most of his books were about describing the foreign lands,especially the orient,under the influence of the politics at that time.On the one hand,Maugham's portray of the orient inherited the colonial literary tradition in English literature.On the other hand,his creation also provided a reference for the cultural exchanges between the east and the west.Like many other western writers focusing on writing books about the orient,Maugham often used the events from the orient as writing materials.What he concerns was not only the exoticism that differed from the ocean civilization of the western world,but more importantly the history of those countries,as well as their primitive and rustic view of the world.He even found the way to save the western spiritual world,that is to lead a simple life,return to peace and be in the pursuit of truth,kindness and beauty.Though the result is not so satisfying,but it can comfort the soul so as to endow the meaning and nobleness of life.On the other hand,he was concerned about the influence of the exotic environment on people-how to overcome the loneliness in a strange environment and how to mediate the gap between civilizations;all of these above were most concerned in his journey along the orient,and also the most charming parts in his books.Through his description on the orient,Maugham attempted to solve the problem of paradox between civilization and barbarism resulted from empire expansion and scientific development,as well as answering the question of conflict between advancement and degeneration resulted from condensed space and disenchanted world.The oriental image depicted by Maugham was commonly interpreted by the post-colonial mode as reflection of colonial discourse.However,Maugham was also regarded as an anti-colonialism writer because of the sympathy for the colonized people and sarcasm to the white ruler implied in his book.Actually,Maugham's depiction about the orient showed the implicitly commensal relationship between the imaginary product of the western society and the cause of imperialism.Meanwhile,Maugham was an important person in the exchange of western and eastern culture and his writing centering on showing the orient promoted further communication of heterogeneous culture.What best describes his writing on the orient is that he created the outstanding works among western and eastern culture.His book shows the span from the west modern industrial society to the east primitive agricultural society,which is not merely the displacement of the space;it's about looking back to the past.Maugham was trying to get rid of civilization's restriction and ethnocentrism,thus trying to jump out of the western centralism and seek for the salvation of human development.